Same Topics with Different Meanings? Social Networks and the Trans-Nationalization of Issues and Frames in European Public Policy Agendas

This chapter considers the trend towards the trans-nationalization of political problems, focusing on two dimensions: the Europeanisation of debates inside the E.U. and the changes in the digitalized media ecosystem generating processes of inter-media agenda setting. The case-study analyses the public attention generated by two referenda: the UK Brexit referendum and the Italian constitutional reform referendum promoted by Matteo Renzi. Through the analysis of primary data, the research yields three main findings. It confirms the existence of political and media imperatives underlying the increasing sharing of agendas; it documents the limits of such sharing—obstructed, for example, by the tendency to domesticate issues—and it throws light on the logics characterizing the various national Twitterspheres.