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7th ECPR General Conference

Sciences Po Bordeaux, Domaine universitaire,

11 allée Ausone, 33607 Pessac Cedex/ FRANCE

4 - 7 September 2013

The ECPR Standing Group on Southern European

Politics

Section 50

The Consequences of Crisis for Southern Europe

Panel 5: Media Representations of the EU Crisis: Stereotypes,

Prejudices and Emotions in Southern Europe

Title: Presenting the EU crisis to Portuguese public opinion: A study on media coverage

Susana Santos, CIES-IUL, salcs@iscte.pt

Draft version (please do not quote)

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Abstract

This article analyzes the ways in which the main Portuguese media outlets presented and discussed the economic crisis in Europe in 2012.

Methodologically the paper combines content and discourse analysis. Quantitatively we examined 19,024 television, press and radio news reports categorized as follows: big story, broad story topic, actors, geographic focus and format. The conclusion of the analysis undertaken by the Project Journalism and Society is that the twelve big stories in 2012, paint a picture of a country constantly concerned about its future economic and social situation and of a people who are acutely anxious about their future.

Examples of these concerns with the future are: the state budget for 2013, the general strikes of 22 March and 14 November, the Portuguese deficit slippage, the cuts to the number of holidays and the Christmas allowance for civil servants and the reform of labour legislation.

Particular attention is given to the dependence on Europe, and in particular the on the Eurozone, in resolving economic and social problems (unemployment in the Eurozone, the Greek crisis, the rescue of Spanish banks and elections in Greece).

The discourse analysis focuses on a small number of events that have selected for their importance in the construction of stereotypes and prejudices about other European countries, such as Greece, Spain and Germany. News coverage of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Portugal, the Greek elections and the bailout of Spanish banks are analyzed. These events are representative of the significant role the media has in constructing an image of Portugal compared to other European countries.

Keywords: Public sphere; media coverage; austerity measures; economic crisis; stereotypes; Portugal; discourse analysis

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Introduction

This paper has two main goals. The first goal is to contribute to the debate over the national and European public sphere. The concept of the public sphere, as initially proposed by Habermas (1989 [1962]), has in recent decades played a central role in media studies. The timeliness and relevance of the concept has been put to the test by the range of political, economic and social transformations since the early 1960s. Globalization, accelerating technological development, growing media literacy, the creation of global media conglomerates, the competition within and deregulation of social communications are just some of the phenomenon that help to explain the passage from a public sphere based in the nation-state to one that is transnational (Lunt and Livingstone 2013: 89-90).

However, the creation of a transnational public sphere is far from a given. The economic crisis affecting the Western democracies may result in a return of the nation-state. Authors like Dani Rodrik (2011) claim the reasons for the economic crisis are due to the irreconcilable and vast gap between the governance of an economic globalization that transcends the nation-state and national regulation that is only applicable in the internal market. The European economic crisis has made visible a whole series of latent problems within the European Union (EU) and the Eurozone, such as the deficit in the representation of smaller countries compared to the more populous and between the economically strong and the economically weak. The growing visibility of these problems has spilled over Europe’s borders to become a topic of global debate.

The New York Times leader of 14 April 2013 is a good example of this.1 Entitled ‘Europe’s bitter

medicine’ it recounts how over the past two years countries like Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy, which are in a fragile financial situation, have been forced to introduce policies of fiscal austerity and structural reforms to the social state in order to resolve the Eurozone’s financial and economic problems. The editorial ended with an appeal to European leaders to reverse their economic policies and to help the struggling countries by issuing Eurobonds that will allow economic recovery and job creation.

Nevertheless, the national media has a key role to play in the construction of the public sphere, given its central role in the public debate, informing and forming public opinion through the reporting, interpretation and analysis of events. Discussing and analysing the ways in which they present the economic crisis is of extreme importance for an understanding of such phenomenon as the formation of dominant public agendas. The media’s presentation of the economic crisis to the public is elaborated through the construction of narratives about the crisis, in which they feature a number of actors, select problems and prospects for solutions, present conflicts and alliances between nations and construct and reinforce preconceptions and stereotypes about certain people.

Second, we will present data from a current research project analyzing the production of news in Portugal. The project, ‘Journalism and society’ (PJS),

2 which began in September 2011, is monitoring the

news produced by the main media outlets (television, the print media and radio) on a daily basis. The first annual report, ‘State of the News 2012’ chose the twelve most important news stories of the years, based on such criteria as importance and news visibility (number of coded items, presence in headlines, number of days the story ran and the space it was given).

