Based on our previous studies[1], our paper discusses the topics addressed during the recent Romanian protests, by emphasizing the fact that the messages spread out during the street demonstrations did not consider the European Union as an important actor and did not connect the general discontent with European decisions and measures. Citizens, politicians, opinion leaders and journalists focused their communication on national issues and referred seldom to Europe. Moreover, the few messages that conveyed EU topics, were in fact underlining the national ones, through a slightly nationalistic perspective.

Considering the fact that it is more adequate to discuss about national public spheres in Europe rather than a European public sphere and drawing on the previous study on the absence of EU-related topics on protests in Romania and Turkey[2], our paper aims to underline the way national and European topics have been used during the Romanian protests in 2011 and 2012.

At this point it is important to clarify that in this paper we’ll use both EU-related topics and European topics, as in the Romanian public space they overlap. There are no significant differences between EU and European topics, as European Union means Europe and, to a certain extent, the Western world. Accordingly, in our study we’ll use both terms as they are being addressed in the Romanian public space.

Theoretical considerations

The study of the way messages are being structured and convey topics, by highlighting ones and leaving in the behind others, and the nationalization of the public debate are rooted in public space theories. This investigation must consider the high importance that media plays in the way communication in public space is being structured and in choosing the topics. Agenda setting theories show that media’ influence has to be understood by analysing first of all the topics within the media. Accordingly, our analysis considers the public space theories such as Habermas, McGuigan, Dacheux and the conceptualization on the media public space[3]. There is no doubt that we are living in a mediatised world and accordingly we have to consider the fact that communication in public space draws its content from the media message. Moreover, public space implies an interaction between social actors with different opinions and interests[4]. Accordingly, public space should be a space of both constructive and contradiction debate, a realm of mediation between civil society and state[5]. But analysis of communication within public space show that in fact, public space is quite far from being a space for discussion that would lead to public negotiation of topics of general interest. In reality, as Dahlgren notes, public space is a constellation of communication spaces that allow the spread-out of information and tend to facilitate debate in a certain way[6] . This particular constellation implies a negotiation of identities and interests, thus leading to a functional and instrumental public space as Dahlgren considers. This negotiation addressed by scholars[7] fails most of the times, as it does not succeed to reduce to common to common denominator different interests, as Bastien and Neveu expect.

The discussion about public space must consider also Habermas’ conceptualization of public sphere[8]. As the German philosopher notes, public sphere should be a communicative space in which relatively unconstrained debate of the political order takes place. Habermas discusses also on the criticism of the politics and political decisions, by this fostering the idea that politics spreads-out the topics, and citizens respond. Implicitly, the public space takes over the topics spread-out by politicians and accordingly is not able to impose new topics. As showed in our previous studies[9] the Romanian public space is dominated by a reactive communication and its actors respond to political issues. These actors are not able to generate new topics.

Another aspect studied by our paper is the connection between the national topics and the European topics in the public debate, fostered by the Romanian street demonstrations. Scholars argue that the absence of these topics in the national public agendas and debates are strongly connected with the absence of an EU public sphere which goes back to the weak European identity[10]. This paper tries to investigate how the public agenda in Romania is being structured during the recent protests and how it involved European topics. We depart from the idea that it is difficult to discuss about a European public sphere and that European identity is one of the most important challenges of the EU. We are facing a European public agenda on the margins of national agendas, fact that endorses the general lack of interested towards EU.

Methodology

Our paper implies a quantitative content analysis of the media coverage of the protests that took place in Romania in 2011 and 2012, by monitoring the national newspapers „Adevărul”, „Evenimentul zilei” and „Jurnalul Naţional”. We have grouped the topics according to their reference to national and European topics and also according to their content. We monitored a total number of 734 media articles, 254 in „Adevărul”, 123 in „Evenimentul zilei” and 357 in „Jurnalul Naţional”. We must mention that there are significant differences between 2011 and 2012 involving national and European topics in each newspaper. In 2011 „Adevărul” had 26 articles about European topics and 100 articles involving national ones and in 2012 we can observe that there are 32 European topics, and 96 national topics. With an overall negative attitude towards the protests, „Evenimentul zilei” released fewer articles both in 2011 and 2012. In this newspaper, there were in 2011 45 articles covering national topics and 12 articles covering EU topics, while in 2012 we found 51 articles with national topics and 15 that addressed European ones. In „Jurnalul Naţional” the protests were considerable visible. Even if the protests ended, this newspaper continued to write about them. In 2011, 18 articles addressed European topics and 123 addressed national topics, while in 2012, we encountered 24 and respectively 192.

