Max_Genske_Dissertation

Abstract
The focus of this research is in the area of the democratic deficit of the European Union with a
particular focus on the European Parliament. It focuses on the how the Parliament uses its internet
television channel, EuroparlTV, in order to overcome its communicative deficit. The research
approach adopted in this dissertation is that of a case study of the EuroparlTV sub-channel,
Discover Parliament. The findings from this research provide evidence that the Parliament is
reluctant to discuss its own role in regards to the democratic deficit and does not provide notable
answers in regards to solving it. This dissertation recommends for the Parliament to recognise the
democratic deficit more openly and empower citizens in order to resolve it.
Keywords: EU, democratic deficit, European Parliament, EuroparlTV
Candidate Number: R18572 2

Content
List of tables:........................................................................................................................................4
Chapter 1: Introduction.........................................................................................................................4
Chapter 2: Literature Review...............................................................................................................5
Chapter 3: Research Methods.............................................................................................................15
Chapter 4: Findings............................................................................................................................22
Table 1: How are the videos portraying the Parliament / EU?......................................................22
Table 2: What languages are being used as means of communication in these videos?................24
Chapter 5: Conclusion........................................................................................................................26
Chapter 6: References.........................................................................................................................28
Appendix............................................................................................................................................33

List of tables:
Page 14: Table 1: How are the videos portraying the Parliament / EU?
Page 16: Table 2: What languages are being used as means of communication in these videos?
Chapter 1: Introduction
The European Union and its democratic legitimacy has been discussed ever since its creation and it
seems that this discussion will continue in years to come. The fact that this perceived democratic
deficit has been discussed in so many years suggests that it does indeed exist and that it undermines
the legitimacy of the EU. But how should this deficit be understood and analysed? One of the
problems in discussing the democratic deficit is that the term is rather vague and potential solutions
are closely related to the understanding of this. Some argue that the deficit is a question of
institutional deficiencies, whereas other argue it to be of a historical nature and one that is unlikely
and maybe even unrealistic to change. The argument for institutional deficiencies tend to be about
the lack of democratic representation in EU policy-making, which seems to be counter-intuitive
considering that various treaty reforms have enhanced the legislative powers of the Parliament. The
fact that discussions prevail despite these institutional reforms does suggest that the democratic
deficit is more than just a question of making institutional reforms. Another explanation and one
that this thesis will be based around is that this deficit is linked to historical and cultural differences
and that they play a significant role in explaining the deficit. One of the most significant factors in
this regards is the fact that the EU does not share a common language and the strong bonds to the
nation state seem to prevail despite political attempts to push for further Europeanisation. The
nation state has given over much sovereignty to the EU level, but this has to a large extent happened
without there being a cultural foundation to do so.
With the emergence of the internet it has become increasingly easier for EU institutions to
communicate directly with its citizens and especially the Parliament has established a direct link to

its constituents through its internet television channel, EuroparlTV. It is therefore natural to assume
that the Parliament would use this channel actively in order to overcome not only the democratic
but also communicative deficiencies.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
This literature review will examine the main issues surrounding the communicative deficit of the
European Union and how it contributes to the overall democratic deficit. The overall aim with this
review of literature is to focus on objectives 1 and 2 as set out below. An empirical data collection
will be undertaken in order to meet the third objective, while the last objective – objective 4 – will
be based upon findings from objectives 1, 2 and 3:
1. Discuss the perceived democratic deficit in the European Union, its driving factors and
which policies the Union has adopted in order to deal with this.
2. Evaluate critically existing literature that has tried to measure the role of the media vis-a-
vis the legitimacy of the European Union.
3. Explore how the European Parliament is trying to cope with its communicative deficit
through audiovisual communication on their website.
4. Formulate recommendations as to how the European Parliament can be a significant actor in
reducing the democratic deficit.
By exploring the above mentioned objectives significant contribution will be made in the research
area of political communication of the European Parliament and how it portrays itself as an
institution and political actor. Existing literature will be scrutinised in order for the reader to gain a
better understanding of the democratic deficit and how it relates to the role of the European
Parliament.

At the end of this literature review it will become clear that empirical research in the field of
European Parliament communication is not only justified but also necessary in order to gain a better
understanding in how the European Parliament portrays itself vis-a-vis its constituents. Several
scholars have argued for a democratic deficit being present in the European Union and a sensible
starting point is to investigate what is meant by the exact term, democratic deficit, in order for a
deeper analysis of this phenomenon. Additionally, scrutinising the role of the media and its
coverage of European Union matters will aid in gaining a better understanding as to of why there
appears to be a communicative gap between the European Union as a policy institution and its
constituents.
One of the most contested issues among academic scholars over the years has been the degree to
which the European Union is suffering from a so-called democratic deficit. The very notion of there
being a democratic deficit presupposes a consensus of what constitutes democracy in a European
Union context. This is of special importance when aiming at determining whether the EU is
suffering from a democratic deficit and how to potentially enhance the democratic legitimacy of the
EU. These debates have often been in relations to European integration and especially the role of
the nation state and the forces driving European integration. Classic functionalist and neo-
functionalist theories are predicating that European integration is driven by a causality between
deeper integration and institutions to facilitate this transformation (Featherstone 1996; Mitrany
1966; Haas 1958; Haas 1976; Lindberg 1963; Lindberg and Scheingold 1971). A positive spillover
effect occurs when integration in one economic sector creates strong incentives for integration in
other areas. Technocratic automaticity would be a driving factor for further integration in that the
created institutions would themselves lead and argue for further integration. Interest groups would
shift their allegiance towards these newly created institutions as they would eventually become
more powerful than the member states. Several scholars have since denounced this rather idealised

