ECREA16-Abstract

518

Thursday, November 10

1 4 : 3 0 – 1 6 : 0 0

PP 133

The Power of Collective Identity: Framing Europe and Its Effect on Solidarity Within the European Union

C. Starke

University of Münster, Department of Communication, Münster, Germany

In the public debates about Greece leaving the EU or the distribution of refugees among the EU member states, politicians, non-governmental organiza‑

tions and journalists criticize the lack of solidarity within the EU. Solidarity is a crucial mechanism to promote European social and system integration by

solving critical transfer situations. This paper sets out to investigate how different perceptions of the EU portrayed by the media affect people’s European

solidarity. On the individual level, solidarity is defined as the intrinsically motivated adherence to solidarity norms. Thus, acting solidary at the European

level means for EU citizens to provide other individuals in the EU or the European community as a whole with private resources (e.g. money) without

asking for compensation. Four different types of solidarity norms can be distinguished: public allocation norms, distribution norms, support norms and

loyalty norms. They contribute to solving four different types of social dilemma situations in which one actor is capable of helping another actor but lacks

the respective incentives to do so. Previous research on solidarity shows that the willingness to act solidary rises when all ac-tors share a common collective

identity. European solidarity consequently depends on the emergence of a collective European identity.These feelings of belonging to the EU are influenced

by media representations of the EU. However, empirical studies find that the national media do not present the European Community uniformly, instead

the interpretation of the specific content of European identity vary significantly from country to country ("identity frames"). For instance, the British public

sphere is dominated by the perception of the EU as an economic community, while German media portrays the EU primarily as a political community. Thus,

while most scholars only focus on the degree of people’s European identity, I argue that the respective interpretation of European identity also affects

solidary behavior. To fill this empirical gap, this paper investigates whether identity framing in media content impacts people’s European solidarity. To test

the hypotheses, I conducted an experimental online survey with 400 German respondents. In this 2x2 between-subject design, the independent variables

were (1) different interpretations of European Identity (EU as an economic community vs. EU as a political community of shared values) and (2) the valence

of the respective frames (positive vs. negative). I used the adherence to the four different solidarity norms as the dependent variables. First results indicate

that European identity has a significant positive impact on all four types of European solidarity. However, whether people re-gard the EU as an economic

community or a political community of shared values does not influence their willingness to act solidary. The findings further reveal that people who re‑

ceived a positive identity frame tend to showmore European solidarity.The results suggest that creating a positive feeling of belonging to the EU is essential

to overcome the“crisis of solidarity”within Europe. Yet, the specific interpretation of collective European identity is secondary.

PP 134

The New Storytellers – Political Commentators Framing Narratives on Different Media Platforms in Election Campaigns

E. Stur

MidSweden University, Media and Communication, Sundsvall, Sweden

With in the field of political journalism the political commentators in the press are one of several actors who are involved in framing narratives about

on-going political processes in our society (Johnson-Cartee, 2005; Entman, 2010). In their role of explaining and interpreting political events they take

an important part in informing and making citizens understand the outcome of politics in a society (Nord & Stur, 2009). One way is to participate in

constructing narratives about politics that can be found in news reporting of election campaigns (Schudson, 2008; Mc Quail, 2013). Due to the change

of the media environment that has taken place the last decade – the role of the commentators has shifted from being informative and interpretive to

become more speculative and opinion driven (Nord & Stur, 2009). One factor is how new media platforms as websites, web-TV and social media have

opened up for new possibilities to communicate politics on (Bennet & Iyengar, 2008; Carey, J & Martin, C.J E, 2010). This was for example the new media

setting for the election for the Swedish parliament in 2014. This development questions the future role of the commentators - the trustworthiness and

credibility of their work. Not many studies have been made in this area of political journalism. The object of this study is to explore how the role of political

commentators has transformed and the consequence of the development. This is preformed in context of a case study of an election (Sweden 2014) and

the narrations of politics that were framed with help of the commentators in national press on different media platforms. The research questions are: RQ 1:

How and on which platforms did political commentators in the study participate and appear whilst framing narratives? RQ 2: What kind of narratives and

in which ways did they frame narratives about the election? In this study theories as framing (Entman, 2010) and communicating narratives (McNair, 2000;

Johnsson-Cartee, 2005) of political news are used as base for the theoretical framework. The empirical material of this study is collected from four national

papers in Sweden: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet and Expressen during the election for Swedish parliament 2014. The material concerns

all commentaries made by principal political commentator of each paper, collected on daily basis on different platforms, during a period of three weeks

before the Election Day. The study is undertaken on basis of a quantitative collected material but is basically preformed qualitative using narrative content

analysis (Johansson, 2005; Entman 2010). The result of the study shows that the commentators play a more significant role within the field of political

journalism. They got several media platforms to interact on. These new circumstances have influenced the role of commentators becoming storytellers that

are less informative and analytic. Instead they tend to give their own opinions more space, speculate about who is going to win or lose, framing narratives

of elections campaigns into stories of games of sport or battles of war.