Master Thesis
European Lobby Visibility in Dutch Media
Graduate School of Communication
Supervisor: Drs. Anouk van Drunen
Erasmus Mundus Journalism, Media & Globalization
Sophie Adriana Helena Michielse
10583408
June 27, 2014
European lobby visibility in the media
A qualitative content analysis of Dutch news sources
ABSTRACT
Brussels is now the world’s second biggest center of corporate lobbying power after Washington DC (European Commission, 2001). It is estimated that between 15,000 and 30,000 lobbyists are currently employed to exert influence on EU officials in Brussels (Clerck et al., 2013). The statistics reveal there is a large majority (72 percent) of corporate lobbyists in Brussels, representing business interests (European Parliament, 2003). Several scholars claim that EU corporate lobbyism, while exerting substantial influence on EU policies, remains out of public sight because the media hardly report on it (Corporate Europe
Observatory, 2014). This study draws on theories about EU news coverage and EU lobbyism.
Scholars in this field suggest it is important to investigate media because EU news coverage
affects public knowledge about and attitudes toward the European Union (Boomgaarden et al., 2010). Therefore, this study aims at exploring how Dutch news sources report on EU
lobbyism. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of 106 articles retrieved from Dutch national news sources, it was found that EU lobbyism is not constantly visible in the media and the tone of voice in the articles is mostly negative toward EU corporate lobbyism. KEY WORDS: EU news coverage, EU lobbying, corporate lobbying, interest groups
INTRODUCTION
In the past twenty years a drastic expansion of the European Union (EU) has taken place. As the power of the EU institutions has grown, consequently there has been a huge growth in European Union lobbying over the past two decades as well. Brussels is now the world’s second biggest center of corporate lobbying power, after Washington DC (European Commission, 2001). It is estimated that there are between 15,000 and 30,000 lobbyists currently working in Brussels (Clerck, Haar, & Ebeling, 2013). About 2,600 interest groups have offices in Brussels and there is a vast array of stakeholders operating in the EU public policy process ranging from 300 firms, 843 trade associations, 429 citizen interest bodies, 103 think tanks, 115 law firms and 153 public affair firms (Greenwood, 2011).
The statistics reveal there is a large majority (72 percent) of corporate lobbyists in Brussels, representing business interests. Without rules on transparency and ethics for lobbying, the influence of corporate lobbyists on EU policy-making has largely remained out of public sight (Corporate Europe Observatory, CEO, 2014). The watchdog organization for lobbyism in the EU, CEO, furthermore claims that EU corporate lobbyism, while exerting substantial influence on EU policies, remains out of public sight because the media hardly report about it.
Prior studies on EU news coverage have also suggested that generally, there is a lack of news about the EU (de Vreese, Banducci, Semetko, & Boomgaarden, 2006), because media are often uninterested and skeptical toward the EU (Anderson & McLeod, 2004). Those findings are in line with CEOs observations on lobbyism in the media.
When media do not cover EU affairs, it will lead to a large audience that does not have a clue what happens in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg (Hazenberg, 2013). Eventually, trust in the European project will decrease over time. Public opinion polls show that, in the
Netherlands for example, trust in the EU has gone down from 50 to 28 percent, in just five years (Hazenberg, 2013).
It is relevant to investigate the media coverage of EU affairs, because media can have impact on citizens’ knowledge and attitudes toward the EU (Boomgaarden, Vliegenthart, de Vreese, & Schuck, 2010). In particular, it is interesting to investigate how EU lobbyism is portrayed in the media, because prior empirical and theoretical findings suggest this subject is underreported. This has implications for the legitimacy of the European project, as the EU needs to reach its citizens in order to be legitimate (de Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2006).
These observations lead to the following research question for this study: ‘How do different Dutch news sources report about EU lobby activities?’ The research will focus on visibility of EU lobbyism in the media and the tone of voice regarding lobbyism, because
investigating those indicators will lead to how Dutch media report about EU lobbyism. The theoretical framework will draw upon theories about EU news coverage and EU lobbyism. Through a qualitative content analysis, the paper will investigate several Dutch quality news sources in order to answer how those media report about EU lobby activities.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Media coverage of the EU
Throughout the past decade, the amount of studies of media coverage on the European Union has grown rapidly because prominent scholars in the field generally believe media coverage of the EU can have a significant impact on citizens’ knowledge about European affairs and their support for EU integration (Boomgaarden et al., 2010). As scholars become increasingly aware of the importance of citizens’ support for EU integration and the role the media can play in this process, the theoretical framework of this study will first focus on EU news
coverage in general. Secondly, it will describe the case of EU lobbyism, as the aim of this study is to look at how the media reports about EU lobbyism.