way of portraying European integration and even Haas, one of the original scholars of neo-
functionalism, deemed the theory as obsolete when European integration started stalling in the
1960s (Haas 1975). As Haas noted, neo-functionalism relies on a continuation of European
integration and the theory was hence undermined when integration stalled and has ever since
struggled to explain this phenomenon. Proponents of neo-functionalism have since, to modest
success, made attempts to update the theory in order to make it more contemporary (Sandholtz and
Sweet 1998; Sweet et al. 2001; Sandholtz and Sweet 2010; Risse 2005). Interestingly, the notion of
democratic legitimacy is almost absent in neo-functionalist reasoning, which might contribute to its
problems in explaining lack off and popular hesitance towards further integration. One could argue
that this theory agrees with the notion of 'output' legitimacy in the sense that the European Union
gains its legitimacy through policy outputs without questioning the 'input' legitimacy as long as the
economic benefits are present (Scharpf 1997; Scharpf 1999; Schmidt 2013). And several studies
back up this claim that public EU support is positively related to the economic benefits derived by
the country and individual (Anderson and Reichert 1995; Gabel and Palmer 1995). The 'permissive
consensus' upon which neo-functionalism assumes public support for integration has since the early
1990s eroded (Lindberg and Scheingold 1970; Schmitt and Thomassen 1999; Karp et al. 2003;
Koopmans 2007). The assumption that public loyalty would shift towards the European level
following the material benefits received through European integration has indeed not occurred and
neo-functionalists have ever since tried to explain the lack of public support. Instead of completely
dismiss neo-functionalism on the above mentioned shortcomings it does explain to a degree why
integration occurs. In the light of the recent economic crisis the notion of spill-over has again
become relevant in that policy-makers are now arguing that more fiscal integration is needed in
order for the monetary union to succeed (Cooper 2011). So whilst it can be argued that neo-
functionalism lacks a mechanism to explain as to why European integration stalls during some
periods it does provide a good indication as to what drives integration once it proceeds.

Whilst neo-functionalists argue that nation states at some period in time would become obsolete,
intergovernmentalists and liberal intergovernmentalists argue that nation states are the most
important actors in regards to European integration and that they control the level and speed of
integration (Hoffmann 1965; Moravcsik and Schimmelfennig 2009; Bache et al. 2011; Franchino
2013). The criticism of neo-functionalism, voiced by liberal intergovernmentalists like Moravcsik is
its normative approach towards integration and the focus on an 'ever closer union' and argues that
the EU has reached 'constitutional maturity' (Moravcsik 2005; 349). He stipulates that nation states
are rational actors and that national interests are concurrent with economic interests, ignoring
political bias and that it is national governments and not supranational institutions driving European
integration. From this point of view there is an inherent limit to integration at a given period in time
as there will be a point where it is not economically desirable for member states to push for further
integration. Interestingly, these opposing theories on European integration both fail to provide
analysis as to why public support for integration has been in steady decline since the early 1990s.
Whilst liberal intergovernmentalism does give an accurate portrayal of 'high politics' and
intergovernmental bargaining it does not provide an explanatory framework for a lack of public
support and hence democratic legitimacy. One must assume that the EU is gaining legitimacy
through national elected governments, which in turn control the speed of European integration that
satisfies electorates.
The question of course arises as to which framework is most accurate in explaining European
integration and scholars have to a large degree relied on both to explain this phenomenon. Pollack
(1994; 2000) showed that European integration in the post-Maastricht era had followed the logic of
functional spill-over in that the EU had become a more active regulator in terms of policies relating
to the Internal Market. There was on the other hand evidence of retrenchment in EU budgetary
expenditures as a result of especially German resistance towards an increase in net contribution.
Whilst these theories do not specify the perceived democratic deficit they can help us understand

