Online Euroscepticism: An Amplification of the Negativity Bias of Political News

The economic and financial crisis which has affected Europe since 2008 is a moment where anti-European sentiment and Euroscepticism are gaining momentum. Media and public sphere dynamics are central in this process of contesting the legitimacy of the EU. Media scholars, who have discussed the changing role of the news media in the generation of democratic legitimacy, have found that a systematic negativity bias applies to political news-making. Instead of being devoted to fair judgment and substantive critique, journalists often prefer polemicism, excessiveness, and general negativity. The question to be investigated in this paper is whether a systematic negativity bias applies to the selection, framing, amplification and reception of EU news. For that purpose, we will analyse the selection of online news posted on Facebook in the context of the 2014 European Parliament elections. We will compare two quality newspapers and one tabloid style newspaper in Germany and the UK. Our analysis will confront the online selection of EU news with different forms of user reception and engagement. Through the analysis of Facebook ‘sharing’, ‘liking’ and ‘commenting’, we can systematically reconstruct whether a negativity bias applies and is amplified.