The media coverage of the European Union and the extreme right. A comparative study between Spain, France, and ItalyLa cobertura mediática sobre la Unión Europea y la extrema derecha. Un estudio comparado entre España, Francia e Italia doxa.comunicación | nº 39, pp. 83-102 | 83July-December of 2024ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978How to cite this article: Fernández-Rovira, C. and Carniel-Bugs, R. (2024). e media coverage of the European Union and the extreme right. A comparative study between Spain, France, and Italy. Doxa Comunicación, 39, pp. 83-102.https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n39a2041Cristina Fernández-Rovira. Full-time lecturer and researcher at the University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia, in the Faculty of Business and Communication. She holds a degree in Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a degree in Political Science and Administration from the UNED. Master in European Integration and a Master in Conictology; she holds a PhD with international mention in Sociology and Anthropology from the Complutense University of Madrid. Her main research interests focus on two main elds. On the one hand, critical internet studies, the use of social media and their consequences, and the interrelation between politics and communication, and on the other hand, international aairs. Her scientic output has been published in high-impact journals, and several books have resulted from her research. She has conducted research and teaching stays at various international universities. Previously, Fernández-Rovira worked at other universities and in the media. Universidad de Vic-Universidad Central de Cataluña, Spain[email protected]ORCID: 0000-0003-0643-7329Ricardo Carniel-Bugs. Associate Professor in the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). He holds a degree in Journalism from the University of Santa Cruz do Sul (Brazil) and a PhD in Communication and Journalism from the UAB, with a mention of European Doctor. Aliated since 2004 and currently the co-director of the Laboratory of Prospective and Research in Communication, Culture, and Cooperation (LAPREC), a consolidated research group recognised by the Government of Catalonia (2021 SGR 00054). He has participated in various competitive projects of research, international cooperation, and teaching innovation. His main research areas include media policies, pluralism and diversity, journalistic content, disinformation, and communication for development and social change. As a journalist, he has professional experience, especially in audiovisual media, and is currently the coordinator of UABmèdia at the Faculty of Communication Sciences at UAB.Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain[email protected]ORCID: 0000-0002-9303-9515is content is published under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. International License CC BY-NC 4.0

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84 | nº 39, pp. 83-102 | July-December of 2024The media coverage of the European Union and the extreme right. A comparative study between Spain, France...ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicación1. Introductione public discussion about the European Union is inuenced by the themes addressed in the media and their corresponding treatment. At the same time, the notion of integration linked to the European Union faces scrutiny due to the rise of far-right political factions, which, to a varying degree, are eurosceptic or advocate positions that contradict European values. Media outlets must incorporate articles reecting diverse political realities in their content in light of the electoral support for such parties, especially after the 2008 economic crisis. Consequently, it is logical to believe that there is heightened media coverage about the far-right. However, to what extent is the public discussion concerning the European Union dierent before and after the onset of the Great Recession? Is there a greater or lesser presence of the far-right in media content during these periods?e research aims to quantitively examine this phenomenon across three European Union countries (Spain, France, and Italy) by conducting a content analysis of two prominent newspapers from each country. e papers cover the pre-election and post-election periods preceding the Great Recession, as well as the most recent elections held up to the drafting of this article. us, comparisons are drawn among the three European Union countries across six media outlets and between two distinct temporal periods that have marked the recent history of the Union. e methodology proposed has been updated according to the suitability of quantitive content analysis, as indicated by the existing literature. Likewise, the selection of countries was conducted using a non-probabilistic sampling approach, taking into account contextual characteristics detailed in the Methodology section. Furthermore, the sample of media outlets per country Received: 27/07/2023 - Accepted: 02/01/2024 - Early access: 11/04/2024 - Published: 01/07/2024Recibido: 27/07/2023 - Aceptado: 02/01/2024 - En edición: - 11/04/2024 - Publicado: 01/07/2024Abstract:e parliamentary representation of far-right political parties is growing in several European Union countries, particularly after the Great Recession. is has increased the media attention they receive. ese parties share eurosceptic positions or question the idea of European integration, but does their rise alter public discussion on the European Union? Using a quantitative content analysis (N=974) conducted in 6 media outlets: El País and El Mundo (Spain), Le Monde and Le Figaro (France), and Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica (Italy), the research describes and compares media coverage on issues related to the European Union before and after the Great Recession and how the rise of the far-right has aected the European public sphere. e results indicate that public discussion about the European Union is in decline and that national and top-down Europeanisation approaches are on the rise, coinciding with increased coverage of the far-right. Keywords:Media; European Union; far-right; media coverage; public sphere.Resumen:La representación parlamentaria de los partidos de extrema derecha crece en varios países de la Unión Europea, en especial después de la Gran Recesión. Ello hace que aumente la atención mediática que reci-ben. Estos partidos comparten posiciones euroescépticas o de cuestiona-miento sobre la idea de integración europea, pero, su auge ¿altera la dis-cusión pública sobre la Unión Europea? Con un análisis de contenido cuantitativo (N=974) llevado a cabo en 6 medios de comunicación: El País y El Mundo (España), Le Monde y Le Figaro (Francia) y el Corriere della Sera y La Repubblica (Italia), la investigación describe y compara la cobertura mediática sobre temas referentes a la Unión Europea antes y después de la Gran Recesión y cómo ha afectado el aumento de la ex-trema derecha a la esfera pública europea. Los resultados indican que la discusión pública sobre la Unión Europea está en declive y que aumen-tan los enfoques nacionales y de europeización vertical en coincidencia con una mayor cobertura de la extrema derecha. Palabras clave:Medios de comunicación; Unión Europea; extrema derecha; cobertura mediática; esfera pública.