the reasoning behind policy-changes and why a democratic deficit has emerged especially in the
post-Maastricht era.
The degree to which the European Union is suffering from a democratic deficit can be argued but
the majority of academic scholars agree it does exist (Zweifel 2002; Follesdal & Hix 2006; Etzioni
2007). Many democratic deficit scholars have in this regard especially focused on the role of the
European Parliament and how it is key in ensuring democratic legitimacy (Lodge 1994; Andersen &
Burns 1996; Scharpf 1999; Schmitter 2000). There has been a strong emphasis on increasing the
powers of the Parliament in the decision-making process as it is the only directly elected institution
and hence ensures 'input' legitimacy (Bellamy 2010; 2013). Several reforms of the EU treaties have
since the mid- 1980s increased the powers of the Parliament and Crombez (2003) concludes that the
EU legislative system is almost bicameral like the United States. Whilst there has been almost
unanimity amongst proponents of the democratic deficit thesis that increased legislative powers to
the Parliament would ensure enhanced democratic legitimacy other scholars have argued that the
deficit is either non-existent or that it is insignificant. Majone (1993; 1996; 1998; 2002a; 2002b) has
been consistent in his critique of a democratic deficit in that he believes the scope of EU powers are
primarily of a regulatory nature and hence should be left to supranational institutions as the
European Commission. In his view if EU policies were to be made by 'majoritarian' institutions they
would lose their Pareto-efficiency in that a politicisation of regulatory policies would lead to
outcomes closer to ideal short-term policy preferences. Majone (2000) goes further and argues that
the EU is not suffering from a democratic deficit but rather a 'credibility crisis'. The EU needs more
transparency in the decision-making and the media and parliamentarians at both the EU and
national level should be better at scrutinising the policies adopted. In this regards it is crucial that
information is easy accessible to its citizens thereby ensuring transparency and that the Parliament
is focusing on scrutinising the Commission and EU expenditure and generally increase the quality
of EU legislation. The logical conclusion to this must be that in order for the EU in order to

overcome its 'credibility crisis' must be better at communicating with citizens in order to gain
legitimacy as the traditional reliance on direct-democracy is absent. The question about input
becomes irrelevant as the EU must ensure that the policy output are deemed as legitimate. Here
Majone assumes the existence of long-term interests that are unrelated to ideological disagreements
and there being a collective identity that have the same goals. This argument relies heavily not only
on the compliance of member states once a policy has been adopted but also on a notion that the
decision has been made under legitimate circumstances and that it acknowledges in the community
as legitimate. The fact that there is a debate on the democratic nature of the EU as a political system
however undermines this very premise. Furthermore these arguments rely on there being an
acknowledgement of a collective European polity as a legitimate representative for its citizens
(Habermas and Derrida 2003).
As argued the European Parliament, the vox populi, has over several treaty reforms seen its
legislative powers increase significantly in an attempt to strengthen the input legitimacy of the
policy-making process (Rhinard 2002; Héritier 2003; Shackleton and Raunio 2003; Häge and
Kaeding 2007). However the more power the Parliament has gained the greater the popular
indifference seems to be have developed (Buzek 2011; Weiler 2012). Turnout at the European
elections have been in steady decline since 1979 with the 2009 EP election hitting a low with only
43 percent of Europeans voting. According to Stockemer (2012) this low turnout is directly linked
to the citizens' rejection of the EU project. Voters have not changed their perspectives on these
elections over the years as they still perceive EP elections as 'second-order' to national election even
though there is significant empirical evidence suggesting that the Parliament has gained significant
influence over EU policy-making (Reif and Schmitt 1980; van der Eijk and Franklin 1996; Schmitt
2005). This does indeed seem counter-intuitive as one would assume turnout increase in line with
the increased powers of the Parliament. In order to gain a better understanding to the underlying
reasons for these decrease in voter turnout we must turn to the notion of a common European

identity and the role of the media in the portrayal of the EU.
The research on the possible emergence of a European identity has been steadily growing
(Herrmann and Brewer 2004; Bach et al.; McLaren 2007; Bruter 2003; Kaina 2009; Risse 2010).
This is of special importance in relations to the perceived democratic deficit as a feeling of common
political belonging is essential for the legitimisation of a modern democracy. It is almost a well-
established fact that public support for European integration has been deteriorating since the early
1990s (Hix 2005: 152; Hix 2008: 51ff; Hooghe 2007; Hooghe and Marks 2007; 2009). Voters have
to a large extent voiced their hesitance towards integration through several referendums: the
Maastricht Treaty in Denmark (1992), the Nice Treaty in Ireland (2001), the European
Constitutional Treaty in the Netherlands and France (2005) and most recently the rejection of the
Lisbon Treaty in Ireland (2008). Habermas (2001) argues that a pan-European identity is likely to
emerge as a result of deeper integration, whereas Schlesinger (2003) emphasises that the lack of a
common language and divergent cultures is too significant in regards to a common identity. One of
biggest problems according to Peter Graf Kielmansegg (1996, 2003) is that “... there is no
European demos sharing a collective identity because the European level lacks a community of
communication, collective experiences and common memories” (Kaina and Karolewski 2009).
Various referendums and popular votes suggest that a European identity and a sense of community
has not emerged over time thereby rejecting Habermas' claim that deeper integration would
inevitably lead to a common European identity.
Closely related to the idea of a pan-European identity lies the notion of a European public sphere,
which in turn can act as a driver for a European identity. Several scholars have argued that the
media is essential in developing a sense of community throughout the EU. Olausson (2010) for one
believes that more national media coverage on EU topics will lead to a better breeding-ground for a
sense of community. It is argued that the more EU topics appear in the national media the likelier it

