The green pavilion, Euronews HQ, Lyon, 2015. Wikicommons\/Lydie22.Some rights reserved.At the
\nheight of the euro crisis, media coverage didn\u2019t exactly help to find
\nsolutions: it aggravated conflicts within the Eurozone instead. The then
\nBelgian prime minister Yves Leterme cites the headlines in the German press in
\n2010 \u201cwhere the Greek population on average were described as lazy people that
\nonly wanted to be on the beach, didn\u2019t want to work. And although the
\nperformance of the Greek economy was very bad, to have popular newspapers in
\nGermany portray Greek individual citizens as on average lazy was definitely
\nirresponsible.\u201d (The anti-Greek mud-slinging campaign by Germany\u2019s largest
\nnewspaper, Bild, has been documented and
\nanalysed in
\ndetail.)<\/i><\/p>\n
Of course
\nEuropean papers do not always peddle such stereotypes about other countries.
\nBut the fact remains that whereas we talk a lot about each other, we hardly
\ncommunicate with each other in the media. The success of the Brexit
\ncampaign in the UK is a stark reminder of an all too often neglected
\nproblem: There is no functional European public sphere. That would for
\nexample mean that Greek and German politicians, economists and
\nordinary citizens would have been able to discuss their differences of opinion
\nabout austerity on a joint, unbiased platform such as one TV debate watched in
\nboth countries. <\/p>\n
We know
\nfrom our national experience how essential such discussions are in
\nunderstanding each other\u2019s perspectives, forming public opinion and holding our
\nrulers accountable. But this does not happen in the EU. The perceptions of the
\nsame issue can be completely different in different EU member countries. European
\nsummits are a good example of the segmented European public spheres at work \u2013
\nwith journalists usually sticking together in national groups and primarily
\nattending their own government\u2019s briefings. <\/p>\n
This may
\nappear as a minor challenge for the EU compared to Brexit, the rise of eurosceptic
\nparties all over the continent or the Eurozone troubles. But in fact there is a
\ndeep connection \u2013 the lack of a European public sphere is a structural problem
\nwhich damages the functioning of the EU and distorts citizens\u2019 perceptions
\nabout the union. <\/p>\n
Journalists It is There is no The EU and Eurozone At least Language is It is worth There is Due to the And of Former It is hard Besides, the Television Euronews has There may It can be Public \u201cI think There is no Building up The The green pavilion, Euronews HQ, Lyon, 2015. Wikicommons\/Lydie22.Some rights reserved.At the height of the euro crisis, media coverage didn\u2019t exactly help to find solutions: it aggravated conflicts within the Eurozone instead. The then Belgian prime minister Yves Leterme cites the headlines in the German press in 2010 \u201cwhere the Greek population on average were described…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nfor national media have a strong incentive to frame their coverage of important
\nEuropean events as a struggle or a competition between nation states. The obvious
\nnarrative for their respective home audiences revolves around questions like the
\none so often heard in the Brexit campaign – \u201cwhat do we<\/em> get out of it?\u201d Held accountable exclusively by national
\njournalists, even a committed pro-European leader like Belgium\u2019s Yves Leterme
\nadmits he often could not resist the temptation to present himself as solely a staunch
\ndefender of the \u201cnational interest\u201d. <\/p>\n
\ncommon to point fingers at \u201cBrussels\u201d as a scapegoat, whereas more often than
\nnot, rather than the European Commission or other Brussels-based institutions, in
\nreality it is the member states that paralyse the decision making-process. Not
\nsurprisingly, according to UK Project Director Shakuntala Banaji of the London
\nSchool of Economics,\u00a0an ongoing
\ninternational research project has found an \u201coverwhelming\u201d
\ntrend of negative narratives in the British press about the EU.<\/p>\n
\ncomparable journalistic lobby for the EU as a whole, and therefore much less
\nreward for a politician to choose compromise and put the interests of the union
\nfirst. <\/p>\n
\nset policies with a wide-ranging impact on citizens\u2019 lives, including currency
\nand foreign policy. It is a major anomaly and a key part of the often decried
\ndemocratic deficit of the EU that its citizens have no platform to debate these
\npolicies, or at least witness their elected leaders debate them. In terms of
\naccountability, there is no real pressure either on EU institutions to explain
\ntheir policies and keep decision-making processes transparent as there usually
