The European Union in the media coverage of the 2019 European election campaign in Italy: towards the Europeanization of the Italian public sphere

This article investigates the patterns of Europeanization of the Italian public sphere during the 2019 European Elections campaign. Europeanization is meant as a multifaceted process. The visibility and salience of the European Union (E.U.) within the public debate is realized by dynamics involving different actors, in terms of interactions, connections and contaminations between different public spheres. The aim of the article is to clarify whether and to what extent the Italian media covered the E.U. during the European Parliament (E.P.) elections campaign and more precisely to assess through which dynamics of Europeanization the E.U. entered the domestic public debate. We relied on data from a human content analysis carried out on 10 Italian media outlets during the seven weeks before election day. Our findings suggest that, compared to 2014, the visibility of E.U. and E.U. related issues is increasing within Italian media coverage. Italian media still maintain a neutral approach to the issue, resisting to Eurosceptic claims from political parties and public opinion. With regard to the Europeanization, we found that media tend to focus on the vertical dimension especially, providing visibility to domestic actors addressing the E.U. and its political actors. Elements of horizontal Europeanization, instead, are mainly referred to events from other E.U. member states, with few connections among political actors. All in all, our results confirm the idea of a growing centrality of the E.U. within national public debate combined with signals of more structured and substantial Europeanization.