A European Public Sphere and the Issue of Permeability

Maximilian Conrad

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper, not in proceeding

Abstract

The academic discourse on the need for a shared political public sphere at the level of the European Union has in recent years produced the conventional wisdom that such an emerging transnational community of communication is already observable in the mass media. However, the empirical indicators on which this notion is based tend to accommodate parallel national public spheres rather than a genuine transnational communicative space. Arguing that permeability of national public spheres to contributions by non-national speakers is a key precondition for the emergence of spaces for transnational processes of opinion formation, this article analyzes to which extent the debate on the Constitutional Treaty in two Swedish quality newspapers allows us to identify an emerging European community of communication. While showing certain embryonic transnational elements, the debate analyzed is still far from fulfilling the normative requirements for a European public sphere understood as a genuine communicative community.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusUnpublished - 2006
EventSwedish Network for European Studies in Political Science, annual conference, 2006 - Umeå, Sweden
Duration: 2006 Mar 162006 Mar 17

Conference

ConferenceSwedish Network for European Studies in Political Science, annual conference, 2006
Country/TerritorySweden
CityUmeå
Period2006/03/162006/03/17

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Political Science

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