Europinions: Media Study

EUROPINIONS focuses on the nature and composition of citizens’ EU attitudes. The comparative project investigates the causes of these attitudes, their development over time, and their effects. It focuses on the role of the media as a key antecedent of change. The present datafile encompasses the 2019 Media Study. The goal of the 2019 Media Study is to continue the mapping of media reporting of European Parliament (EP) elections, which has been conducted since the 1999 elections. The study provides a content analysis of news about the European Union (EU) and EP elections in a sample of ten EU countries, which were chosen to maximize comparability from past studies. Continuity with the media studies conducted around the EP elections in 1999 , 2004 , 2009 and 2014 in terms of data sources and methodology was crucial to the extent that funding enabled this. The content analysis was carried out on a sample of national news media outlets in ten different countries.<br>News story vs. opinion piece; Newspaper and online only: page number on which the story appeared/ begins; length of news story (in number of words); Television only: lenghth of TV news item in seconds, story numer of TV news item;

Core variables: primary topic of the story; item contains and an evaluation regarding past and present national economic conditions, past and present economic conditions in the EU, future national economic conditions, future economic conditions in the EU; overall evaluation of the EU and / or its institutions; the story mentions the European Parliament (EP)/ the European Commission (EC) and how is it evaluated; number of different actors mentioned in the story; actors (e.g. the main actor of the story);

Judgement from the perspective of the actor: positive or negative evaluation:
explicitly: does the story mention the potential membership of Turkey in the EU; does the story mention a potential end of the EU membership of the country; EU attutudes: does the story mention any aspect related to future strengthening of the EU or its institutions; does the story mention any aspect related to current or future policy performance of the EU; does the story mention any aspect related to the decision-making process of the EU; does the story mention any aspect related to the state of democracy in the EU; does the story mention any aspect related to European identity; does the story mention any aspect related to EU financial solidarity; If the story or somebody in the story mentions referendums on matters of European integration, is the story rather supportive of holding referendums on matters of EU integration or does it oppose referendums on matters of EU integration in the country of the news; does the story mention whether the own country has been affected by EU membership or not; large EU reforms: does the story mention a new initiative, policy, action or a whole new plan that aims to deepen cooperation between member states or tranfers more power to the EU level; does the story mention Brexit; does the story mention the consequences of Brexit for Britain/ for the country of news/ for the EU; does the story mention a conflict/tension between the EU (all institutions) and current national rules, customs, laws or regulations; does the story mention the EU as one actor facing some common opponent or problem; does the story mention bureaucracy and unnecessary EU regulations; does the story mention inefficient spending of EU resources; does the story mention corruption of EU politicians; does the article contain a negative reference to the political establishment; does the story contain explicit factual information about the following: The total number of member states in the EU, the official duration of the electoral cycle in the Netherlands, that the VVD was largest party in the last national elections, the president of the European Commission, the Dutch minister of finance, Bulgaria’s current (Jan – Jun 2018) presidency of the Council of the European Union; does the story mention immigration (to the EU / the country) from outside Europe; does the story mention the EU economy; does the story mention the national economy;

Campaign variables: the European Parliamentary elections and/or the campaign for the elections are mentionend at least once; does the story mention that the European Parliamentary election campaign in 2019 is boring, the turnout is expected to be low, and/or people are not interested in the elections/ campaign or that the election campaign is exciting, turnout is expected to be high and/or people are interested in the campaign; does the story mention that the European Parliamentary election campaign is relevant or important; does the item mention the TV debate about the EP elections in
which the Spitzenkandidaten feature; does the item mention political microtargeting; does the story mention political misinformation, disinformation, or fake news; does the item mention foreign interference with the EP campaign or the EP elections; if foreign interferences is mentioned, who is portrayed as the culprit/source; are any of the Spitzenkandidaten mentioned and how are they evaluated; are any of different (country specific) parties mentioned.

Additionally coded was: start date; end date; recorded date; respondse ID, Coder ID; country; story identification number; date of publication of news item (day, month, year); medium (Newspaper, online, TV); news outlet (country specific); country.