is that 'Europeanized national public spheres' will emerge as a result (Grundmann 1999; Koopmans
and Erbe 2004; D'Haenens 2005; Machill and Fisher 2006; De Vreese 2007). One of the obstacles
towards a common public sphere is that it presupposes not only a state and a sovereign people that
are citizens in this state, but also a society that can make for allegiance and a collective identity
(Eriksen 2005). This would structurally require the EU to move towards a more federal structure,
which is unlikely to be met with popular support as voters have rejected nearly every treaty reform
which might suggest deeper integration. If Bruter (2003) is right when he argues that citizens
determine their support for political institutions by their democratic functioning then there must be a
informative and communicative shortcoming that needs to be addressed. If this logic is correct then
citizens do not deem the European Parliament to be a democratic nor powerful institution in the
policy-making process, which obviously goes against the wishes of policy-makers when they have
empowered the Parliament through several treaty reforms. On this basis it is only fair to conclude
that there is a discrepancy between how the EU and especially the Parliament portrays itself
externally and how citizens portray them and one of the biggest problems in this regard in a lack of
information (Crombez 2003). The EU's 2001 'White Paper on Governance' expressed this concern
and especially the notion that there is a disconnection between Europe and its citizens and that for
many for people the Union is seen as remote (Gripsrud 2007). This is of grave concern as Monroe
states that “every state holds a conversation with its subjects as to the legitimacy of its existance”
(Monroe 1995; 234).
A general critique from policy-makers over the years has been the degree to which the media is
covering European Union issues. In line with the general rules of journalism it appears that the EU
relies on crises and conflict in order to draw media attention (Galtung and Ruge 1965; Patterson
1993; Blumler and Gurevitch 1995). Research indicates that news items concerning integration
process, EU summits and crises consistently win out over 'day-to-day' policy decisions in the EU
(De Vreese 2001; Meyer 2005; Boomgaarden et al. 2010; Noije 2010). Furthermore news coverage

tends to focus on domestic political actors and national context rather than overall EU topics
making news coverage throughout Europe disintegrated and fragmented. Usually EU affairs are
only considered salient by the media once their impact on national affairs is evident and usually
negative (Norris 2000; Gleissner and De Vreese 2005) As argued earlier citizens to a large extent
feel European Union issues to be distant and abstract hence making news coverage ever more
important as most people rely on information from the mass media in order to form an opinion
(Page and Shapiro 1992; Zaller and Feldman 1992). In this regards empirical evidence show that
there is a clear connection between how the media is framing EU news and public support (Schuck
and De Vreese 2006; Vliegenhart 2008). Critics of political journalism have often pointed out that
the media is more interested in providing the public with entertainment, portraying politics as a
world of scandals, dishonesty and lies, rather than a fair and substantive coverage (Capella and
Jamieson 1997; Wolf 1999; McNair 2000; Street 2001; Trenz 2008). Meyer (2005) warns that this
mediatization of European politics is undermining the consensus culture that exists within the
legislative process and is increasing the likelihood of conflicts that can not be settled through
bargaining.
Academic scholars have tried to come with ideas as to how to ensure better EU media coverage.
Hewstone (1986) proposed better public information and communication, whereas Risse-Kappen
(1996) and Tumber (1995) argued for more publicity and public debate surrounding EU issues. The
Council went as far to introduce a quota rule through the Television Directive in an attempt to
Europeanise national television stations and ensure greater EU coverage (Council of the European
Communities 1989, 1997). These attempts to legislate in an attempt to create greater
Europeanization of the national media has however been unsuccessful and is not likely to change
(Gerhards 2000). In 2006 the EU launched a White Paper on Communication in which it brings
forward solutions to closing the communicative gap between the EU and its citizens (Commission
of the European Communities 2006). Whilst not addressing this initiative directly one would

assume that Meyer (1999) questions whether this is possible due to the inherent technocratic
mindset of especially the Commission and a lack of adequate staffing when it comes at
communicating with its citizens.
Academic research on the media coverage of EU issues tends to on traditional media outlets like
print media and television (Peter and de Vreese 2004; De Vreese et al. 2006; Wessler et al. 2008;
Koopmans and Statham 2010; Schuck and de Vreese 2011). One of the weaknesses of these studies
are that they are:
“limited to either considering selected sets of explanatory variable or specific subtopics within EU
affairs, including a limited number of countries and, in particular, newspaper coverage only, and
with few exceptions ignoring over-time trends” (Boomgarden et al. 2013, 610)
It is problematic that these studies are rather limited in scope and that they take their point of
departure in the nation state and national circumstances rather than a European. Furthermore these
studies are descriptive by nature in that they to a large extent all conclude that the media is not
portraying the EU adequately by quantitative measurements. They do on the other hand not pass a
normative judgement as to how or whether this should change
Whilst it can be argued that print media and television is still where most people tend to get their
news from the internet is becoming increasingly important as a source of information. Television
still remains at the top of list of “first” source of information on European political matters, but
more interestingly the internet has overtaken the written press (Respectively 12% and 11%)
(Eurobarometer 2012). In general people tend to go to informational and institutional websites in
order to get information about EU issues.
Surprisingly little research has been done on which role the internet plays in portraying the EU and
this thesis aims at shedding greater light on this particular area in order to gain a better
understanding as to how the Parliament uses the internet to communicate. The rest of the thesis will
aim at providing empirical data in this particular field.

