This paper aims to assess to what extent the growth of the Euroscepticism, along with the effects of the economic crisis, may have affected the public debate on the European Union in Italy. With the purpose to understand (different) dynamics in EU media coverage we will compare media coverage during (a) election campaign and (b) political routine. More in detail, we suggest that: (1) Eurosceptic political actors are positively correlated to the EU salience compared to other political actors within the news coverage; (2) news stories concerning economic and financial issues are positively correlated to the EU salience compared to other political news items; (3) the EU coverage is negatively framed since both the consequences of economic and financial crisis as well as Eurosceptic political actors emphasize critical issues.
We rely on two original datasets based on a content analysis carried out along: (a) the 50 days prior the 2014 EP elections on four mainstream newspapers and four mainstream TV newscast and (b) a random selected sample of 42 days between May and November 2015. As regard the dataset concerning EP election campaign, a total of 4,328 news items have been coded.
Two multivariate models (logistic regressions) will explain the determinants of EU salience on media coverage.
