2018/10/15 by Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Segesten, Anamaria Dutceac, Michael Bossetta +1
Computer Science · #Computation and Language (cs.CL) #Computers and Society (cs.CY) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #cs.CL #cs.CY
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1810.06745
29 pages, 2 figures, 4 tables, 2 appendices
arxiv created 2018/10/15 · arxiv updated 2018/10/17
This study compares the media discourses about Euroscepticism in 2014 across six countries (United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain, Sweden, and Denmark). We assess the extent to which the mass media's reporting of Euroscepticism indicates the Europeanization of public spheres. Using a mixed-methods approach combining LDA topic modeling and qualitative coding, we find that approximately 70 per cent of print articles mentioning "Euroscepticism" or "Eurosceptic" are framed in a non-domestic (i.e. European) context. In five of the six cases studied, articles exhibiting a European context are strikingly similar in content, with the British case as the exception. However, coverage of British Euroscepticism drives Europeanization in other Member States. Bivariate logistic regressions further reveal three macro-level structural variables that significantly correlate with a Europeanized media discourse: newspaper type (tabloid or broadsheet), presence of a strong Eurosceptic party, and relationship to the EU budget (net contributor or receiver of EU funds).