"News Coverage of the Enlargement of the European Union and Public Opinion: A Case Study of Agenda-Setting Effects in the United Kingdom"

Dursun, Oya (2005) "News Coverage of the Enlargement of the European Union and Public Opinion: A Case Study of Agenda-Setting Effects in the United Kingdom". In: UNSPECIFIED, Austin, Texas. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

While the British government has largely been in favor of the recent round of European Union (EU) enlargement, the British public opinion was mostly against it. To account for the gap between public opinion and official policy on enlargement in the United Kingdom, this project scrutinizes the way the British media treats the issue of enlargement following the Laeken Council of December 2001 up until the day of enlargement – 1st of May 2004. The research is contextualized in agenda-setting theory. This project tests both the first and second-level agenda-setting effects, and the consequences of agenda-setting for public understanding and evaluations of the enlargement of the EU. To what extent the frequency of the coverage of enlargement influences how important people consider it to be? Do the frames the media apply translate into patterns the public uses to interpret those affairs? What are the effects of frames on public opinion toward enlargement? To provide answers to these questions, this paper combines quantitative content analysis and survey data through a comparison of the trends in the Eurobarometer surveys with enlargement-related news coverage in The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Mail.

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