The conclusions of the PJS analysis is that the twelve news stories that are most present provide us with a portrait of a country that is permanently preoccupied with its economic and social future alongside an intense anxiety over the future for individual Portuguese. Also of note is the attention given to how the resolution of the national economic, social and political problems depends on what happens in Europe (Eurozone unemployment, the Greek crisis, the Spanish bank bailout and the elections in Greece).

1 www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/opinion/europes-bitter-medicine-of-austerity.html?_r=1&. The leader

was printed in the newspaper on 15 April. 2 Available at futurojornalismo.org/np4/home.html. Follow the blog at estadodasnoticias.info/

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Public sphere(s)

Habermas’s idea of the public sphere is based on an idea of modernity as a triumph, an enlightened society that opens its public spaces, the cafes, to bourgeois intellectuals who find in them a place in which they can discuss and share their ideas of the world using a rational logic that favours communicative over instrumental reason. Communication is by messages with a meaning, that are shared and successful in the sense that, ideally, the interlocutors adopt common sense rather than private or factional interests. Equally and ideally, it is a space that is open to all citizens, a space of mediation between the government of a country, or of a community and of a civil society. The central activity within the public sphere is its linguistic interaction, it interlocutors’ capacity to express themselves and to debate.

The idea of the public sphere, as it was first defined by Habermas in 1962, is not isolated from the era in which it was written and from the participation and contribution of the author to this same social space: post-war Germany. According to Pierr Guibentif (2010: 163ff) Habermas was very much aware of the ways in which the German Federal Republic (West Germany) was defined as a democratic state, whether in its public administration, its universities and in the relationship between the opinions propagated through the press and through intellectual circles and the formation of the opinions of German citizens.

The formation and propagation of ideas lies at the centre of the concept of the public sphere and the importance of the formation of a public space in which this debate takes place. His initial design of the concept focused on individuals with the ability to form opinions and in the restricted circles in which these debates could take place. This conceptualization was criticized by many researchers who emphasized the implied restricted vision of justice that was applicable only to members of the public sphere, leaving those who did not belong (women, the illiterate, illegal immigrants) on the other side of the wall (Fraser 1992; Calhoun 1992).

This type of exclusion is characterized as a form of solidarity that is communitarian and not cosmopolitanism accepting only those who participate and who are integrated within the sphere, excluding all those who do not enjoy such recognition (Chouliaraki 2013). This idea is important if we are to understand how journalists choose who they interview, how they select from within the vast universe of the possible only those who belong to the media community and who are accepted by others as integrated members of this community.

Haberman (2006) claims that the concept evolved from the idea of a concrete physical space, a place where people meet, in order to realize the potential for communication and its consequences, whenever and wherever it takes place. This greater flexibility enables the concept to be used to explain methods of communication through the internet and on social networks. This view brings Habermas close to Luhmann (1995; 2000) and his understanding of the centrality of communication and of the communication flows in contemporary societies.

The public sphere is equally a mechanism of democratic legitimation, a physical and symbolic space in which citizens form connections between themselves and the state, a means of recognizing the social contract between the state of law and its citizens (Esteves 2002).

In this paper we share the definition of the public sphere as a physical or virtual space for the circulation of communication on matters of general or common interest.

The public debate generally takes place, within the boundaries of the nation-state, where one series of factors external to the debate facilitate its existence. These factors are: the national media, the legal framework, the governments, the political parties, the voluntary association and the interest groups. However, we cannot say there is a national public sphere, since there are several forms of differentiation. In first place the public, the existence of a national audience hides the fragmentation of an audience based on ideological positioning and individual class, interest in political affairs, participation in social life, media literacy and exposure to the media.

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Second is the means of communication. Here the differentiation exists in terms of quality, prestige and circulation. One outlet may be considered for its quality, that is to say it is socially recognized as a producer of information and of opinions with the ability to influence political and social life, through the involvement of recognized intellectuals from various areas who aim to express their opinion on particular matters, whether political, economic or cultural. However, the quality media, which is generally associated with the press, has a much lower circulation than the popular or tabloid media. Moreover, several authors have debated and presented empirical evidence on the rise of ‘infotainment’ within the media: particularly on the television news (Brants 1998), and on its effects on the public debate (Jebril et al. 2013). Quality is therefore clearly associated to the notion of prestige, its ability to influence the political, economic and cultural elite, and also its diffusion and legitimation of the dominant culture (Örnebring and Jönsson 2004). There are spaces for debate and reflection in the electronic media, particularly in blogs; however, these do not yet have the visibility, credibility and the legitimacy to lead public debates ahead of the mass media (Rasmussen 2013). They are not protagonists, but they are increasingly seen as an alternative platform for citizens in accessing more sources of information and in shaping their opinion. The national public sphere centred on means of social communication — particularly television (Wolton 1994) as the creator of a sense of community and of shared experiences between citizens, and which also affirms the creation of national identity (Anderson 1993) — has been put at risk by the circulation of information of diverse geographic origin. Information technology allied with the growing technological and linguistic literacy of users/members of the public, have made possible the development of several spheres of a supranational nature that is organized not on grounds of geography or national identity, but rather by a shared set of common interests and individual characteristics. Several studies have demonstrated the power of the internet as a means capable of generating public debate on themes of general interest, confirming its potential as a support space for democratic deliberation (Rasmussen 2013). The nature of the internet is in tune with individualization theory, offering each user the ability to find personalized information in accordance with their nature and desires. Individualization theories note the increasing need for individuals to the personal awareness associated with personal autonomy through a process of ‘individualization’ and the weakening of links with such institutions as the family, political parties and the world of work, leading to a severing of links and connections that transform the individual into an atomized being, hyper-conscious of their reality and of their problems, but separated from one another and from the external reality.