Studies on media coverage of the EU focus on a number of dimensions, such as the visibility of EU news (Peter, Semetko, & de Vreese, 2003), the degree of Europeanization of the news (the news is then explained in a European context, instead of a domestic/national context) (Bruggemann & Schulz-Forberg, 2009), and news framing of EU affairs (Schuck et al., 2013). Although all dimensions are important indicators for researching EU media coverage, this study will focus on the visibility and the tone of EU news only, because investigating those indicators will lead to how Dutch media report about EU lobbyism.
Why is it important to look at media coverage of the European Union? First, news coverage of the EU is important as the media have a potential to impact citizens’ support for European integration (Azrout, Van Spanje, & De Vreese, 2012). Additionally, scholars have focused on the way in which media have an impact on European citizens. “EU news affects public knowledge about, attitudes towards, and support for European integration, enlargement or specific policies” (Boomgaarden et al., 2010, p. 506). In the past twenty years a drastic expansion and deepening of the European Union has taken place. European integration has been subject of scholarly attention since its advent in the 1950s and the legitimacy of the EU is often debated and discussed (Harteveld, Meer, & Vries, 2013). The undemocratic nature of the EU is referred to as the ‘democratic deficit’ and it is regarded as one of the major flaws for European integration (de Vreese, Banducci, Semetko, & Boomgaarden, 2006). Argumentations for claiming the EU suffers from a democratic deficit are threefold: the unelected nature of the Commission, the lack of European parliamentary power in policy-making, and the dominance of national issues. Those factors all reflect a lack of legitimacy of the European Union (De Vreese et al., 2006; Eichenberg & Dalton, 1993).
According to De Vreese et al. the lack of EU legitimacy is viewed as a communication deficit. These scholars claim “EU institutions have been unsuccessful in shaping European identity and promoting the connection between citizens and EU institutions via the media” (2006, p. 478). This observation explains the absence of a sound national political discussion on the expansion of the EU in many member states, leading to a large audience that does not have a clue what happens in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg (Hazenberg, 2013). Additionally, public trust in the EU has gone down, which some scholars view as an effect of the communication deficit of the EU (Harteveld et al., 2013). Public opinion polls show that, in the Netherlands for example, trust in the EU has gone down from 50 to 28 percent, in just five years.
In order to overcome the democratic and communication deficit, the EU needs to reach its citizens. It is important to look at the role of the media in this aspect, because “the EU is dependent upon media coverage to reach its citizens” (de Vreese et al., 2006, p. 481). One way of reaching citizens, is promoting the EU through the media. However, media outlets are often uninterested or skeptical toward the EU (Anderson & McLeod, 2004). This lack of news or negative news concerning the EU and EP will ultimately sustain the lack of legitimacy (De Vreese et al., 2006). Due to a lack of news or negative news about European affairs, the EU does not succeed in reaching its citizens, which is problematic for the legitimacy process of the EU and thus further EU integration. It has become clear it is important to look at the role of the media when looking at the challenges the EU faces at the moment. Therefore the study will investigate how visible EU lobbyism is in the news.
Visibility of EU news
Previous research has put forward that EU affairs are not a constant on the news agenda’s of the EU member states. Instead, news about EU affairs is most visible when events, such as
summits or elections take place (Boomgaarden et al., 2010). When Peter (2004) investigated television news about EU affairs during both event and routine periods, he also came to the conclusion that EU news coverage tends to be cyclical; coverage peaks around events and vanishes of the agenda during routine periods (Peter, 2004). “EU summits and elections are pivotal moments for EU decision-making” (Boomgaarden et al., 2010, pp. 508-509), which explains why news coverage of EU affairs is much more visible on the news agenda than during routine periods.
While researching the media coverage of the 2004 EP elections, de Vreese et al. found that the tone of the news was mostly neutral. In general, explicit evaluations of the news are limited, but when they are existent, they tend to be negative. In general this pattern characterizes the news genre and it applies to political news as well. News, and especially political news, is thus often negative, and in the case of the EU this is not any different (de Vreese et al., 2006).
Exploring the visibility and tone of the news coverage of EU affairs is important because those are expected to influence citizens’ attitudes toward a particular issue. Especially when citizens rely on news media as one of their main sources of information for that issue (Norris, 2000). According to Eurobarometer, an increased amount of citizens rely on television and newspapers as their main source of information about the EU (Eurobarometer, 2007). Additionally, more visibility of EU news will lead to knowledge gains about the EU, and it mobilizes people to vote in EP elections (in particular when the EP campaigns are visible in the media) (de Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2006).