Also, we have grouped the content of the messages in eight major topics: Education, Romanian society, Health, Job loss, Salary cuts, Labour code, Gas price, and Political corruption. Our main interest was to see whether these national topics referred to EU. We must mention that there are no European topics directly addressed during the protests. On the other hand, we found national topics that conveyed European issues. So, European references are part of the national topics in order to justify the political decisions,

All the newspapers we have analyzed have broadsheet format and nation-wide distribution. The unit of the analysis was the news story and we have not limited our search to the front page.

Discussion

Our study revealed that there are few topics regarding the European Union and that the public agenda of the Romanian protests comprises national levels topics. When communicating during the protests, different actors referred to topics spread-out by politicians, who tend to include EU in their messages only to justify certain measures and actions. Overall, we found 607 national topics and 127 European, respectively 82,69% compared to 17,30%. In 2011 and 2012, we found 127 references consisting the European issues: 45,66% in „Adevărul”, 21,22% in „Evenimentul zilei” and 33,07% in „Jurnalul Naţional”. It is important to note the visible differences in addressing European topics, as there is a significant higher visibility of these in „Adevărul” and a significant lower visibility in „Evenimentul zilei”. When analyzing this visibility we must take into consideration the overall visibility of the protests and the newspapers attitude towards them. „Adevărul” presented the protests with both positive and negative attitude, while „Evenimentul zilei” strongly supported the Government at that time had a significant negative attitude. On the other hand, „Jurnalul Naţional”, a well know newspaper supporting the opposition, has an overall positive attitude towards the protests and street demonstration that took place in Romania in 2011 and 2012. In all the 607 articles we found national topics, so the these were most frequently: 32,28% in „Adevărul”, 15,81% in „Evenimentul zilei” and 51,89% in „Jurnalul Naţional”.

The data we collected showed with no doubt that the national topics were most frequent and that European topics were less dealt with during the protests that took place Romania in 2011 and 2012. Although we encountered few European topics, we analyzed them and tried to see their connection with the national ones and to deconstruct the public agenda. In this respect, it is worth mentioning that there were some national topics that conveyed European issues, especially in the articles that compared the national economy with the European economy. Accordingly, the European topics were not addressed distinctively nor were they interesting for the Romanians. This is mainly due to the fact that EU decisions are rather far from the everyday life of the Romanians, as happens in all European countries. It is not surprisingly at all to see that the discontent and resentment of the public are not connected with the EU, but with national decision makers. The messages were not about Europe, nor about Europeans. They were about economy and politics in Romania, although these are highly influenced by the decisions and measures taken in Brussels. Our study reveals that the agenda during the protests taking place in Romania was focused on national topics and addressed directly the Romanian political class. The European politicians and rulers were completely ignored and left behind. Another important aspect that must be pointed out is the fact that Romanian politicians tended to ‘blame’ the European Union, by mentioning some European political leaders’ declarations and some EU decisions.

Another aspect revealed by our study is the way Romanian protesters refer to the European Union. „Adevărul” notes that Romanians tend to trust more EU institutions than the national ones. Europe is seen as something unreachable and sometimes as a model of good governance and good organization. „Adevărul” mentions that this is a paradox, as Romanians tend to forget that European leaders forced Romania to be Monetary International Fund’ experiment. This inconsistent attitude overlaps also with the lack of European topics during the protests. Romanians tend to trust EU in general, but don’t seem to know what it could influence their everyday life.