The digital media provides the individual with the space in which they can express their personal opinions on the most varied matters, with greater or lesser argumentative force and using various types of media: images, text and video. As well as the space being potentially infinite, these comment boxes, blogs, personal webpages and social networks make a significant difference in the time axis. Unlike traditional means of communication, the internet offers real-time participation, which has substantially altered the forms of interaction between the media and the user. What happens in practice is that individuals with similar characteristics and interests can enter into discussions over the internet, they can share the same discussion forum and user the same language, or at least understand the language used in the conversation.

The linguistic question is extremely important and cannot be ignored. Currently many of the national means of communication of reference publish articles from other, international, means of communication, translating them from their original language.

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3 For exemple, the Syndicate project brings together the opinions of leading thinkers from around the

world. It is available in 11 languages and comments from it are published in newspapers of record throughout the world, including Público and Jornal de Negócios (Portugal), Die Welt (Germany), Sole 24 Ore (Italy), The Guardian (United Kingdom) and China Daily (China). See www.project-syndicate.org.

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For example, in economic matters the Portuguese media has often used translations of articles from The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Time and The Guardian without this affecting the ability of readers of the national media searching for and accessing this information in its original language on the internet. Rather, the effects appears cumulative, with people who have read the translation of the article in the national media then searching for the complete article in English on the original site and thereby gain access to more information and more sources, both national and international. In this way the journalist’s labour has entered a new phase – that of gatekeeper, selecting the information (as it always has) and offering its public the ability to see the source of the news while at the same time helping define an internet search path, assuming the role of mediator between the information source and the reader.

The national sphere and the European public sphere(s) at a time of economic and financial crisis

The European political project needs a European public sphere to legitimate it in the eyes of its citizens. This is Habermas’s (2012) view, which is also shared by a large number of European scholars (Bauman, Beck, Giddens, Sassen, Wierwiorka, etc.) who believe the democratic deficit of European institutions cannot be overcome without the construction of a space for debate and the circulation of information that is open to all European citizens. The existence of a European public sphere could also function as an external sounding board for European institutions (parliament, commission, central bank) to the extent that they announce a series of topics relating to decision-making processes within the institutions.

According to Habermas (2012) it is possible to create a post-national discourse that takes the differences into account. The public sphere as a space that is open to democratic deliberation can function within a network of relations and interconnected communications flows, in different languages, integrated and reproduced by different social groups and open to minorities. Within this space, Habermas claims, the problems and proposed solutions are put to the test as part of the deliberative process that will select the solutions following debate and the sharing of opinions with a common general aim (Chambers 2003). In this case, legitimacy derives not from the number of direct participants in the process, but rather in the process’s ability to involve and integrate the participants’ diversity (Rasmussen 2013: 102).

The existence of a European political sphere lacks empirical evidence. The research that has been carried out has had contradictory results. The studies by Peters (2004) show that the word ‘us’ is practically non-existent in the lexicon used to describe Europe. Transnational flows exist only in segments of European erudite culture, such as literature and fine arts. However, there is no empirical evidence that the intensity of communications flows between artists in the 21st century is substantially different from the cultural exchanges of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Peters (2004) concludes there is no European public sphere, but that there is a transatlantic public sphere rooted in the communications flows of mass and erudite culture (scientific and artistic), in which the North American influence is clearly privileged in Europe. According to Rasmussen (2013) any analysis of the European public sphere should focus on the relations and interconnections created between the media and the European agenda.

Study design, methodology and working hypotheses

Following the review of the concept of the public sphere and of the European public sphere, we now seek to test its existence within the Portuguese media. While it is not possible at this stage of the research to compare the discourses on the European economic crisis between the media in the different European countries, particularly on the question of external intervention, in the media in the countries of Southern Europe and those countries at the centre of Europe.

