Workshop

Euroscepticism in EU election e-debates: Coding online text

WP 5 - Civil Society and the Public Sphere  

WP 5 events

Oslo, 14-19 September 2009

Venue: University of Oslo, Henrik Wergelands hus, room 301.

Within the framework of WP 5 - Civil Society and the Public Sphere, one sub-project focus on Euroscepticism as advanced in public discourse, particularly on the internet. WP 5 partners have taken stock of the scholarly literature on Euroscepticism in a variety of member states, available as individual country reports. Common themes, actors and forums for Eurosceptic discursive practices have been identified in several member states, with a particular focus on the campaign surrounding the European Parliament elections of June 2009.

This workshop will gather researchers from RECON partners for one week of intense training in quantitative and qualitative computer-based text analysis. The participants will engage in a comparative discourse analysis of Euroscepticism in European Parliament election campaigns on the web.

With existing scholarly attention predominantly focused on party politics and public opinion, the nature and dynamics of Euroscepticism online appear relatively unchartered. The focus in the study will be on how Eurosceptic discourse is developed and challenged in interactive internet discussions on professional journalism websites and political blogs. The results will be interpreted to assess the nature of Eurosceptic discourse, compare across countries and websites, study the extent to which ‘Europe’ features in the election campaign, and evaluate the online European public sphere in light of existing knowledge on its ‘offline’ counterpart.

Read more on the research objectives of WP 5 and on the overall research objectives of RECON.

Practical information (pdf)

Programme

For further information, please contact: Asimina Michailidou or Sindre Hervig