In conclusion, it is important to investigate the media coverage of EU affairs, as the EU is dependent on the media for reaching its citizens. Prior studies show the impact of media on citizens’ attitudes toward the EU, however there is no general agreement on what exactly
the role of the media is when it comes to reporting on EU affairs. The next section will describe the case of EU lobbyism, as the intention of this study is to investigate what the media report about EU lobbyism in particular.
EU lobbyism: a case description
Interest groups and lobbyists have been active in European policy since its creation. However, the size, range and type of interest groups have evolved dramatically in the past twenty years (Coen, 2007). As the power of the EU institutions has grown, there has also been a huge growth in European Union lobbying over the past two decades. Brussels is now the world’s second biggest center of corporate lobbying power, after Washington DC (European Commission, 2001).
In general, scholars agree that interest groups are a familiar reality in western politics and most political scientists agree that public and private interests have a legitimate and important role to play in the public policy process (Richardson, 2000). This is especially true for the European Union. In Brussels, there are more lobbyists than EU Commission and Parliamentary officials altogether (European Commission 2001). There is no precise figure available for the number of lobbyists in Brussels, but it is estimated that 15,000 – 30,000 lobbyists are employed to influence public policies of the EU institutions (Clerck et al., 2013). Scholars agree interest representation of nowadays forms an important part of the European public policy making process. Lobbying is a big business with an estimated 60-90 million Euro of revenue generated annually from lobby activities in the EU (Clerck et al., 2013; Coen, 2007).
As lobbying activities in Brussels have increased drastically in the past twenty years, it is important to understand what role lobby activities play in European public policy. Additionally it is important to understand why corporate lobby groups have more influence on EU institutions than public lobby groups. Statistically it is estimated that business and professional organizations represented approximately 72 percent of EU interest groups compared to 20 percent of public interest groups (Greenwood, 2011). Scholars such as Coen, Richardson, Mahoney and Bouwen (Coen, 2007) have investigated the influence of corporate lobbying activities in European public policy. Bouwen argues the key to understanding the lobbying activities of business interests in the European institutions is to comprehend the relation between these private lobby groups and public EU institutions. Those two interdependent organizations have a relationship, built on interaction and exchange (Bouwen, 2002). For example, it is in the EU institutions interest to interact because they need close contacts with the private sector to fulfill their institutional role. Bouwen has designed the theory of access, a theoretical framework in order to explain the influence of corporate lobbying activities on EU public policy.
“In the context of the EU decision- making process, private and public actors become interdependent because they need resources from each other. The crucial resource required by private actors is access to the European institutions. In return, the EU institutions demand resources that are crucial for their own functioning. I call these crucial resources access goods” (Bouwen, 2002).
Access goods are thus crucial for business interests to gain access to the EU institutions. Information is the basic access good in order to get in touch with EU institution officials. Several authors of the book ‘EU Lobbying: Empirical & Theoretical Studies’ (Coen, 2007) have picked up on Bouwens’ theory because they find information is the most important
resource to study in order to understand the exchange between business interests and the EU institutions.
Access to the EC
The European Commission is the primary focus of the lobbying activity, as the Commission is the agenda-setter of new policy legislation (Pollack, 1997). The Commission is considered to be the most supranational institution in the EU decision-making process. As the agenda-setter, the Commission has the formal right to initiate legislation and is thus responsible for the drafting of legislative proposals (Coen, 2007). Information (the basic access good) is therefore the critical resource for the Commission’s legislative work (Bouwen, 2002).
Because of understaffing and budget constraints in the Commission, the institution is dependent on external resources to obtain the necessary expertise for drafting policies (Bouwen, 2002). Larger firms use more resources for planning and undertaking political action than smaller firms because large players have more resources to invest in individual lobbying (Richardson, 2000). For example, establishing an office in Brussels is costly, and large firms have the resources to invest in representative offices. Therefore, they are more capable of developing direct lobbying strategies than small firms or NGOs.
Access to the Commission continues to be biased towards business interests as two thirds of lobbyists work on behalf of business interests. Civil society and trade unions remain under-represented. According to Greenwood (2011) business and professional organizations represented approximately 72 percent of EU interest groups compared to 20 percent of public interest groups. Figures published in a report from the European Parliament (EP), show the same results: out of 5,039 accredited interest groups 70 percent are business oriented and 30 percent are NGOs (European Parliament, 2003).