Chapter 3: Research Methods
The literature review identified a gap in existing research regarding the European Parliament and its
external political communication. An important contribution of this research will be the study and
analysis of empirical data on how the European Parliament is using its internet television channel,
EuroparlTV, to communicate with its citizens. Whilst research objectives 1 and 2 were addressed in
the previous section, in the form of a review of literature in the areas of the democratic deficit and
the media coverage, objective 3 takes this research one step further by collecting empirical data for
further analysis. Research objective 3 aims at exploring how the European Parliament is using the
internet for its external communication. As became apparent in the literature review there is a lack
of research in this particular field, which makes this piece of research the first but hopefully not the
last of its kind. The rest of the chapter is structured as follows. It will first present the overall
strategy and a justification of this. This will be followed by a subsection on data collection and how
it is to be collected and a framework for data analysis. The chapter will end with a brief discussion
on limitations to these findings and potential problems.
The overall research strategy will be that of a case study. Creswell (1994) defines the case study as
being a single instance of a bounded system, such as a community, whereas Nisbet and Watt (1984)
believe it to be a specific instance frequently designed in order to illustrate a general principle. Yin
(2009) on the other hand believes this definition to be too abstract and narrow in that the line
between phenomenon and its context is often blurred making it more difficult to define a case study
so tight. According to Cohen et al. (2011, 289), Yin argues the case study to be “a study of a case in
a context and it is important to set the case within its context”. It is essential that the researcher
presents the case very accurately and especially the context in which it is analysed as observer bias
is a general criticism of a case study (Nisbet and Watt 1984). There have been several claims of the
strengths and weaknesses of the case study. One of the strengths of the case study is that it provides

us with examples of real people in real situations, rather than merely presenting abstract theories. In
this particular case it is interesting to see how the European Parliament actually portrays itself as a
communicator rather than some abstract and maybe normative approach on how the Parliament
should communicate. Furthermore the insights of the case study may be directly interpreted and put
into use which research objective 4 aims at. One of the aims of the case study is also to contribute
towards the ‘democratization’ of decision making by making the evaluation of data more publicly
accessible in order for the reader to judge the implications of a particular study for themselves
(Cohen et al. 2010, adapted from Adelman et al. 1980). A claimed weakness of the case study is a
potential lack of control over extraneous variables which can affect the outcome of the study
making it difficult to draw cause and effect (Shaughnessy et al. 2003). Furthermore Dyer (1995)
stipulates that a process of selection of data has already taken place and that only the author knows
what has been selected. These are reasonable points of criticism but they all depend on how
thorough and clear the researcher is at presenting the case and choices in regards to data. Hence the
critique is more against the limitations of the researcher rather than the method itself. The claimed
weaknesses of the case study does however to a large extent not apply to this particular case study
in that the collection of data is being undertaken in a static environment where no extraneous
variables are likely to occur. Whilst the case study does have its weaknesses one could argue that
these are up to the researcher to eradicate in order to avoid methodological shortcomings. The study
of a particular case in this instance is highly relevant as it gives the researcher the opportunity to
gain access to not only public available information but also more crucially how it is presented and
interpreted by the recipient.
The sampling target of this case study will be a selection of the audiovisual materials that the
European Parliament produces for its web television, EuroparlTV. This television channel “aims to
inform EU citizens about the Parliament's activities and how it's Members shape political

developments and pass laws that affect people's lives across Europe” (The European Parliament
2013). EuroparlTV has three overall channels, Parliament News, Young Parliament and Discover
Parliament. The collection approach will be that of observation of the Discover Parliament
channel. The content and purpose of these three channels are different from each other with a
unique target audience. Parliament News is the channel that most resembles a traditional news
channel with coverage of current affairs and up-to-date coverage of the day-to-day politics in the
European Parliament. Young Parliament on the other hand is focusing on providing educational
material for school-age children and lastly and which will be the focus point for the data collection
is the Discover Parliament. This channel is less news-oriented and more focused on explaining the
Parliament in a European history and integration perspective and not just on contemporary issues.
The channel is divided into six sub-categories:
History
Videos in this category are presenting some of the most significant historical events of the European
Union. Key pieces of historical policies is also presented.
Political Groups
Videos in this category are presenting the political groups of the Parliament and their political point
of view.
How it works
Videos in this categories are a presentation of the institutional design of the European Union and the
functioning of its most important institutions. Furthermore key policies are presented in detail and
how they are functioning in practice.
Flashback
The videos in this category are similar to the history category in that they analyse historical political
events but from a more political point of view rather than purely historical.
Starting Point