doxa.comunicación | nº 39, pp. 83-102 July-December of 2024Cristina Fernández-Rovira and Ricardo Carniel-BugsISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 85 was determined by their relevance in readership. ese methodological considerations make the article relevant regarding its potential for replication using dierent samples in future research.e study examines a growing phenomenon in the continent: the rise of the far right and its impact on the public perception of the European Union through the media. For this reason, this research oers insights into contemporary political and media challenges. Moreover, the study’s relevance is underscored by its analysis of the pre-and post-2008 Great Recession periods, thus shedding light on a pivotal period in the history of the European Union.Similarly, by comparing dierent countries, it is possible to observe how common challenges are shared regardless of the particular features of the political and media systems, which are analysed through current and innovative data.Consequently, the study poses three research questions, although the rst one encompasses two interconnected issues.RQ1: Does the emergence or rise of the far-right alter the public discussion surrounding the European Union in the analysed media outlets (during the analysis periods)?RQ1.1 What journalistic genre, news or opinion, is associated with the emergence of the far-right?RQ1.2 Do the analysed media outlets reproduce opposition to European values embodied by far-right parties within their related content?RQ2. Are there more topics about the European Union, focusing specically on integration or from the perspective of national interest, before or after the Great Recession within the analysed media outlets and countries?RQ3. Is there vertical or horizontal Europeanisation in the analysed content before and after the Great Recession?1.1. eoretical framework1.1.1. e rise of the far-right in Europee growth of the far-right political spectrum, also referred to as the ultraright, constitutes a well-documented phenomenon in Europe, as evidenced by the electoral results in various countries in recent years. Moreover, this phenomenon has been extensively analysed (Lazaridis, Campani and Benveniste, 2016; Golder, 2016; Steinmayr, 2017; Minkenberg, 2017; Astier and Errasti, 2018; Halikiopoulou and Vlandas, 2019; Minkenberg, 2019). Golder (2016) states that far-right parties are experiencing the fastest growth in Europe. ese political organisations often share euroscepticism and a populism of exclusion (Allen, 2015) and nationalist, racist, authoritarian, populist, or reactionary stances (Morelock, 2018; Hartzell, 2018; Ince, 2019). According to Vieten and Poynting (2016), the rise of the far right, coupled with the associated populist racism, can potentially disrupt the European Parliament and pose a signicant challenge to the Union.Cerrone (2022) also highlights that the discourse propagated by the far-right is eurosceptic, indicating either partial or complete opposition to European integration while advocating against globalisation and immigration. Similarly, Dalton and Berning (2022) note the emergence of the far-right in Western Europe and dene these parties as extremely conservative
86 | nº 39, pp. 83-102 | July-December of 2024The media coverage of the European Union and the extreme right. A comparative study between Spain, France...ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónin cultural cleavage. According to Bjånesøy, Ivarsaten and Berntzen (2023), the far-right agenda has garnered signicant political inuence within Western European democracies.e tenets of far-right ideology contradict the values promoted by community institutions outlined in their treaties, which are universally adopted by all Member States, such as equality and the protection of human rights, including those of minorities (Treaty on European Union, 2010). Indeed, Tortola and Rensmann (2022) highlight that the far-right’s instrumentalisation of the past aims to resurrect nostalgic ethnonationalism as a means of instigating an authoritarian revolt against liberal democracies and cosmopolitan change in Europe.e nancial and economic crisis of 2008 is regarded as a rupture in the welfare state across European countries (Astier and Errasti, 2018), which led to increased economic inequalities and, together with the implementation of austerity policies (Vieten and Poynting, 2016; Fernández-Rovira, 2019a), paved the way for far-right discourses. e refugee crisis has also been identied as a turning point in the ascent of the far right, with these forces garnering increased support in various European countries between 2014 and 2015 (Steynmayr, 2017). e electoral backing for the far right, however, does not stem from a single factor; it is beyond the scope of this article to determine the causes of this rise. