News vs. Opinion Articles on the European Union: The Politicisation of the EU in the Mainstream Press

Abstract This chapter assesses the politicisation of EU in six European countries, by looking at media coverage 29 legislative elections held between 2002 and 2017. Using a combination automated manual methods content analysis, this goes beyond existing studies to examine how Eurozone crises impacted traditional not only terms magnitude but also framing content. unique dataset 165,341 news items, from 12 mainstream newspapers, study answers three questions relevant main goal book: (1) does vary left- right-leaning newspapers; (2) is there difference opinion articles salience tone; (3) what dimensions debates are more prevalent media. Our analysis shows that, after crisis, countries’ diverged than magnitude. However, when we consider articles, differences within media, left right, become salient. These results confirm role importance for its potential impact on national politics.