The videos in this category aim at starting political debates around political sensitive issues like the
use of genetically modified organisms (GMO).
MEP Portraits
In this category various Members of the European Parliament are presented and interviewed for
their political views and policy goals.
The data collection will be within these sub-categories in order to gain a comprehensive overview at
how the Parliament portrays itself to the wider public. The reason for using the Discover
Parliament is to get a better picture at what the Parliament deems to be important issues that
demands attention. Furthermore it gives us a unique insight as to what “ordinary” citizens are seeing
when they watch these videos. This is of vital importance as research point to the fact that people
are increasingly seeking information from the internet making these videos crucial to the broader
understanding of the European Union as a whole and especially the European Parliament. The
underlying understanding being that if these videos are portraying the EU negatively then people
are more likely to be negative towards the EU. In the literature review it was furthermore
established that a significant contributing factor to the communicative deficit is the lack of a
common language. So a highly relevant question in this regard is also which language the
Parliament uses in its communication and whether there is a pattern in its choice of language. The
questions that need attention are:
– How is the Parliament portraying itself through the videos in the Discover Parliament
category?
– Which language is being used as means of communication in these videos?
In order to answer the first question we need to establish some parameters upon which we
determine this portrayal. By watching every video and assigning them a numeric value we are able
to grade them in terms of their portrayal of the given content. Each video will be assigned either a

-1, 0, 1 in order to reflect whether the video is being critical of the EU, neutral, or positive in its
message. -1 is given to a video where the overall sentiment and message is negative towards the
European Union. Examples of this could be videos that highlight or comment on the perceived
democratic deficit or EU policies portrayed negatively. 0 is given to a video in which the coverage
is deemed to be neutral with no emphasis on particular strengths, weaknesses or problems of the
EU. The assumption is that most videos will fall under this category one would believe the
Parliament to produce videos that are descriptive with a focus on information rather than conflict.
+1 is given to videos in which the overall sentiment is positive towards the EU. Examples of this
could be videos that portray treaty reforms or policies and how they having a positive effect on the
EU and its citizens. There is an argument to be made that the European Parliament, would tend to
produce videos that fall within this category as there is no logic in them highlighting their own
institutional or political weaknesses thereby undermining their legitimacy. It is more likely that they
would produce material that support and highlight their success rather than pointing out potential
failures. It should however be pointed that in principle there is a limit as to how positive these
potential videos can be and the quantity. There is an assumption that if there are too many videos
portraying the EU solely from a positive angle then the channel would lend itself to criticism of bias
and maybe even political propaganda.
It is obvious that some degree of observer bias will be present due to the fact that whether a video is
positive or negative is to a large extent dependent on the observer and how the subject perceives the
presented content. This bias should however not be seen as a weakness but as a strength in that
communication by its very nature is subjective and dependent on the observers inherent preference.
It is a strength in that the researcher is getting exactly the same information as the intended receiver,
the citizens of EU member states. The researcher must pass judgement as to whether the message in
the videos are positive, negative or neutral in their portrayal. One could obviously have lengthy
debates on how these terms should be categorised but this author would argue them to be self-

explanatory or at least to a degree where the small deviations would not factor into the overall
findings. It must also be noted that the grade of each video can be found in the appendix in order to
avoid potential accusations of data manipulation.
– What languages are being used as means of communication in these videos?
In order to answer the second question in regards to the language being used in the videos we need
to establish the main characters in these videos and the language they use. This is especially to
investigate whether the videos mirror the policies of procedural language like the Commission
employs English, French and German as working languages. This particular question relates to the
school of thought that believes that one of the reasons as to why the European Union is suffering
from a communicative deficit relates to the fact that no singular official language exists within the
EU system. The question is whether the Parliament is adhering to this line of thought and
communicate in one singular language or whether they keep a focus on diversity. It must be
assumed that if the Parliament chose to communicate in only one language then that would have an
affect on the overall perception of the institution. Please note in this regard that a longer discussion
of the political choices and their potential effects are to be discussed in the findings section. The
aim is to analyse the choice of language from a quantitative perspective in order to see how the
Parliament is treating the question of language as a variable in their videos. An assumption here is
that the choice of language is not random and that some sort of selection has been made before
recording these videos. This is important as the findings then lend themselves for further
scrutinising as these decisions have a significant impact on how the Parliament chooses to
communicate.
There are some potential problems and limitations that must be addressed before going any further.
The limitations lie in the fact that these research results only relate to political communication made
through the web television channel, EuroparlTV. Hence the preliminary results and conclusions