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy to mention that cultural backlash, economic grievances, and protest voting are recognised as elements that benet radical right-wing parties (Brils, Muis, Gaidyté, 2022). is ideology has proliferated both in the East and in the West of the continent, encompassing countries that receive European funds and net contributors. As of early 2020, national parliamentary representation of the far-right was evident in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Germany, e Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Portugal, and outside the European Union, e United Kingdom, and Switzerland. Pioneering states in European integration, such as France, have the far-right party National Front, which secured 21% of the votes in 2017, making it the second-largest political force. Similarly, Germany has the Alternative for Germany party, which attained 12% of the votes in 2017, positioning it as the third-largest political force, but states that joined during the last signicant enlargement (2004-2007), such as Poland (Law and Justice) and Hungary (Movement for a Better Hungary), have far-right parties in government.1.1.2. e debate on the European Union and its public sphere.While the surge of the far right in Europe has been studied, little evidence exists regarding its relationship with the European public sphere, representing a novel aspect of this work. e existence of a European public sphere has been the subject of ongoing debate since the 1990s, which has been linked to the so-called democratic decit within the Union (Müller, 2016), as a shared public sphere facilitates popular sovereignty (Eriksen, 2004). e notion of the democratic decit in the European Union constitutes another debate in itself (Moravcsik, 2004; Folledstal and Hix, 2006), stemming from the fact that successive phases of European political integration lack adequate accountability mechanisms. De Vreese (in Kandyla and De Vreese, 2011) denes the public sphere as the arena wherein citizens can discuss the same political issues, making it fundamental to maintaining democracy.
doxa.comunicación | nº 39, pp. 83-102 July-December of 2024Cristina Fernández-Rovira and Ricardo Carniel-BugsISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 87 e three normative functions that citizens expect public spheres to perform in representative democracies include giving a voice to diverse perspectives, empowering citizens to criticise political authorities and disseminating credible information on matters of public interest (Goenaga, 2022). erefore, the scope of European public discussion warrants attention.While the consensus was that national public spheres could not be directly applied to the European level (Castells, 1997), currently, the debate is leaning towards the perspective that the European environment in Brussels fosters a transnational public sphere within Europe (Bee and Bozzini, 2010). is shift is fueled by media coverage of European issues and the holding of supranational elections (Boomgaarde and De Vreese, 2016; Bozzini, 2016; Walter, 2017). e European Union has been promoting the development of a public sphere since the mid-2000s, specically in Europe (Fernández-Rovira, 2019b).From other perspectives, Eriksen (2005) argues that while public spaces do exist, they have yet to generate a shared public sphere at the European level. Additionally, according to Scammell and Semetko (2018), public life is no longer territorially articulated by radio, television, newspapers, and books. Instead, the multiplicity of network communication spaces has fragmented the notion of a unied public sphere, giving rise to overlapping and interconnected public spheres.Kandyla and De Vreese (2011) argue that, in its ideal form, the European public sphere constitutes a shared communicative space transcending the connes of the nation-state. Following Meyer’s contributions (2005), the focus should be on the Europeanisation of debates to connect multiple levels of governance with processes of opinion formation. Consequently, Europeanisation entails the adaptation of Member States to the European Union, and it refers to any content expressing consensus or dissent concerning issues pertinent to decision-making at the European level (Kandyla and De Vreese, 2011). From this perspective, the same authors (2011) emphasise the importance of distinguishing between vertical Europeanisation (when news directly refers to supranational institutions or Union-related topics) and horizontal Europeanisation (when news refers to other political actors in dierent Member States).e public sphere, understood as the place to hold public debates and generate public opinion (Habermas, Lennox and Lennox, 1974), is strongly linked to the media. Still, the public sphere does not only come about when content reaches the audience but also when citizens receive, understand, and use media content (Dahlgren, 2006).Masip, Ruiz-Caballero and Suau (2019) underscore the transformative impact of the Internet on the concept of the public sphere, leading to the emergence of the terms “digital”, “virtual”, and “online” to refer to the public debate held online. Moreover, they outline three approaches to the change in the public sphere brought about by the internet: rstly, the Habermasian perspective envisions a unied public sphere where the media play a hegemonic role; secondly, there is the notion that this concept may no longer apply; and nally, the perspective that the idea must be maintained, but requires new contributions (2019). According to Rivas-de-Roca and García-Gordillo (2022), the increasing politicisation of the term “Europe” and the widespread use of digital platforms foster the emergence of a European public opinion that acts jointly.is study analyses the digital editions of several national newspapers, taking into account the power of the media to mediate public debate both online and oine. According to Eurostat (2019), the decline in the import value of newspapers, periodicals, and other publications (down by 13% annually) within the EU-28 indicates a trend towards digital media that signicantly impacts press consumption patterns.