\nis in democracies \u2013 which in turn feeds aversion against EU \u201cbureaucracy\u201d. <\/p>\nThe language dilemma<\/h2>\n
\npartly, the segmentation of the public sphere in Europe is due to language
\ndifferences. It is instructive to look at Belgium as an example. Yves Leterme
\ngrew up speaking both French and Dutch (Flemish) fluently himself but considers
\nthe split in French and Dutch language media audiences a key factor for his
\ncountry\u2019s divisions: \u201cIt\u2019s certainly the number one reason. Based on the
\ndifference in language, in my country we don\u2019t have common newspapers, we don\u2019t
\nwatch the same news magazines. So the opinion-making for the average citizen is
\nbased on a different approach whether you belong to the French-speaking or
\nDutch-speaking part of the country. And this certainly goes for Europe as a whole!\u201d<\/p>\n
\na highly political issue in the EU. The disproportionate effort that is spent
\non translations by the EU institutions is a clear indicator: The DG Translation
\nproduced 1.9 million pages in written translations in 2015. Although it estimates
\nthat the overall cost of translations for the EU institutions is below 1% of
\ntheir budget, and equals only about 2 euros per EU citizen a year, the question
\nmay be asked whether the private sector would be ready to shoulder similar
\ncosts. Probably not.<\/p>\n
\nremembering that European integration has moved forward more quickly in many
\nother fields compared to the media. More often than not, this involves
\nEuropeans communicating with each other in English.<\/p>\n
\neconomic integration and globalisation, for example: in multinational companies
\nlike Siemens, it has long become routine to write all internal emails in
\nEnglish, even if it is just to the colleague at the same site in Germany.<\/p>\n
\nBologna Accords, university degrees and credits have become compatible across
\nthe continent, and millions of students have received the EU\u2019s Erasmus scholarships
\nto study at least for a few months in another European university. Knowing
\nEnglish is essential especially for communicating in larger multi-national groups.
\nEnglish is no longer just the language of international academic conferences
\nand journals, universities in countries where English is not the official
\nlanguage – such as the Netherlands – also teach more and more degree programmes
\nin English.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\ncourse, large-scale migration facilitated by open borders has created more
\n\u201cEuropean\u201d cities. Somewhat ironically, London undoubtedly has become \u201cEurope\u2019s
\nmost European city\u201d, as Der Spiegel recently dubbed it. Again, the ease of
\nbeing able to communicate in English has been
\nan important motivation for many migrants to settle in London rather than Paris
\nor Berlin. <\/p>\n
\nBelgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme, while agreeing on the importance of
\nEnglish for the economy, explains the difficulties of adopting it officially as
\na common language in the EU: \u201cEurope cannot go to one common language. Very
\nfundamental to European integration is the respect for diversity.\u201d <\/p>\n
\nto see this attitude changing especially in a post-Brexit EU. But
\nthe Belgian example also illustrates that a multi-lingual media landscape is a
\nhuge obstacle to a joint public sphere. Not accidentally, the few existing
\npan-European media platforms mainly use English. The Financial
\nTimes, very widely
\nread in Brussels, is possibly the most influential trans-national publication
\nin the EU, although not for a general audience. <\/p>\n
\nEU has attracted a number of predominantly digital platforms specializing in
\nEuropean issues, usually based in Brussels. These include the EUObserver, an online newspaper that also gives
\nconsiderable space to Eurosceptic voices. In 2014, the leading US-based website
\nand newspaper Politico teamed up with Germany\u2019s publishing house Axel Springer
\nto acquire the European Voice and turn it into Politico
\nEurope the
\nfollowing year. Politico Europe is still in a phase of growth but so far, all
\nof these platforms, while undoubtedly broadening debate and contributing to the
\naccountability of European institutions, reach more of a niche audience of
\nEurope \u201cinsiders\u201d and \u201cinfluencers\u201d than the general public. <\/p>\nA European public broadcaster?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nremains the medium where most Europeans get their news. And TV provides some of
\nthe most emotionally engaging joint experiences to Europeans \u2013 eg with the
\nongoing EURO 2016 or the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Historically, there
\nhave been several attempts to establish a pan-European TV news channel.