relate only to how the Parliament use their own web television channel to communicate and not
how the Parliament communicate in general. One can furthermore see a limitation in the research
strategy is it might seem limited in its scientific scope. However as argued earlier the strength of
this particular strategy lies in its immediate applicability. It aims at giving an exact and fulfilling
picture at what and how the Parliament communicates to its citizens through EuroparlTV. The
strategy gives insight into exactly what recipients of this communication strategy see and it is the
role of the researcher to not only present this accurately but also dissect the findings in order to
discover their true meaning. As argued earlier one of the potential problems of using case studies is
the potential observer bias both in regards to the selection of research objects and the eventual
findings. Whilst it obvious that the discussion and analysis of the findings are of a subjective nature
the findings themselves are not in that no beforehand selection has been made in regards to the
dataset and research objects. The only selection that has been made in regards to the research object
has been to focus solely on the Discover Parliament channel. The strength of focusing on this
channel is that the research objects are static as the videos are not likely to change. This gives the
reader a comprehensive look into how and what the Parliament is communicating and the variable
in this case becomes the observation and analysis of the researcher. The data collection is
transparent and in this regard it should be emphasised that the reader is able to cross-check the
findings with the actual research objects as they are publicly accessible through the internet. Hence
the question of whether the research is reliable must be considered as irrelevant in that all findings
can be traced back to their original source.
In summary the literature review pointed to a lack of research in how the European Parliament uses
the internet to communicate with its citizens. The rest of the thesis will concentrate on the findings
and discussing them in relation to the overall question on the democratic and communicative deficit
of the European Union.

Chapter 4: Findings
The complete data set is available in Appendix 1 and consists of 223 videos of which 27 were
unavailable through the Parliaments website bringing the total to 196 videos available for further
analysis. The reason as to why the data set in its entirety is in the appendix is due to the inherent
subjectivity of the findings. As argued earlier one of the potential weaknesses of the case study is
the inherent subjectivity and potential observer bias. One way to avoid this is to attach the
observations for others to dissect and potentially disagree upon. It is crucial for the legitimacy of the
findings and to the overall thesis that these numbers are disclosed.
Table 1: How are the videos portraying the Parliament / EU?
Categories 1 0 -1 Total
Number of videos 102 83 11 196
Percentage 52 42 6 100
It becomes apparent from table 1 that the Parliament mostly portrays itself and the EU neutrally and
positive. In this regard it must be noted that the dataset does not distinguish in the portrayal of the
Parliament and the EU as a whole. The MEPs were almost unanimously in support and positive of
the Parliament and the EU. The rhetoric sentiment in the subsection with the MEP portraits was
positive. Only Nigel Farage, a member of UK Independence Party and an outspoken Eurosceptic,
voiced his opposition of the European Union. Interestingly most of the traditional Eurosceptic
MEPs who were interviewed were not negative towards the Parliament but emphasised instead the
importance of there being a representative from their particular country and region. There seems to
be distinction in point of departure as some MEPs argue for deeper integration from an ideological
perspective where deeper integration is a goal, whereas other reflect on what the EU and Parliament
can be “used for” and see EU institutions as a mean for achieving a political goal. Interviewees
were given questions as to what they believed to be important for the EU and what policies the

Parliament should pursue and only two MEPs addressed the democratic deficiencies of the EU.
The findings suggest that the Parliament does not question its own legitimacy or the legitimacy of
the EU as a whole. The MEP who are being interviewed are portraying the EU rather positive and
do not question the underlying legitimacy upon which the policy-making process depends upon.
One could argue that it is worrisome that almost every MEP when asked do not question their own
legitimacy especially in the light of declining voter turnout, which in theory erode the whole
democratic foundation upon which the European Parliament is built. It is only natural to question
the legitimacy of an institution that shows declining popular support. Whilst it falls outside the
scope of this thesis to discuss the political ramifications of the falling popular support it is
interesting that no MEP addresses this potential fatal development.
The videos in the Flashback category mostly portray the Parliament, their influence, and the
policies from a positive perspective, which to a large extent was expected from a logical
perspective. It would not be logical if they produced content that was negative in sentiment towards
the EU. Some of these videos simply present successful EU policies, how they work and the effect
they are having on EU citizens. They are however portraying these policies as if they are without
flaws and they do not present the criticism that has been voiced especially against the Economic and
Monetary Union which has been heavily criticised in recent years. Not even the Common
Agricultural Policy is being criticised even though there seems to be almost a political consensus in
the Parliament over its shortcomings. Non of the videos in this category mentions the democratic
deficit or democracy in the EU in general. In the how it works there are some mentioning of the
democratic deficiencies of the Union but they portrayed them as being temporarily and that these
deficiencies have been eradicated through various treaty reforms. Interestingly in this category
citizens were able to ask questions and the questions relating to European democracy were
answered purely from an institutional perspective in that the when asked about enhancing
democracy the answer was always to enhance the role and power of the Parliament. In other words

