ABSTRACT
The past few decades have been marked by the enhancement of Europeanization and the politicization of European issues in the national public spheres, leading to the realization that the European Union (EU) is not a ‘sleeping giant’ but instead an ‘awakened giant’ in domestic arenas. There are several reasons to assume that the onset of the eurozone crisis accelerated this process, thereby increasing the EU’s salience and polarization in an unprecedented fashion. However, despite the agreement that the EU tends to be forged in crisis times (Monnet 1978) the critical strands that claim that there is an EU democratic deficit, mainly due to an absence of a European public sphere, are still heard.
The national media are crucial to overcoming these criticisms as they can provide a narrative that promotes the emergence of a European public sphere. In countries that were economically deprived and faced bailouts, this is particularly relevant: the Europeanization of national arenas was notably visible due to the EU’s strong influence over national policies.
This chapter addresses the role of national media (newspapers) in the emergence of a European public sphere. Here, it offers an in-depth examination of Portugal – a eurozone crisis debtor country – testing the idea of whether the onset of the crisis produced substantial differences in the way in which the Portuguese national media reported the European economic issues. To test this assumption empirically we analysed all the economic articles published by two of the most circulated mainstream newspapers in Portugal (Público and Diário de Notícias) 15 days before five legislative elections took place, before (2002–2009) and after (2011–2015) the onset of the eurozone crisis. An in-depth manual content analysis was undertaken, looking into five dominant frames (Problem, Cause, Responsibility, Consequences and Solution), as well Media Attention, Tone and Framing.
The eurozone crisis is considered in this chapter as a ‘crucial moment’ for the EU, which might have brought important changes in the politicization of the EU in the national media. The chapter concludes that the eurozone crisis contributed to the increased visibility of the EU in Portuguese national arenas, but also to the increase of polarization with the use of the negative tone in national newspapers. Regarding the frames used, the findings suggest that the Responsibility frame tended to be the most prevalent after the onset of the crisis, yet the nature of the narrative did not change substantially following the outbreak of the crisis.