The role of the media in the formation of a dominant media agenda has been discussed theoretically. Now is the moment to test it empirically. We begin with the hypothesis that quality newspapers produces a series of analyses of the economic crisis that are capable of providing information promoting an understanding that does not promote the stereotyping of each nation that is more associated with the popular or tabloid press.

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Given the geographic extent of the economic crisis, we also suggest the hypothesis that the analyses found in quality newspapers combine varied information about Europe that helps the reader with their understanding of a complex phenomenon.

This paper uses data collected in 2012 as part of PJS.4 The methodology is exclusively quantitative, while

the goal is an in-depth analysis of a significant event that took place in Portugal in 2012. To achieve this we used discourse analysis techniques supported by the specialized software program atlas.ti.

The choice of event was based on the following criteria: 1) appearance in the three sections of the media (TV, press and radio); 2) large number of reports; 3) persistence in the news; and 4) reference to countries in the Eurozone. The event chosen was Angela Merkel’s visit to Lisbon, which appeared a total of 59 times in news articles, news reports, opinion pieces and editorials.

5 The main reason for selecting

this event was the fact that it dealt with the visit of the head of state of the country with greatest responsibility in the conduct of European economic policy within the Eurozone to a country that is the recipient of external financial support. Once the event was chosen, we then selected the means of communication.

The newspaper Público was chosen mainly because it is a quality newspaper that is identified with the formation and propagation of the views of the political, cultural and economic elite. In this study we were interested in understanding what kinds of references and images concerning the economic crisis were carried in media outlets that have an impact on the public sphere. Público is also a pro-European newspaper, established in 1989 to rub shoulders with the leading European quality newspapers (Público 1998) and which has, since its launch, had the support of a group of journalists and commentators who are experts in European affairs.

The event: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Portugal

The news of the German Chancellor’s visit to Portugal gained much coverage in the Portuguese media. The one-day visit was reported 72 times according to the PJS news index. On the day of the visit, 12 November, it accounted for 59 of the 108 news reports analyses: more than half of the entire day’s news reports.

Figure 1: Number of news reports about Angela Merkel’s visit to Portugal published per day in Portugal

4 During 2012, the PJS codified a total of 19,204 reports.

5 The 59 reports correspond to all of reports from 12 November analysed by PJS, independently of the

media outlet or sector. The discourse analyses contained 19 texts about the event published in Público.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

15

.10

.201

2

31

.10

.201

2

08

.11

.201

2

09

.11

.201

2

12

.11

.201

2

13

.11

.201

2

Nº

of

rep

ort

s

Press

Television

Radio

Total

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Context

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Lisbon took place on 12 November 2012, one-and-a-half years after Portugal’s request to the troika of the European Union (EU), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) for a financial bail-out. The Portuguese government’s strategy in its negotiations with the Troika was fundamentally about the imposition of more radical austerity measures than those originally defined and its unconditional support for the German government within the EU.

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Its support for the German government had made it impossible to form alliances with other bailed-out countries, such as Greece, Ireland and, more recently, Spain and Cyprus.

Discourse analysis of coverage in Público

The collection and processing of the articles published in Público, both in terms of the scale of the information and in the formation of opinion enables an analysis of the relationship between the discursive field of the social construction of the reality and the practical and creative uses to which they give rise in daily practice.

Público gave prominence to the German Chancellor’s visit to Lisbon. It was headline news for two days, and was the subject of 19 articles spread over the days of 8, 9, 12, 13 and 15 November. Of all the items published, ten were articles and reports describing the visit and the meetings between the Chancellor and the Portuguese government and with German and Portuguese entrepreneurs, with two of these being editorials. A total of seven items were opinion columns written by journalists, university professors and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

Figure 2: Público’s coverage of Angela Merkel’s visit to Lisbon

The large number of opinion pieces as a proportion of the newspaper’s coverage demonstrates the importance this event had for the newspaper’s editorial management. As well as informing, by presenting a detailed report of the visit and of those involved, the newspaper sought to reflect on the relationship between Portugal and Germany in the European context, and to that end it published a set of opinion columns by several specialists in the areas of contemporary history and international relations.

The decision to publish opinion columns rather than news reports has been a recent trend in Portuguese journalism. It is a choice that has consequences for the national public sphere both in terms of information flow and the creation of public opinion. The space dedicated to information in newspapers, especially in quality newspapers, is increasingly occupied by opinion columns in which specialists contracted by the newspaper outline their views on current events. The phenomenon has resulted in a narrowing of the topics discussed (which are chosen by the columnists who tend to move between the newspapers) and deprives the readers of access to more information with more diverse sources and content.

6 Following the bailout request, the government led by José Sócrates (PS — Socialist Party) resigned and

a general election was called. These elections took place on 5 June 2011, resulting in a coalition government of two right-wing parties, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), led by Pedro Passos Coelho of the PSD.

