Mediatized discourses on EU challenges and Europeanization in Portugal

This paper looks at how discourses on Europeanization in Portugal have evolved through time seeking to unpack the identity and pragmatic factors that have underpinned a supporting narrative towards European integration or one of a more critical or skeptical tone. With this goal in mind, the paper outlines an exploratory critical discourse analysis of the Portuguese media coverage of the European Union (EU) in key recent periods: the economic / financial crisis (2008-2013); the migration waves and policies (2015-2016); and the pandemic (2020-2022), including other related issues unfolding at the time. Samples are compounded by opinion articles and editorials of three newspapers. The paper contextualizes the Portuguese case through a discourse-historical approach and identifies the main concerns raised in the national media as reflecting and co-constituting the public opinion and the political elites’ perspectives on the EU and on Portugal’s place in these developments.