ABSTRACT
In order to study the political logics which govern the European Commission it is useful, for once, not to look within the institution itself but alongside or, to use the spatial metaphor of the press room, in front of it. Based upon a study of the EU press corps, this chapter deals with problems of crucial importance regarding legitimacy and the way the Commission deals with its own political ambiguity. If the European Commission is to be analysed as a political institution, it is beneficial to examine the way it communicates and attempts to gain both a visible and social existence.1
While the themes of the democratic deficit and of the emergence of a European public sphere (for a critical approach, see Smith 1999) have become the topic of much scientific investigation, few studies have been dedicated to the Commission’s communication practices (Consoli 1997; Meyer 1999), and this despite the fact that the ability of an institution to shape its legitimate social image is one of the key components of political power. In contrast, the attention paid to this question at the national level reminds us to what extent this relationship with the media is an essential political issue for most governments (Davis 2000, 2002; Franklin 1999; Legavre 1993). From the point of view of a sociology of journalism which studies relationships between journalists and their sources, I attempt to analyse the communication strategies of an institution which has to deal with one of the biggest press corps in the world (800 correspondents). The priority for the Commission, as for any political institution, is to try to persuade the media to share its interpretation of the current affairs of the EU. In this respect, the sociology of journalism is divided between a structuralist approach and a more competitive/dynamic conception of the interactions between sources and journalists.
