European Social Movements and the Transnationalization of Public Spheres: Anti-Austerity and Pro-Democracy Mobilisation From the National to the Global by Angela Bourne

Author:Angela Bourne [Bourne, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138495142
Google: 1kqpswEACAAJ
Goodreads: 39227435
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

Analysis

In our analysis, we proceed in two steps. First, we analyse the horizontal and vertical dimension of the public sphere’s Europeanization, and then we turn to the discursive Europeanization. We compare the Greek and the German public spheres, represented by the newspaper reporting from each country.

Vertical and horizontal Europeanization in the context of protest

In the sample, the systematic content analysis identified a total of 151 protest events in the Greek newspapers and 45 protest events in German newspapers. These were supplemented by 14 major protest events around which reporting was sampled. As these 14 sampling dates were linked to protests at various places and thus resulted in the coding of multiple protest events, the total number of coded protest events for Greek newspapers were 233 and for German newspapers 91.

The protests covered in the newspapers are not necessarily protests from the newspaper’s own country. Also protest from abroad is covered. In Greek newspapers, the covered protest events are predominantly in Greece (78% of the protest events reported took place in Greece). The only other country, from which a sizeable number of protests with relation to the Eurozone crisis is covered, is Germany. Fifteen protest events in Germany (11% of all protest events) are found in Greek sources. For German newspapers, protest events in Germany are not very well covered. Three protest events with relation to the Eurozone crisis are recorded, amounting to seven per cent of all protest events covered in German sources. Thus, the German newspapers cover protest events connected to the Eurozone crisis in Germany less than Greek newspapers do. Similar to the Greek newspapers, the largest share of reported protest events in German newspapers took place in Greece (66% of all crisis-related protest events found in German newspapers). The share is nearly as high as for the Greek newspapers, though the absolute number is considerably smaller (27 protest events). Additionally, German newspapers pay attention to protest events in France (15%), while other countries appear each only once.

In the course of protest events, various claims are voiced. Demands are made but also interpretations of the situation are offered including causal attributions. The protesters themselves do not only make these attributions. Protest is rather an opportunity for protesters as well as others to appear in the media, to voice demands or react to them or use the opportunity for spreading different interpretations. All these interpretations and particularly attributions of responsibility are thus linked to the protest, even if they do not necessarily share the views of the protesters. Overall, in the Greek newspapers, 517 AoR are reported in the context of protest and for German newspapers, the respective number is 150.

Our first analytical interest concerns the speakers (or senders) appearing in the reporting. Are speakers that are covered by the newspapers in the context of protest events more horizontally or vertically Europeanized than speakers in the rest of the reporting?

In the Greek sources, domestic senders of attributions dominate. Overall in nearly two thirds of all cases the sender of an attribution is a Greek actor (Table 1).

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