Catalysts for Transnational Communication? Mapping Newspaper Journalists Views and Orientations on European Integration

Although a substantial body of theoretical as well as empirical work emphasizes the role of the mass media in constructing what could serve as a political public sphere at the European level, strikingly little is known, in qualitative terms, about opinion-making journalists’ underlying views and orientations on the European integration process. The point of departure in the present paper is that one role of opinion-making journalists can be understood as that of catalysts for transnational communication despite the oft-assumed absence of an overarching collective identity at the European level. Before transnational problem-solving communication can unfold the community-shaping effects that discourse theory describes, problems first have to be identified as shared. Whether and to what extent this framing role can be performed by opinion-making journalists may be a function of the latter’s interpretations of the integration process. The present study presents findings from an interview-based survey of opinion-making journalists of four Swedish daily newspapers.