53%

10%

37%

Articles

Editorials

Opinion columns

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We must stress that despite the context of the economic crisis, there were no articles by economists or financial experts. The historical and political interpretations were given more precedence over economic interpretations of the event.

Starting from the set of published texts, the analysis was organized in blocks with the first goal to discover the frequency of references to Europe, Germany and Portugal and to those other countries that, like Portugal, share, albeit with different intensities, the Southern European crisis: Greece and Spain.

The analysis of the frequency of references show that the cases of Greece and Spain were marginal in the published texts: Spain was mentioned once, while Greece was referred to five times. Second, the references to Europe had an important value in the discourses produced, which seems to contradict the notion that Europe and the EU had become of less value in relation to the nation-states from which it is formed. However, it is worth remembering that we are analysing a pro-European newspaper (for the reasons outlined in the methodology) and that these references are present in the discourses of members of the Portuguese political and cultural elite, who are generally more cosmopolitan and pro-European than the general population.

Third, there are more references to Germany than there were to Portugal, despite the event taking place in Portugal. On the day of the visit, Germany was mentioned 30 times in the published text, while Portugal was only mentioned 17 times.

Figure 3: Number of references to Europe, Portugal, Germany, Spain and Greece on each day of coverage

We then created a series of categories designed to distinguish the way in which the images of each country are constructed in public opinion and propagated through quality newspapers. The categories were elaborated according to grounded theory (Strauss 1987; Strauss and Corbin 1998); that is to say, they were not decided from a defined analytical framework without first using the words contained within the text as a starting point for the construction of the categories. The virtual absence of Spain or Greece in the texts about Angela Merkel’s visit to Lisbon made it impossible to include them in the analytical categories. For this reason we created three large groups: Europe, Germany and Portugal.

0 10 20 30 40

08-11-2012

09-11-2012

12-11-2012

13-11-2012

15-11-2012

Number

Reference to Europe

Reference to Spain

Reference to Germany

Reference to Portugal

Reference to Greece

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Figure 4: Discourse analysis categories

Europe debate and discussion Europe Lack of democracy in Europe

The future of Europe Opposition to austerity Post-war Germany A good partner in the past German taxpayer

Germany German investment German isolation Germany the good friend Pagan Germanic goddess Lessons from Germany Portugal the foreign protectorate

Portugal the recipient Portugal Portugal the good student / the nerd

Personal and individual blame Economic eugenics Useless Portuguese

We then created a map of associations between the categories being analysed. This map allowed us to identify those categories that are associated among each other through the degree of occurrence, which varies between 0 (no relationship) to 1 (very close relationship). The categories most related were: Post-war Germany with A good partner in the past (1-3); Lessons from Germany with Germany the good friend (2-14); German taxpayer with Personal and individual blame (4-5); Personal and individual blame with Economic eugenics (5-7); German taxpayer with Useless Portuguese (4-11); Personal and individual blame with Useless Portuguese (5-11); Lessons from Germany with German isolation (2-13); German taxpayer with Portugal the recipient (4-18); Economic eugenics with German investment (7-12); Economic eugenics with Portugal the good student (7-16); Lack of democracy in Europe with The future of Europe (9-10); Useless Portuguese with Portugal the foreign protectorate (11-17); and Portugal the good student with Portugal the foreign protectorate (16-17).

Figure 5: Strength of association between categories

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 TOTALS:

1 0.57

2 0.86

3 0.46

4 0.52

5 0.66

6 0.26

7 0,47

8 0.10

9 0.23

10 0.49

11 0.59

12 0.24

13 0.65

14 0.71

15 0.12

16 0.88

11

17 0.38

18 0.13

Colour key:

0

0.01 to 0.1

0.11 to 0.2

0.21 to 0.3

0.31 to 0.4 Category Legend:

1- Post-war Germany 2- Lessons from Germany 3- A good partner in the past 4- German taxpayer

5- Personal and individual blame 6- Pagan Germanic goddess

7- Economic eugenics 8- Europe debate and discussion

9 - Lack of democracy in Europe 10- The future of Europe

11 - Useless Portuguese 12- German investment

13- German isolation 14- Germany the good friend

15- Opposition to austerity 16- Portugal the good student

17- Portugal the foreign protectorate

18- Portugal the recipient

The analysis of the relationship between categories allows us to state that the discourses are produced in a circular manner; that is, that the arguments used represent a standard between the causes and consequences of the economic crisis in Portugal and in Europe. Portugal and the Portuguese are identified as being responsible for the crisis while Germany appears split into two temporally distinct realities. The Germany of the post-war period is identified as a friend of the European nations, while contemporary Germany is associated with an isolationist European policy and for the active role the Germany taxpayers play in the search for strategies for resolving the economic crisis.

