RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 The use of social media in EU policy communication and implications for the emergence of a European public sphere
T2 El uso de las redes sociales en la comunicación política de la UE y las implicaciones para el surgimiento de una esfera pública europea
A1 Barberio, Vitaliano
A1 Kuric, Ines
A1 Mollona, Edoardo
A1 Pareschi, Luca
K1 Cohesion policy
K1 European public sphere
K1 Topic modeling
K1 Social media
K1 Euroscepticism
K1 Política de cohesión
K1 Esfera pública europea
K1 Medios de comunicación social
K1 Euroescepticismo
K1 Economía
K1 Economics
K1 Geografía
K1 Geography
K1 Sociología
K1 Sociology
AB Cohesion policy is the European Union’s (EU) main investment policy and seeks to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion. While accomplishments in this regard are constantly measured, European citizens are not always aware of the policy’s impact and the role the EU plays therein. This is especially relevant as the communication of EU policies is central to the emergence of a European public sphere, an acknowledged condition for European integration. In this paper, we aim at advancing research in this regard through the analysis of cohesion policy communication on the social media channels of ten Local Managing Authorities (LMAs) responsible for managing and communicating structural funds at the local level. By building on a bottom-up construction of shared meaning structures through semi-automatic analysis techniques, we make the following three observations: first, social media communication is indicative of ‘horizontal Europeanization’; second, Europeanization occurs both in the form of the spontaneous amalgamation of shared discontent expressed by citizens and the institutionalization of top-down EU communication measures adopted by LMAs; and third, a cluster of topics articulated internationally and showcasing a negative attitude towards the EU funding scheme suggests that, counter-intuitively, Euroscepticism seems to facilitate the emergence of a European public sphere.
PB Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional (AECR)
SN 2340-2717
YR 2020
FD 2020
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10017/42061
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10017/42061
LA eng
DS MINDS@UW
RD 28-abr-2024