Romanian Media Agenda for the 2009 European Elections Nicoleta Corbu Valeriu Frunzaru National School of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest, Romania

Research Project - Objectives “THE MEDIA CONSTRUCTION OF EUROPEANIZATION AS PUBLIC PROBLEM IN THE CONTEXT OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION OF ROMANIAN SOCIETY” 1. Identifying Romanians’ requests regarding europeanization and the channels to transmit and acknowledge these requests; 2. Establishing the extent to which mass media, especially television reflects the projects, governmental or other social actors’ projects regarding the Romanian society’s europeanization; 3. The study of television as an agent of europeanization. 4. Gender representation in Romanian and European Politics

Research questions 1. What are the main topics related to the European Union debated during the election campaign on the public TV channel? 2. What are the most visible topics related to the European Union present in news during the election campaign on the public TV channel? 3. What is the attitude toward the European Union presented in the public debates? 4. Are there any gender-related differences in terms of topics covered in TV debates?

Methodology Method: content analysis Data: Debates: 26 electoral debates (22 hours and 11 minutes) for the European Union Parliament on Romanian Public television channels (TVR1 and TVR3) Newscasts: 29 newscasts on TVR1 (the main TV newscast, 20 o’clock). 740 pieces of news. Units of analysis: Debates: interventions of candidates, supporters of the candidates and moderators Newscasts: - news in the newscasts

General data Debates: A total of 941 interventions of guests, of which 825 (87.7%) regarded the European Union. And a total of 892 interventions of moderators, of which 507 (56.83%) regarded topics related to the European Union. The total amount of time: 22 hours and 11 minutes, of which: 79.5% the guests ’ interventions (time), 20.5% the moderators ’ interventions Newscasts: A total of 740 news were analyzed. Only 13.24% of them (98 news) discussed European topics. Total amount of time of EU news: seconds (3 hours and 42 minutes)

General Background Parties: – PSD (Social Democratic Party) - PC (Conservative Party) Alliance, forming the coalition government since 2008 (70% support in Parliament) [Currently in opposition] – PDL (Democratic Liberal Party) [Currently the party in power, after the November 2009 election] – PNL (The Liberal Party), former ruling party in a minority government after breaking up the alliance with PDL (but supported afterwards by PSD) [Currently in opposition] – UDMR (Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania) [Always forming an alliance with the incumbent party] – PRM (Great Romania Party), nationalist party – extreme right, did not get any places in Parliament following elections in 2008 During the election alliance PRM-PNG (another nationalist party) – PNTCD [National Peasant Christian and Democrat Party]

Election results (number of seats)

Election results and eligible seats by sex PSD-PCPDLPNLUDMRPRMPNTCD Independent Candidates 1MMFMMMF 2FFFMMMM 3MMFMMM 4FMFMMM 5FMMMFF 6FMMFMM 7MMMMMM 8MMMMMM 9MMMMFM 10MFMMMM 11FMMMFM 12FMMMMM 13MFMMMM 14MMMMMM 15MMMMMM

Debates (Guests) - Results

Distribution of guests (by sex and political affiliation)

Distribution of guests (Candidate or supporter)

Distribution of EU related interventions by party

Agenda setting

Sub-topics about the European Parliament

Sub-topics related to EU Policies

Sub-topics related to Structural Funds

Attitude toward EU

Debates - Moderators

Topics covered by the moderators

Topics covered by moderators and guests (%)

Newscast of Public Television

News about the European Union (%)

Place of EU-related news in TVR newscast

Comparison with European Countries (%) Peter Jochen and Claes H. de Vreese (2004) „In Search of Europe – A Cross- National Comparative Study of the European Union in National Television News”, Harvard Journal of Press/Politics 9(4), pp. 3–24.

Debates vs. News. Agenda setting

Conclusions Most prominent topics: EU Parliament, EU Policies, Structural Funds. There are similarities between debates agenda and news agenda. Compared with other countries: during election campaign, European topics are prominent, therefore the Romanian case comes close to Denmark’s situation.