Making Europeans in their own way: European Identity Construction in Italian Online Media Discourses

The paper explores a variety of narrative frames used by different international and domestic actors to discuss or promote European identity in Italian public space. In most cases, when these actors speak about a sense of common belonging to Europe, they use complex, non-linear narratives to approach this argument. “Classical” cultural and civic identity frames appear to be multidimensional ones and to have different spatial and temporal modifications. The former are related to the levels (local/regional, national, European or global) regarded as crucial in the sense of cultural diversity to be preserved or to divergent perceptions about preferable key level of democratic participation and civic engagement. The letter comprise various frame modifications which describe the sense of belonging to Europe in terms of historical identity: European history can play a role of Europe’s significant Other or can be used as a source for “civic religion” creation. These layers can be supplemented by (or substituted for) religious/secular identity and inclusive/exclusive identity sub-categories. Apart from the two major dimensions, numerous narrative elements encountered within research project dataset can be classified under several extra categories, e.g. plural or bounded European identities, and different frames describing European identity denial. Departing from the qualitative analysis of this variety of common European identity frames and their dimensions, the paper proceeds by applying quantitative text analysis techniques to examine the relationship between these elements.