The discourse on Europe

Europe, and more specifically the EU, is presented and debated within the pages of Público as a political and social space at a crossroads. The reflections appear associated with significant moments in Europe’s recent past, such as World War Two, the Marshall Plan and German reunification. Europe is associated with the democratic deficit of the European institutions that are not legitimized by the direct vote of European citizens.

Fate determined that the EU would arrive at this crisis with its architecture incomplete. We would have wished the EU to be a democracy in which political decisions were legitimated by the 500 million citizens. However, the EU has behaved like a cartel of states (opinion column, 12 November 2012).

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It is also presented as an organization with distant operating methods from the past, such as equality between states in an organization that promotes economic and social inequalities.

Unfortunately the EU is not yet based on the equality of the states, but rather on their inequality: he who can command; he who must obey! The EU has transformed itself into a “dictatorship of the democracies”! (opinion column, 12 November 2012).

Germany is a constant in references to Europe. The discourses produced highlight above all the transformation of Germany’s European policy from one that has, during a first phase extending from the creation of the economic community to the reunification of the country, been characterized as “pro-European”, to a second phase of “isolationism” towards other European nations, that began with the sovereign debt crisis of 2008.

Re-unified Germany continued to be the most “pro-European” of all the large European nations … What the Chancellor must understand in Lisbon, as she must understand in Rome or in Paris, is that a Germany that only sees in Europe a tool to ensure its global power is a Germany that will end up isolated (opinion column, 12 November 2012).

Europe’s future is, according to many of the commentators, only possible if each of the member states is willing to work as a team in order to achieve a common solution that will be in the interest of all countries in the union.

Together, and in partnership, we can face the serious challenges and share the serious responsibilities (opinion column, 12 November 2012).

Europe needs to pull together to save the European project in the only way that it can be saved: finding that which is in the interest of all (opinion column, 12 November 2012).

Europe is present in the Portuguese public sphere, as can be seen through this analysis of the discourses published in Público. However, it is not possible to respond with the same certainty in respect of the existence of a European public sphere in which messages flow between the various European citizens. Moreover, it is possible, via the discourses, to sketch a framework of a Europe constituted by countries with clear assymetries of political and economic power.

Focusing the discussion on Germany and the countries of Southern Europe does not prevent us from perceiving the discourses about the economic crisis in other European countries, nor does it help us establish links between European citizens.

The discourse on Germany

The comments about Germany are constructed from an idea that is common to the several journalists and commentators: the idea of the “good former partner”. The thesis of the good partner is sustained by the series of German policies and political protagonists of the period between the end of the Second World War and the creation of the single currency, the years from 1945 to 2000. The Germany of that time is described as an extremely important partner in the construction and consolidation of Portuguese democracy.

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Germany’s involvement was decisive on the road to democracy and to Europe that Portugal chose to follow after the revolution (12 November 2012).

It was not also for Europe that Helmut Kohl, the reunification Chancellor, was disposed to abdicate the Deutsche mark in order to guarantee Europe would not be German, it ensured Germany continued to be European (12 November 2012).

7 There have been many studies by Portuguese scholars of the relationship between Portugal and

Germany during the 20th century. See Ana Mónica Fonseca (2007) A Força das Armas: O Apoio da República Federal da Alemanha ao Estado Novo (1958-1968), Lisbon: Instituto Diplomático, and (2001) “É preciso regar os cravos! A social democracia alemã e a transição portuguesa para a democracia (1974-1976)”, ISCTE-IUL, doctoral thesis.

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The majority of Público’s journalists and commentators describe contemporary Germany as a country that has stopped being a good partner and which has transformed into a strict and authoritarian teacher who is lecturing other member states, particularly those that are in difficulty.

Merkel is trying to lose the image that Berlin only travels in order to lecture Europe (leader column, 12 November 2012).

Merkel indicated that she would also be willing to support the creation of a development bank in Portugal, replicating the experience of the KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau — Reconstruction Credit Institute), a public development bank created in 1948 to finance German reconstruction after the Second World War (report, 13 November 2012).

The image of the Germanic goddess was associated with the idea of the Portuguese state’s loss of sovereignty to the Troika, and particularly to the German government, and was given shape in the figure of its Chancellor.

Merkel was treated like a demiurge who could with a single gesture cause austerity to stop or start (opinion column, 15 November 2012)

The loss of sovereignty was noted by some commentators not only as something factual, a country that accepts external aid must meet the set of requirements previously agreed between the parties, but above all as something symbolic. The media outlets presented a picture of a country that was incapable of developing its own policies and of a government that listened to international bodies before listening to its electorate. The idea of a Merkel Plan for Southern Europe is a good example of this symbolic incapacity.