The three newspapers that we have monitored, wrote about how the protests that took place in Romania reflected in the Western European press. Romanian journalists mentioned the fact that European press focused on the general public resentment against the governance and less referred to Dr. Arafat[11]. European topics addressed by Western newspapers regarding the Romanian protests were focused on the economic crisis and were seen as a response to the European economic crisis. Western European newspapers discuss about the very hard austerity policy to which Romanian adhered to. Romania was also presented as the sixth country whose government resigns due to protests against the austerity policy and economic crisis.

The third element that we need to consider when discussing the European topics is connected with the visibility of the Monetary International Fund, to which Romanians refer to during the protests. This international organization is seen in direct connection with EU and is considered as a national enemy. The messages addressed underline its attempt to transform Romania in a colony: Niciodată nu vom fi colonie FMI (Never will we be MIF colony).

Conclusions

Although the data collected through our monitoring did not surprise us in terms of interest for EU-related topics, we are in position of underlining some interesting aspects of communication within the media public space in Romania during protests. First of all, we found out that European topics are being addressed through an instrumentalist approach. Both politicians and protesters refer to EU and Europe in order to endorse a message, by using them in order to justify actions. If politicians refer to European topics in order to justify the austerity policy they have adopted in response to the economic crisis, protesters send messages with European topics in order to underline through contrast their lack of trust for the Romanian political class.

Second, if we were to look on how Europe is being addressed in the public space in Romania, we would easily see that there is a lack of interest for EU-related topics and for European issues. Although Romanians state that they trust EU institutions more than they trust their national ones, they don’t discuss about them, nor they express opinions about them.

Third, it is worth mentioning that regardless of the domestic topics encountered in the public space during protests (eg. Education, Health, etc) the relationship between national and European topics could not be revealed. More precisely, the European topics were not more frequent in a certain domestic topic. In fact, depending on the contextual situation, different actors used European or EU-related topics in order to underline a specific message, but did not elaborate on the particular European or EU-related topic.

 

References

1. Bârgăoanu Alina, Examenul Schengen. În căutarea sferei publice europene (București: comunicare.ro, 2011).

2. Bastien Francois, Neveu Erik, Espaces publics mosaïques. Acteurs, arènes et rhetoriques des débats publics contemporains (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1999).

3. Beciu Camelia, Sociologia comunicării și a spaţiului public (Iași: Polirom, 2011).

4. Daba-Buzoianu Corina, Cirtita-Buzoianu Cristina, „Inquiring Public Space in Romania: A Communication Analysis of the 2012 Protests”, Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 81 (2013): 229-234;

5. Daba-Buzoianu Corina, Cirtita-Buzoianu Cristina, „Media Picture Politics: a Communicational Analysis of the Romanian Media Public Space”, in Antonio Momoc (coordonator), Revista Sociologie Românească, Mass-media, new media și criza actuală (Iași: Institutul European, 2013), 19-28;

6. Daba-Buzoianu Corina, Erdogan Tosun Gulgun, Toker Huriye, ‚This is not about Europe!’ The absence of EU-related themes on the agendas of recent Romanian and Turkish protests, in Loredana Radu, Alina Bârgăoanu, Nicoleta Corbu, The Crisis of the European Union. Identity, Citizenship and Solidarity Reassessed (București: comunicare.ro, 2013), 154-173.

7. Dahlgren Peter, „The Internet, public spheres and political communication: dispersion and deliberation”, Political communication, 22 (2005): 147-162.

8. Habermas Jurgen, Sfera publică și transformarea ei structurală, (București: Comunicare.ro, 2005).

9. Offe Claus, „Is there, or can there be, a ‚European society‘?. In Katenhusen, I., Lamping, W. (Eds.), Demokratien in Europa. Der Einfluss der europäischen Integration auf Institutionenwandel und neue Konturen des demokratischen Verfassungsstaates, (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2003).

10. Verhofstadt Guy, Ieșirea din criză. Cum poate salva Europa lumea (București: comunicare.ro, 2012), 230.

11. Wolton Dominique, Informer n’est pas communiquer (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2009).

 

 

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