DISSERTATION PUBLISHED

Muriel C. Wenzel recently published her dissertation entitled "Top-down and bottom-up dynamics of the European public sphere at the local level" open-access, which deals with the democracy-promoting effects of reporting on the European Union in local newspapers. She thus successfully completes her doctoral degree at the doctoral research centre for social and cultural sciences, which she began in 2020.

Abstract: This open access book analyses how politicians, especially members of the European Parliament, as top-down actors and civil actors as bottom-up actors influence local journalists and their coverage of the European Union (EU) in local newspapers, as well as how they influence the politicisation of the EU and Europeanisation in EU member states. Local daily newspapers are rarely the focus of research on the European public sphere. However, they should not be neglected precisely because of their important functions at the local level and can contribute to the politicisation of the EU by acting as a hinge between the various actors from politics, the mass media and civil society, their strategies and activities and the reporting in the medium itself. With the help of 34 interviews with journalists, EU correspondents, members of the European Parliament and their employees, representatives of civil society and EDICs, a qualitative content analysis of local daily newspapers and a comparison of the three case states Germany, Austria and France, it is possible to determine how these dynamics create, depict and Europeanise local public spheres.

Click here for the book.