88 | nº 39, pp. 83-102 | July-December of 2024The media coverage of the European Union and the extreme right. A comparative study between Spain, France...ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónFollowing the approach provided by News Production eory (Van Hout and Jacobs, 2008; Niblock and Machin, 2014), it is acknowledged that the media wield considerable power to inuence public perceptions about particular issues and determine how and why an event is covered journalistically. erefore, the interpretive sociological framework is applied to news, a concept pioneered by Tuchman (1978), who asserted that new reporting entails the construction of reality rather than portraying it. is makes it necessary to consider the notion of framing, dened by Goman (1974) as the organising principles governing individuals’ interpretation and subjective participation in social events.erefore, the media play a pivotal role in generating and reproducing the imaginary surrounding the European Union and the far-right parties, making their joint analyses extremely relevant. According to Krzyżanowski and Ekström (2022), the media not only disseminate and normalise the discourse and political ideology of the far-right but also serve as tools and targets for radical right-wing groups, making their relationships increasingly stronger and complex.According to Menéndez (2010), more news stories about the EU equates to greater visibility, leading to increased knowledge about the European Union. is suggests that the European public sphere strengthens as the number of related news items increases, as there are more elements to consider in public discourse.Previous research has explored the media portrayals of the European Union concerning its identity and international role (Menéndez, 2010; Amer, 2019). ese studies have categorised coverage as positive, neutral or negative while also exploring specic topics, such as the environment, austerity measures, economy or energy policies (Papaioannou y Gupta, 2017; Lalli et al., 2018; Koehler, Weber y Quiring, 2018). Others have recently examined media coverage of the rise of the far-right in Europe, focusing on issues such as the relationship between the support bases and media coverage of the far-right, including comparisons between mainstream media coverage and that of the far-right, as well as analyses of their discourse (Gattinara and Froio, 2019; Von Nordheim, Müller and Scheppe, 2019; Velázquez, 2019). However, this study is pioneering in that it explores whether media coverage of the rise of the far right inuences public discourse concerning the European Union. 2. Methodologyis study uses quantitative content analysis, a crucial tool in mass communication research (Rie et al., 2019) whose suitability was already theorised by Holsti (1969). e Factiva database was used for content collection, which allows for the retrieval of content from several digital and print media worldwide in a computerised form. e study sample consists of two founding countries of the European Union, France and Italy, and a country where the far right has only recently entered parliament: Spain.e National Rally, formerly known as the National Front, stands as one of the most enduring far-right parties with parliamentary representation, having been active in France since 1972. However, the most recent entry of such political forces into parliament has occurred in Spain. Vox burst onto the scene in the 2019 general elections, securing 24 MPs, which rose to 52 in the 2019 rerun elections held that same year. In Italy, where Silvio Berlusconi epitomised populism during the 1990s and
doxa.comunicación | nº 39, pp. 83-102 July-December of 2024Cristina Fernández-Rovira and Ricardo Carniel-BugsISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 89 2000s, there is currently a party called e League, which identies with the far-right ideology and attained 34% of the votes in 2019, emerging as the leading political force.Two newspapers have been selected for each country: El País and El Mundo (Spain), Le Monde and Le Figaro (France), and Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica (Italy). During the analysis periods, articles mentioning the European Union and the relevant political parties were extracted from these newspapers. Furthermore, these selected newspapers represent diverse ideological perspectives. Once the research questions were dened, keywords were chosen to conduct a content search in the database, a crucial step in any news search (Deacon, 2007). Accordingly, the keywords “European Union” and the names of the far-right political parties from each country included in the analysis (“Vox” for Spain, “Lega” for Italy and “National Front/National Rally” for France) were selected, all in their respective languages. Subsequently, 974 journalistic articles mentioning the European Union were retrieved, with each article as the analysis unit. Among them, articles containing any reference to the far-right parties were identied.e selection of the term “European Union” is justied as it is the most specic, which helps prevent the