The role of media representations of the EU and youth active citizenship: a cross-national report

This report integrates the findings delivered by the 7 teams involved in the Catch-E-you project. The main aim of the research was to provide a framework on the European media environment, with the goal of observing how and by which actors, subjects and events the EU and youth citizenship in Europe are represented in the 7 countries that participate in the WP5 (Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Estonia and United Kingdom). For this purpose, we have conducted a comprehensive analysis of different media outlets, products and content, in order to achieve a composite image of the main mediated symbolic environments that can contribute to the structuring of young people’s political knowledge and opinions, as well as of their political and civic agency, but also of their notion of the European Union. Our primary goal, then, is not to deliver a stand-alone analysis addressing a specific theory-based problem, but to provide a set of tools to serve as reference for the wider objectives of the Catch-EYou project. In order to achieve the general objectives of the Catch- EYoU project, we should understand how – in the seven countries where the research takes place – the European Union is represented and discussed in the European mediascape, what topics and themes are linked with European Union (especially in the mainstream media agenda), who are the key actors related to these topics and themes, and whether and how young are relevant actors within these contexts and representations. The first part of the Report presents a descriptive cross-national overview of the data resulting from the monitoring of the newspapers websites; the main goal is to provide a general picture of the content of the corpus and a preliminary comparative analysis of the national samples. Our attention is especially concentrated on: which actors are evoked; which issues have obtained media attention; which frames can be identified in the coverage of the EU related news, what are the degree and the tone of the European dimension of the coverage. The second part presents a comparative interpretative thematic analysis, which explores the divergent and convergent patterns emerged from our findings, through a quantitative and interpretive elaboration, including newspapers, TV and radio products. The analysis addresses the following questions: which are the main issues and frames concerning EU or EU countries, what themes may give rise to specific controversies or, conversely, shared consensus, which discourses are constructed around the media narrative regarding the EU and youth as a collective actors. The third part presents the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the hybrid new media sources selected on the web as addressed to youth. Our attention will focus on issues and frames that are are employed in global but national youth-oriented journalism and which sources are shared by young students in the sampled social media devoted to the EU practical experience of the Erasmus+ program. Finally, given the critical points that have emerged from our analysis of the representation of Europe and youth in different media environments, we propose some general recommendations – targeted in particular to media professionals – that can represent starting points for the improvement of the quality of the information on the EU and Europe-related issues, as well as a basis for the re-establishment of trust between youth and the mainstream media.