The EU funded project Adequate Information Management in Europe (AIM) investigates how EU news are covered in different European states and analyses the mass media’s impact on the emergence of (a) European public sphere(s). Eleven research institutes from eleven European countries participated in the project.
A series of working papers summarises the findings of this project which was funded under the EU’s 6th Research Framework Programme. The study includes an analysis of the news coverage on the European level (in Brussels) as well as country reports on EU coverage in eleven European states (Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italiy, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, Spain and the UK).
The project involved four steps of empirical research:
- A quantitative study of the scale/range/scope of EU news coverage;
- Interviews with editors in the 11 countries;
- Interviews with correspondents, EU spokespeople and diplomats in Brussels, and;
- Analytical sub-projects concerning the role of the internet.
The study confirms what European think tanks and academics have been claiming for quite some time. A European public sphere does currently not exist and the way EU news is dealt with in the European countries depends on the existing structures.
To read the introductions to the working papers and the summaries of the national findings, please click here.