occurrence of false positives; in other words, this approach avoids using terms with multiple meanings, thereby enhancing the study’s validity. Opting for a term that is too precise, as highlighted by Deacon (2007), is a possible limitation because it can generate false negatives by excluding relevant cases. erefore, to ensure the validity of the search, a test was conducted using other terms related to Europe and its institutions. However, these alternative terms did not increase the relevant cases for the study. Consequently, the chosen term demonstrates content validity because its systemisation captures the intended focus of the study (Adcock and Collier, 2001). Moreover, following Weber (1990), the search meets the criteria of face validity by measuring the content related to the European Union to be analysed. Additionally, it is a term previously used in analyses, which gives it concurrence validity (Adcock and Collier, 2001).Computerised searches should be designed in such a way as to exclude duplicate cases, as was implemented in this study, to ensure the reliability of the data and thus obtain consistent results based on the study sample.Two coders carried out the analysis, ensuring intercoder reliability through the use of the same consensus codebook. Reliability was measured using Krippendor’s (2004) Alpha coecient on the entire sample, and all variables met the reliability conditions, as the coecients ranged between 0.89 and 0.91.After obtaining the units of analysis, they were classied into dierent categories (by media outlet, country, genre, date, focus, type of Europeanisation, topic, protagonist, and whether the article opposed European values). All the categories were derived from revised literature within the theoretical framework.To address the research questions, distinct analysis periods were established. On the one hand, for each country, two weeks before and two weeks after the most recent general election were analysed. On the other hand, two weeks before and after the last elections held before the Great Recession were analysed. ese analysis periods, focused on national general elections rather than European elections, were chosen specically to observe the emergence, or lack thereof, related to the European Union and its approach to vertical or horizontal Europeanisation (Kandyla and De Vreese, 2011).
90 | nº 39, pp. 83-102 | July-December of 2024The media coverage of the European Union and the extreme right. A comparative study between Spain, France...ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicacióne most recent general elections took place in Spain on 10 November 2019. Consequently, the most recent analysis period spans from 28 October 2019 to 24 November 2019. e dates preceding the Great Recession correspond to the general election of 9 March 2008, between 25 February and 23 March 2008.For France, the presidential elections were held on 23 April and 7 May 2017 (since they were held in two rounds). erefore, the analysis period spans from 16 April to 13 May 2017. In the period before the Great Recession, the dates cover 16 April to 13 May 2007, as the elections were held on 22 April and 6 May.Italy’s most recent analysis period spans from 19 February to 18 March 2018, as the general election was held on 4 March. Prior to the Great Recession, the studied period spans from 1 to 27 April 2008, as the elections were held between 13 and 14 April.3. Results3.1. Public discourse on the European Union is decliningPublic discussion surrounding the European Union does not increase in the studied media during the analysed periods. In fact, more news items mention the European Union in the period preceding the 2008 economic crisis, during which there were fewer far-right-wing parties. Specically, 53% of cases were observed before 2008, compared to 47% of news stories mentioning the EU in the most recent period (Figure 1).e fact that there are currently more news items related to the far right does not strengthen the European public sphere. In the total sample of news items mentioning the European Union, in the period analysed before the Great Recession, 3% of news items mentioned the far right, while in the period related to the most recent elections in each country, 12% of news items mentioned the far right. If both periods of analysis are considered, the country with the highest number of news items about the European Union mentioning the far-right is France, with 16%, followed by Italy, with 8% and Spain, with 1.5%. It is in France where the most signicant increase in this type of content can be seen in the most recent period analysed, since from the 4% of the news items mentioning the far-right just before the economic crisis of 2008, it has risen to 27% in the most recent period.In Spain, there were no results before the 2008 crisis, as no extreme right-wing party was contesting elections, and in the current period, 3% of content referred to the far right. In Italy, there is an increase from 5% to 12%.All the press from the countries analysed reect the emergence of extreme right-wing parties in EU-related content.