\nCurrently, only Euronews deserves this title.<\/p>\n
\nbeen broadcasting from Lyon, France since 1993 \u2013 currently in 13 language
\neditions that are on air 24\/7, including in non-EU languages like Arabic and
\nRussian. National public broadcasters (from EU countries but also Russia,
\nTurkey and North Africa) are the main stakeholders in Euronews. But whereas
\nmost Europeans will have come across Euronews at some point or another, few
\nknow it well or feel strong about it. Does this simply show audiences are not
\ninterested in a European broadcaster?<\/p>\n
\nbe other explanations. Euronews often has a distant, slightly artificial feel about
\nits programmes. It mostly contains news bulletins which are shown without a
\npresenter, one reporter\u2019s voiceover following the next. This obviously makes
\ntranslations easier. And Euronews has even developed a distinct philosophy of
\npure news \u201cavoiding any national viewpoint\u201d.
\nTellingly, its most remarkable innovation is a programme called \u201cNo Comment\u201d, which simply documents
\nan incident without any reporter\u2019s explanation. <\/p>\n
\ninteresting and moving to watch – but is this the right way to engage and
\ninvolve wide audiences in political discourse? Political television usually relies
\non the well-known faces of strong presenters. Political talk shows and interactive
\ndebates are a key element on national public television to give audiences a
\nchance to ask questions, make their points and develop their own opinion. <\/p>\n
\nbroadcasters that are (more or less) independent from government interference,
\nwith the BBC as the prime example, are a typical feature of European
\ndemocracies. Outside of Europe, many envy us for these impartial public
\nbroadcasters that embody a strong cross-party democratic consensus. In a sense,
\nit is thus surprising that Europe has been able to create a common currency and
\na common diplomatic service but not an efficient common public broadcaster.<\/p>\n
\nthe European Union, the Council of Europe also, should invest more in a public
\nbroadcasting institute or organisation, or at least bring existing initiatives
\ntogether\u201d, says Yves Leterme \u2013 \u201cfor the domestic scene, in order to have better
\nknowledge amongst Europeans about the situation in each other\u2019s member states;
\nbut also for the outside world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nsign of this happening anytime soon. Current trends in the European media are going
\nin a different direction. Europe\u2019s loudest international voices remain firmly
\nnational. Besides BBC World, both France24 and Germany\u2019s DW TV have expanded
\ntheir broadcasts in English, with competition for global audiences growing from
\ninternational broadcasters based in Turkey, Russia or China.<\/p>\n
\na quality TV news channel is very expensive. But the EU already spends huge
\namounts on communication projects to improve people\u2019s understanding of its
\ninstitutions and policies, both within member countries and neighbouring
\nregions. If a full-fledged, separate pool of reporters and linear 24 hour
\ntransmissions are considered too costly, one could be creative and, for a start
\nat least, rely on synergies, for example begin with a few debate formats that
\nare jointly produced by existing English language channels in Europe and
\nbroadcast each week on those networks, as well as online and on national TV
\nchannels with subtitles in the respective languages.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nUK vote on June 23 is a wake-up call \u2013 the EU needs to
\nrecognize that more and more of its citizens feel alienated from it, and look
\nfor new ways to give them a voice and address their concerns. Media needs to
\nplay an important role in these deliberations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"