Reporting EU Politics in News Venues: An Issue of Democratic Deficit?

Muriel Cathérine Wenzel
Additional contact information
Muriel Cathérine Wenzel: Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Politics and Governance, 2025, vol. 13

Abstract: In a qualitative research design comprising 34 expert interviews and 18 focus groups from two distinct research projects, interviewees and participants discussed the status of EU reporting as well as its impact on and importance for the alleged democratic deficit of the EU. This article subsumes their views and attempts to answer the following questions: Can EU reporting positively influence European democracy? What are the obstacles and possibilities to strengthen EU reporting? The article first lays out the theoretical foundation of the impact of EU reporting and the role of the media in European democracy. Based on a qualitative analysis, it then shows the current perceived status of EU reporting in the media on local, national, and supranational levels. Lastly, the article illustrates possible examples and ideas to improve EU reporting—e.g., by demonstrating EU topics’ concrete relevance for daily life.

Keywords: communication; democracy; democratic deficit; European public sphere; European Union; interviews; (local) journalism; media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/9869 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:poango:v13:y:2025:a:9869

DOI: 10.17645/pag.9869

Access Statistics for this article

Politics and Governance is currently edited by Carolina Correia

More articles in Politics and Governance from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().