they did not respond to what seems to be the inverse relation between voter turnout and the
development in Parliament powers.
Table 2: What languages are being used as means of communication in these videos?
Language English French German Other
Number of videos 97 98 56 84
Percentage 49,5 50 29 43
Number of languages spoken Only 1 Only 2 3 or more
Number of videos 99 62 41
Percentage 51 32 21
From table 2 it can be observed that English and French are the most used languages as they are
featured in half of the videos. This obviously does not come as a surprise as they are the most
common languages spoken throughout the EU and especially within the EU institutions. It is
however interesting to notice that German is only featured in 29 per cent of the videos, which in
turn might suggest that there is no correlation between the working languages in the Commission
and the practices of the Parliament making these videos. Turning to how many language feature in
each video the numbers are surprising. Whilst 99 or 51 percent of the videos are in one language
this number is not representative in that 64 of them are the MEP interviews in which they all
communicate in their native language. The real number should be 35 videos in only one language or
18 percent which is rather surprising as it would be natural to communicate in one language. This
low percentage suggests that the Parliament is not actively pursuing communicating in one
language or promoting the use of only one language throughout the EU. Furthermore the figures in
general do confirm that no editorial choices have been made in regards to linguistic choices.
Interviewees were free to choose the language in which to communicate resulting in videos with
multiple languages going as high as 7 languages in one video. Whilst there is an argument to be
made that these videos reflect the linguistic diversity throughout the EU one could argue that it
comes at the cost of coherence in that this great variance in languages might suggest disagreement

over choice of spoken language. As an observer it becomes clear that no linguistic communication
pattern exists making it difficult to argue that they would an impact on the communicative and
democratic deficit of the EU. The fact that all the MEP who are being interviewed are using their
native language merely reproduces the deficit in that it is hard to argue for one common language or
at least maybe just 2 or 3 when MEP's themselves are reluctant to do that. It is interesting to see the
extent to which these national tendencies seem to prevail even though arguments have been made in
favour of greater Europeanisation. As argued in the literature review a precondition for a European
identify is a common language, which by judging from these findings seem highly unlikely. The
European Parliament does indeed not communicate in one singular language and hence it is natural
to conclude that it does not believe the linguistic differences to matter in regards to the democratic
challenges.
A final observation in regards to the findings and one that is important is the degree to which the
Parliament web channel is trying to engage in a conversation with its citizens through these videos.
A vast majority of websites today have the features for people to be able to comment on the content
of a particular page in order for feedback and discussion. The videos here do not have these features
and the only way to interact with these videos is to share the link for them on Twitter and Facebook,
which must be considered a rather limited way of communication. Whilst it is hard to conclude
whether it is a conscious choice from the Parliament not making these videos interactive it does
however lend itself to the possibility. Conversation and debate lies at the heart of any modern
democracy and one could therefore question why the Parliament has chosen not to enable this very
direct communication with its electorates. There is of course always the risk of extremist comments
deafening the voice of constructive feedback but those are the rules in a democracy. Furthermore no
viewer statistics are present on the website making it nearly impossible to measure their impact on
EU citizens and how they portray the Parliament and EU as a whole. Whilst these statistics would
not have given any qualitative measurements as to how these videos are influencing the viewer they

would be a quantitative tool for measuring the success of these videos in terms of viewings.
Chapter 5: Conclusion
In conclusion it is unlikely to believe that the videos in the Discover Parliament are likely to have
an influence in regards to the democratic deficit of the European Union. When the Parliament
addressed the deficit in the videos they only perceived it to be a question of institutional reforms
and that it was purely a matter of giving the Parliament more power. They fail at discussing the
democratic deficit in depth which leaves an overall impression that speaking about the democratic
deficit is like the elephant in the room due to the fact that they mention it in the videos but fail to
discuss it further and potential future ramifications. In recent years and especially in the wake of the
economic crisis, Euroscepticism has been increasing. Arguments like the fact that the Parliament
has gained significant legislative powers over the years does not seem to influence Europeans who
are increasingly feeling themselves detached from the European integration. It is highly problematic
and maybe even symptomatic that their own representatives do not recognise and address these
concerns. When the Parliament fail at this they are running a risk at alienating their own
constituents thereby increasing the same democratic deficit they are trying to close.
Turning to the fourth and last research it becomes apparent that the Parliament must address
democratic more directly that what has been the case previously. The only way to reduce the
democratic deficit is by engaging with citizens and recognize that the EU is not a perfect
institutional set-up but a work in progress. The EU and especially the Parliament are relatively new
institutions where public support is crucial. However by ignoring the obvious facts and general
public sentiment the discussions about the democratic deficit are not constructive and usually tend
to be discussions on the very existence of the EU rather than a democratisation. The parliament
must make use of these videos in a more constructive way and engage the wider public in debates
on the legitimacy of the EU and especially the Parliament instead of producing videos that to a large

extent ignore the very existence of a democratic deficit.
This thesis has shed some much needed light on the communicative practices of the European
Parliament in the area of internet communication. Further research could go further and analyse the
editorial choices made by the producers of these videos in order to gain a better understanding as to
the decisions made in the creation of the videos. The thesis has given an overview as to how the
Parliament uses its internet television channel to communicate with its citizens. The next logical
step would be to investigate how citizens are experiencing these videos and try answer questions
like how many are watching them and whether they feel better educated on the EU after watching
the videos and whether their attitude towards the EU has changed.

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