Mediatized Transnational Conflicts

Asimina Michailidou and Hans-Jörg Trenz have written a book chapter on the politicisation of the EU in online media in the volume The Dynamics of Mediatized Conflicts.

The book is edited by Mikkel Fugl Eskjær, Stig Hjarvard and Mette Mortensen and is part of Peter Lang's book series on Global Crises and the Media.

About the book

This book engages with the mediatized dynamics of political, military and cultural conflicts. In today’s global and converging media environment, the interrelationship between media and conflict has been altered and intensified. No longer limited to the realms of journalism and political communication, various forms of new media have allowed other social actors to communicate and act through media networks. Thus, the media not only play an important role by reporting conflicts; they have also become co-constitutive of the ways conflicts develop and spread.

The first part of the book, Transnational Networks, addresses the opportunities and challenges posed by transnational media to actors seeking to engage in and manage conflicts through new media platforms. The second part, Mobilising the Personal: Crossing Public and Private Boundaries, concerns the ways in which media framings of conflicts often revolve around personal aspects of public figures. The third part, Military, War, and Media, engages with a classic theme of media studies – the power relationship between media, state, and military – but in light of the mediatized condition of modern warfare, in which the media have become an integrated part of military strategies.

The book develops new theoretical arguments and a series of empirical studies that are essential reading for students and scholars interested in the complex roles of media in contemporary conflicts.

Online media and the Eurocrisis

In chapter 2 of the book, Michailidou and Trenz analyse the fragmented character of online discussion forums concerning the Eurocrisis. The financial crisis from 2008 onwards has challenged the EU institution and the Euro. The emergence of online discussions has amplified the contestation of EU financial and economic policies. At the same time, the traditional providers of international news have been challenged by a popular voice in the online forums of various news media. Through a comprehensive analysis of the two most popular online news media in seven countries, the authors document how news coverage was dominated by technocratic news framing in which EU and national political elite actors acquired a prominent position in coverage of the Eurocrisis. The new genre of news commenting came to challenge this framing of professional journalists and elite sources.

Full info

Asimina Michailidou/Hans-Jörg Trenz
Mediatized Transnational Conflicts: Online Media and the Politicisation of the European Union in Times of Crisis

In: The Dynamics of Mediatized Conflicts
Mikkel Fugl Eskjær, Stig Hjarvard and Mette Mortensen (eds)

Peter Lang, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4331-2809-7

Published Aug. 20, 2015 12:15 PM - Last modified Jan. 29, 2022 10:12 AM