Merkel was asked on public television about Portuguese policies, as there was no entity in Lisbon, conventionally called the Government of Portugal, able to respond to these policies, and she was even asked why there was no Merkel Plan for Southern Europe – a Mediterranean version of the celebrated Marshall Plan (opinion article, 15 November 2012).

The resorting to such expressions as empress as a means of introducing Chancellor Merkel accentuated the image of Portugal as a country under foreign occupation suggesting cultural references that would put their readers in mind of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The Chancellor is coming or the empress is coming (opinion article, 12 November 2012).

The “good German friend” is described as a new strategy of German diplomacy in the wake of the failure of the strategy of the authoritarian professor. From a position of total control to the introduction of itself as a European partner will to support states in difficulty.

In Athens, Merkel said the visit was made as a “good friend and good partner” and not to preach, as Germany is often accused of doing (report 12 November 2012).

In relation to the Portuguese situation, during her visit to Lisbon the Chancellor felt the need to state that the austerity measures were an imposition of the Troika and not of the German government.

The austerity that is in place in Portugal is not her imposition (“They are not my ideas”), but rather it is the policy of the Troika (“It was not me who invented them [the measures]”) (report 12 November 2012).

Her speech included a guarantee that Germany was interested in Portugal’s recovery.

Angela Merkel promized to do everything to ensure “there was a happy ending for Portugal” (report 13 November 2012).

The German taxpayer and German investment were also mentioned together. The former was used to reinforce the idea that the German contribution towards the resolution of the economic crisis in Portugal could not substitute the responsibilities for paying Portugal’s sovereign debt.

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But to disagree with Germany is one thing; it is an altogether different thing to simply claim that the German taxpayers are paying the sovereign debts of other member states (opinion article, 12 November 2012).

This idea is reinforced, with irony, in an article published three days later by a commentator who described the Portuguese as useless and dependent on Germany’s economic strength.

(Portugal) a dirty place full of useless people who, as well as refusing to work, pass wind and take siestas after a lunch they cannot afford and which is paid for by the German taxpayer’s generosity (opinion article, 15 November 2012).

German investment is described as pernicious, as was noted in a report published on 8 November about an open letter to the German Chancellor signed by a group of Portuguese.

The come to buy “at knock-down prices” the privatized Portuguese heritage (report 8 November 2012).

The discourse on Portugal

The situation in Portugal at the time of Angela Merkel’s visit emerged between two narratives in the pages of Público. The first emphasized the responsibilities of the country, its political representatives and its people for requesting the external financial bailout. It is a “narrative” of a poor country that for a while lived “beyond its means” benefiting from European growth and membership of the Eurozone in order to achieve unsustainable levels of indebtedness.

This Portugal was portrayed in quality newspapers as being the main architect of its destiny, unable to attribute the blame for its situation on other EU member states. Moreover, this went against the country’s “hospitable nature” that could be seen in its presentation to other member states as a country that needed the help of others, and not just as a partner country with the same rights and obligations as the others.

It has already been repeated, but it seems to be forgotten cyclically, that followed our own path to get to where we are (opinion article 12 November 2012).

We made and chose the road we have walked down. To blame “foreigners” is a classic authoritarian and autarkic reaction that does not suit an open and traditionally hospitable country like Portugal (opinion article 12 November 2012).

This construction of the hospitable and submissive country has external echoes. In an interview, one group of German businessmen with interests in Portugal emphasized the low labour costs that made Portugal more competitive than the countries of Eastern Europe, while at the same time acknowledging the benefits of maintaining austerity measures.

Labour costs have to be kept low and stable over the long-term, and if the measures announced in the labour Bill are confirmed, then Portugal will continue to be preferred to Hungary or the Czech Republic. What Portugal has to do just now is to communicate better with potential investors from Germany (and elsewhere), to tell them of the country’s advantages as a place to establish businesses. It also has to “stay the present political course” (interview 13 November 2012).

Portugal is also an “experimental laboratory” for austerity measures. The example is used by the international partners (IMF, ECB, European Commission and Germany), so it should also be supported by the international institutions.

It would be excellent if one of the Southern European economies lifted itself and proved that the [austerity] recipe is working (statement by Hans-Peter Keitel, president of the Confederation of German Industry, 13 November 2012).

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The second narrative is created in reference to Europe and the EU. Portugal is presented as a country that must have an active voice at the centre of European decision-making and that must, to this end, establish alliances with other countries. This narrative is critical of the Portuguese government’s “uncritical following” of its German counterpart.

