Agenda Setting for European Parliament Election debated at Cambridge

On August 2nd, 2010, Drs. Nicoleta Corbu and Valeriu Frunzaru presented a paper on the Romanian media agenda for the 2009 European Elections at the Interdisciplinary Social Sciences international conference, section Media and Communications, Cambridge, UK.

The conference was held at the University of Cambridge, UK, and brought together researchers from all over the world and was organized in several sections, among which Anthropology, Archaeology, Cultural Studies and Humanities, Psychology, Cognitive Science and the Behavioral Sciences, Economics and Management, Media and Communications, Politics, Public Policy and Law, Education and Social Welfare, Research Methodologies, Quantitative and Qualitative Methods etc.

The paper presented the findings of a research conducted within a research grant, The Media Construction of Europeanization as Public Problem in The Context of European Integration of Romanian Society. The director of the grant is Dr. Constantin Schifirneţ. Following the general objective of the grant regarding the study of television as an agent of Europeanization, the authors conducted a content analysis of the main TV newscast of the Romanian public television channel (TVR1) and the most important news specialized private channels (Realitatea TV and Antena 3), as well as the television debates broadcasted on the public channel and its local affiliate channels (TVR3).

The research focused on the main European topics debated and presented in TV news and debates during the entire 2009 European election campaign, having as a background the theoretical frame of the agenda setting function of the press. Among the most prominent topics were the European Parliament, structural funds, and UE policies. The economic aspect ranked fourth in a hierarchy of the most discussed topics.

A copy of the presentation here.