How media shape political trust: News coverage of immigration and its effects on trust in the European Union
| Author | Claes H de Vreese,Erika J van Elsas,Anna Brosius |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1465116519841706 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
How media shape
political trust: News
coverage of immigration
and its effects on trust in
the European Union
Anna Brosius
Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University
of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Erika J van Elsas
Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University
of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Claes H de Vreese
Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University
of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Abstract
Attitudes towards immigration are among the core predictors of attitudes toward the
European Union. However, even though most citizens learn about immigration through
the media, we lack a comprehensive account of how media coverage of immigration
influences support for the European Union. In this study, we use a combination of
European Social Survey and Media Claims data to investigate the effects of the visibility
and valence of immigration and refugee media coverage on political trust in the
European Union in 18 countries between 2012 and 2016. Our results show that
media coverage of immigration and refugees influences trust in the European Union;
however, the effects depend on citizens’ ideological leaning and content characteristics.
Furthermore, we find that the impact of immigration attitudes on trust in the European
Union becomes more important over the course of the refugee crisis.
Corresponding author:
Anna Brosius, Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe
Achtergracht 166, 1018WV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Email: a.brosius@uva.nl
European Union Politics
2019, Vol. 20(3) 447–467
!The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116519841706
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
Keywords
European Union, immigration, media, political trust
Introduction
‘A democratic political system cannot survive for long without the support of a
majority of its citizens’ (Miller, 1974: 951). In the European Union (EU), support
for democracy and political trust in the EU have fluctuated considerably over the
last decade (Armingeon and Guthmann, 2014). Even though levels of trust have
recently recovered, still less than half of the European citizenry trust the EU
(European Commission, 2018). EU trust, like political trust in general, is a form
of evaluation (Kasperson et al., 1992). Extant literature suggests that trust in the
EU is based on rational evaluations, identity considerations, and cues from nation-
al politics (Harteveld et al., 2013). The recent electoral successes of anti-European
political actors are often attributed to a particular subset of identity considera-
tions: anti-immigration stances (Hobolt, 2016). Even though these are usually
conceptualized as a part of citizens’ identity, these attitudes might also relate to
policy and performance evaluations, particularly in times of increased immigration
to the EU and shared European responsibility for immigrants.
Most citizens learn about political developments through the media; this applies
to information about immigration flows and policies as well as to broader EU
politics. However, there is no comprehensive account of the kind of media content
that may change trust in political institutions, and particularly the EU. Following
the European refugee crisis, Eurobarometer (European Commission, 2018) trends
show that immigration has become the citizens’ leading concern at the EU level.
Media reports about the EU’s important role for issues surrounding immigration,
such as general border control, the Dublin Regulation, or the 2015 Refugee
Relocation Scheme, have arguably made immigration more salient and thus a
central issue for evaluations of the EU. Our study sets out to investigate the
impact of media coverage of immigration on political trust in the EU, studying
changes in the information environment across 18 countries and over three time
points (2012–2016). By combining European Social Survey (ESS) data with the
ESS Media Claims dataset, we are able to explore the effects of media coverage
over the period of the European refugee crisis, when immigration to the EU
changed considerably. This set-up allows us to make three major contributions:
First, we distinguish between the effects of media coverage of general immigration
and the particular effects of the coverage of refugees and asylum seekers. This is an
important, yet overlooked distinction, given that citizens can have vastly different
attitudes towards different types of immigration. Second, we distinguish between
sheer visibility of immigration media coverage and its valence in order to assess
which features of immigration coverage are of consequence. Third, we consider the
448 European Union Politics 20(3)
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