Choosing Germany as a “preferential ally” of Portugal would be right if it did not merely signify the unquestioning adoption of its strategy (opinion article 12 November 2012)

It is a country represented internationally by a government that is imposing policies with more serious economic and social consequences than those imposed by the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with the Troika in July 2011.

The government is contributing towards feeding all sort of resentments within the country it rules. By believing with a fervent ideological faith in the virtues of the German recipe for “fixing” the economies of the south, it has left itself entangled in its own trap of an adjustment programme that is not feasible in its current form and which is destroying any prospect of finding a way out of this crisis (opinion artice 12 November 2012).

A government that is accused of practising “economic eugenics”, of natural selection techniques, on its own people.

At the end of this process, they say, the country will emerge purified, stronger and healthier. Pure economic eugenics! (Opinion article 8 November 2012)

According to this narrative, the situation in Portugal can only improve with the presence of a strong Portugal in the European institutions where it can present its ideas and debate alternative responses to the crisis with other member states.

As Europeans it is our responsibility to say what we think of the crisis and of the EU without feeling constrained by Portugal’s present situation (opinion article 12 November 2012).

The metaphor of Portugal as the “good pupil” already has some tradition as a way of defining the relationship between Portugal and the EU.

8 This metaphor is presented as a good thing by those who

defend the first narrative of the Portuguese economic crisis and is attacked by those who hold to the second narrative. For the former, meeting all of the conditions imposed from abroad improves the country’s credibility in the eyes of international bodies. For the latter, the good pupil metaphor suggests a subservience that isolates Portugal within the European context, denying it negotiating power.

The desire to copy the best in the class does not seem to have changed (opinion article 8 November 2012)

Finally, this narrative searches for the causes of what it considers to be the Portuguese government’s “uncritical following” of its German counterpart and its lack of participation in European debates. The responsibility for this is attributed to a Portuguese bourgeoisie that is “more foreign than any other” and who are “foreigners in their own country”.

The Portuguese bourgeoisie is more foreign than any other, not just because the country is small and seems too small for their ambition, but because they are truly foreigners in their own country (8 November 2012).

This assumption of responsibilities can be viewed as a paradox. In a quality newspaper that is read and written by the country’s political, cultural and economic elites, a commentator that belongs to that same elite claiming that the reason for Portugal’s inability to have a more active voice in the EU in order

8 Cavaco Silva, prime minister 1985-1995 and presidente since 2006, has argued this in the Portuguese

public sphere since 1985. See www.dn.pt/inicio/opiniao/interior.aspx?content_id=2039800&seccao=Jos%E9%20Manuel%20Pureza&tag=Opini%E3o%20-%20Em%20Foco

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to protect its interests is because of the bourgeoisie that has occupied political positions since the 19th century.

In a society that almost always seeks to import change, the description the elites have made for the past 250 years of seemingly superior foreigners was always a formulation of the desire to be like the foreigner (8 November 2011).

Conclusions

We began with the hypothesis that quality newspapers produces a series of analyses of the economic crisis that are capable of providing information promoting an understanding that does not promote the stereotyping of each nation that is more associated with the popular or tabloid press. Our analysis of the body of news does not confirm this. First, because the articles about the visit of the German Chancellor to Lisbon were not accompanied with information about the present situation of the two countries, the space dedicated to information accounted for 53 per cent of the total journalistic coverage, and that most of this was taken up with reports of the visit of the Chancellor and her entourage.

The decision to publish opinion articles by university professors, journalists and politicians proved unable to fill the information gaps that would enable the readers to gain an understanding of a complex and multicausal phenomenon such as the European economic crisis. The large number of opinion articles serves to confirm the prevelance of communitarian solidarity to the detriment of a cosmopolitan solidarity (Chouliarki 2013), both in the choice of commentators and in the discourses they produced and propagated.

The analysis of the discourses published in Público about Angela Merkel’s visit to Lisbon indicates the fragility of the European public sphere with respect to its ability to circulate and transmit ideas about Europe and its many countries.

References to Europe are based in the relationship between countries and only some countries, in the case of the dominant country, Germany, relative to the countries of Southern Europe that are in difficulty; but this reference is developed in a bilateral direction: the countries of Southern Europe never appear as a group or a single social force. They are fragmented, with each having to deal with Germany and establish a discourse for Germany. The other European countries do not appear in the discourse about Europe, as if the EU and the consagration of equal rights for each nation state were only a mere judicial formality.

Thus, we can confirm that our initial hypothesis, that the analyses found in quality newspapers combine varied information about Europe that helps the reader with their understanding of a complex phenomenon is not proved. The diversity of information was not found in the many texts analysed, whether in the origins of the journalists and commentators, whether in the discourses produced that dealt only with Germany and Portugal, often resorting to the various stereotypes associated with each country.

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