Flagging of nationalism in media coverage of the EU – A comparative analysis of the cases of United Kingdom and Germany

In the midst of a theoretical and empirical debate on the existence or not of a European public sphere, the question on national media as the main mediator between EU as the polity and the Europeans as the citizens raises quite naturally. Drawing on the theory of framing, this PhD proposal aims at researching the role of national media in flagging nationalism when covering European Union affairs and their role in shaping the public opinion towards the EU. It does so by studying the framing patterns of national media coverage. Focusing in frames, discourse, causality between media representation and public perception and media power in democratic systems, this PhD proposal aims to research the cases of two Member States, United Kingdom and Germany. The two countries have been selected on the purpose of their differences and traditional polarized stances in regard to the European Integration. This study aims to show how media filters the reality on one hand, and how this filtering is echoed from the audience on the other one. More narrowly, the focus of the PhD proposal is not to merely look at how EU has been covered in these two respective countries, but rather at how has the idea of nationalism been flagged with regards to a union with strong supranational features such as EU. In addition, this proposal aims at researching the context within which such a framing takes places by looking at how aspects such as national political culture are echoed in the media coverage of EU.