Media Representations of Cohesion Policy and Association with European Identity Among Citizens

Research taking a social constructionist perspective on European identity has explored some aspects connected to the role of media representation of EU policies in shaping citizens’ perceptions connected to Europe and the EU. However, only very little and very recent research has focused on media representation of Cohesion policy, one of the largest public investment policies having contributed to regional economic development and social cohesion for several decades. We argue that the presence of different emergent topics in the media coverage of EU Cohesion policy associates with different levels of citizens’ identification with Europe as well as the importance assigned to different elements constituting their definition of being European. We empirically explore this argument trough an empirical hypothesis testing design. Data to measure our dependent variables – i.e. European identification and definitions of being European – have been collected through a multinational ad-hoc survey, while data to measure media representation of cohesion policy have been collected from news archives (i.e. FACTIVA) and online versions of a number of newspapers directly. Results of the statistical analysis – multilevel regression models with random effects including media representation at the national level – show that: a) the level of media representation of EU Cohesion policy through topics which in the aggregate positively portray a “contribution to economy and society” positively and strongly significantly correlates with levels of European identification in our sample; b) the level of media representation of EU Cohesion policy through topics which in the aggregate ambiguously or negatively portray implementation experiences or mirror “divisive themes” negatively and with moderate significance correlates with levels of European identification in our sample. Results concerning the elements constituting the definition of being European are not as easily interpretable using the current empirical design. However, the importance of a “common Christian religion” as a defining feature of being European is rather clearly associated with a respondent profile featuring distinctive elements of Euroscepticism. Finally, even if not the primary target of our media analysis, our results also constitute one of the first evidences that both regional and national identification positively and significantly associate with European identification.