New Dissertation: Europe at the Local Level

Europe at the Local Level? Dissertation Published Muriel C. Wenzel has recently published her dissertation titled “Top-down and Bottom up Dynamics of a European Public Sphere at the Local Level” as an open-access publication. In it, she examines the democracy-promoting effects of reporting on the European Union in local newspapers. With this, she successfully completes her doctoral studies, begun in 2020, at the Doctoral Center for Social and Cultural Sciences.

Abstract:This open access book analyses how politicians particularly Members of the European Parliament as top-down actors, and civil society actors as bottom-up actors, influence local journalists and their reporting on the European Union (EU) in local newspapers. The study investigates how these dynamics affect the politicisation of the EU and the process of Europeanisation in the member states.Local daily newspapers rarely receive attention in research on the European public sphere. However, due to their important functions at the local level, they should not be neglected. They can contribute to the politicization of the EU by serving as a hinge between political actors, the media, and civil society. These actors, their strategies and activities, as well as the reporting itself, together form the basis of a local European public sphere.Drawing on 34 interviews with journalists, EU correspondents, Members of the European Parliament and their staff, representatives of civil society and of Europe Direct Information Centres (EDICs), as well as a qualitative content analysis of local daily newspapers and a comparison of the three case countries Germany, Austria, and France the study shows how local public spheres emerge, are represented, and become Europeanised through these dynamics.

 Link to the book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-49792-7