Premium
The Great Non‐Communicator? The Mass Communication Deficit of the European Parliament and its Press Directorate *
Author(s) -
ANDERSON PETER J.,
McLEOD AILEEN
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/j.0021-9886.2004.00534.x
Subject(s) - parliament , political science , turnout , public administration , public relations , mass media , political economy , law , sociology , politics , voting
This article was prompted by the poor turnout for the 1999 European Parliament elections and the failure of MEPs since to address effectively key causes of electoral apathy. It focuses on the extent to which the Parliament's press and information directorate, DG‐III, and to a lesser extent, MEPs, are successful in handling their relationships with the mass media, given that the latter is a crucial means of communicating images of the Parliament to the electorate. Having unearthed serious inadequacies in the communication performance of the Parliament, the article investigates the causes of these and the likelihood of their being addressed. The article largely reflects the situation with regard to press and information policy as far as it could be discerned up and until March 2002 (with the exception of the website and external office updates which were undertaken during 2003). Among other things, it paves the way for further studies of the relationship between the European Parliament and the media which will focus on the recent 2004 elections.