This research focusses on European Union (EU) citizens as actors in the European public sphere. The paper aims to assess and explain variations in the visibility of EU citizens across the public spheres of the 27 EU member states. Previous studies that empirically examined the European public sphere were often driven by a rather elitist focus on governmental actors. The presence of ordinary EU citizens, however, has been neglected. In the European public sphere, this study considers whether EU citizens appear as an integrated European citizenry or spilt up into nation-specific subgroups. The overall question addressed is: How can cross-country differences in the visibility of EU citizens in the European public spheres of the member states be explained? Does the then emerging EU debt crisis play a role as an explanatory variable? Generally, what are the factors that lead to an increased visibility of EU citizens?
The empirical part draws on a large scale content analysis. The data is supplied by the “Providing an Infrastructure for Research on Electoral Democracy in the European Union” (PIREDEU) 2009 European Parliament election study. The dataset includes newspaper articles and TV news from all 27 member states and covers a time frame of three weeks prior to the election. Preliminary results suggest that EU citizens, compared to intermediary actors, play an important role, but their presence is not equally distributed among the European public spheres of the member states. Differences in the extent of visibility can be explained by country-, but also media- and issue-specific characteristics. The analysis contributes to the discussion of the European democratic deficit by shedding light on the gap between the EU and its citizens. It is not only the task of the media, but also academic research to highlight the importance of civic involvement in the European integration process.
