Media Logic and Grand Theories of European Integration

Abstract

How does media coverage of European Union (EU) politics affect the process of European integration? This contribution investigates the nature and logic of media coverage of EU affairs and identifies the news value criteria that underpin it. It subsequently confronts the key causal mechanisms and processes of grand theories of European integration with this media logic. This generates several key insights in which media impact the EU and European integration. Importantly, it functions to empower the intergovernmentalist nature of the EU, by providing a platform for member state governments, focusing on conflicts between them, reinforcing the primacy of national identity, and by amplifying the European Council as the main locus of EU decision-making. But media also create opportunities for new supranational entrepreneurship that is executive in nature, in policy fields where the EU has significant powers, facilitates action in public interest fields such as consumer policy and supports majoritarian rule.