As explained earlier on, business groups have a comparative advantage in terms of organizational capacity, financial resources, expertise and information. Due to this insider status and resource advantage of business lobbies, Coen (2007) calls the EU corporate lobby an ‘élite pluralist environment’. In their studies, (Bouwen 2002; Eising, 2008) also relate the EU lobby to the term élite pluralist environment. It means there is a plurality of power in Brussels, because diverse groups are managing to counterbalance the political power of the EU institutions. However, this plurality is unequal, as some groups have more power than others. Scholars refer to the corporate lobby groups as the elitist groups because they have more access to the European Commission due to more financial resources. Eising (2008) explored the concept of élite pluralism via a survey of 800 business associations and 34 firms, and concluded that firms and EU associations have become regulatory interlocutors of the Commission. He even found that political leaders in the EU prefer to deal with large firms rather than small public associations, as large firms have more resources to spend on generating expert knowledge about the implementation of public policies than small public associations (Eising, 2008).
The problem of unequal access
In many different policy areas, business oriented firms lobby for policy-making in favor of its self-interest and private profits (Clerck et al., 2013). According to the NGO Politics for People too many decision-makers in Brussels provide privileged access to big business lobbyists (Clerck et al., 2013).
An empirical example of lobbyists’ influence: Since the crisis hit, banking lobbyists have succeeded in weakening proposals to reform financial markets. As a result the reforms that have been adopted have been designed in a way that puts the interests of the financial sector at the top. The EU institutions have focused on reactive measures (rules and procedures
on how to deal with future collapses of banks) as opposed to dealing with the root causes of the problem by taking effective preventive measures, which represents a victory for bank lobbyists (Vanheste, 2014; (Clerck et al., 2013).
In conclusion, prior empirical and theoretical studies about EU lobbyism have shown a huge growth in EU lobbyism in the past 20 years. Access to EU institutions is easier to obtain for big corporations, as they have the resources to invest more in lobby activities than smaller firms or NGOs. It is argued that the influence of corporate lobbyists can have a negative impact on the public interest, because corporate firms are only focused on business interests.
There is substantial research on EU news coverage and on EU lobbyism in particular. However, the case of EU lobbyism was never linked to media and communication studies about the EU. Scholars who investigated the EU corporate lobby agree that business representatives exert considerable influence on EU policies. In general, media have the role to be so-called watchdogs of society (Bardoel et al., 2002), and report about power and politics. Although the EU corporate lobby is powerful in Brussels, it does not seem like EU lobbyism is represented thoroughly in the media (Corporate Europe Observatory, 2014). In order to investigate if and how the EU lobby is covered in the media, the study will analyze Dutch newspaper articles about EU lobbyism.
METHODS
In order to answer the question ‘How do different Dutch quality news sources report about the EU lobby?’ the paper will make use of a qualitative content analysis (QCA), while investigating news articles retrieved from several Dutch media outlets. QCA allows the researcher to look at the material in an in depth manner and to systematically describe the meaning of qualitative material (Schreier, 2012, p. 5). For those reasons, QCA is the appropriate method to answer the research question of this study.
Sample
This study is based on an analysis of the contents of Dutch news articles of European lobbyism transmitted by the twelve national newspapers (de Volkskrant, NRC Handelsblad, Financieel Dagblad, Trouw, Telegraaf, Algemeen Dagblad, NRC Next, Reformatorisch Dagblad, Nederlands Dagblad, Het Parool, Metro & Spits) and online news platform ‘de Correspondent’ during the following period in 2014: February 26th until May 26th.
After looking for EU lobbyism in all types of Dutch media (television, radio and internet news sources) it was found that newspapers report the most about EU lobbyism. The most data could thus be collected through newspaper articles. Additionally, the Netherlands has a rich and diverse newspaper landscape with its 12 different national newspapers. It would be interesting to compare similarities and differences in their reporting about EU lobbyism. The choice to include (national) newspapers in this study is also based on the fact that an increased amount of citizens rely on television and newspapers as their main source of information about the EU (Eurobarometer, 2007). The choice to include contents of de Correspondent is twofold: it is a relatively new, but very popular website and they employ a ‘EU expert’ who is analytical and critical toward the EU. The three-month period from February 26th until May 26th 2014 was chosen with the expectation of a differing
concentration of articles of EU lobbyism, as the time frame of selected articles is during the 22nd of May 2014 European Parliamentary elections. Campaigning for the EP elections starts intensively two months prior to the elections and therefore there might be an increase in media attention for the EU and thus EU lobbyism, compared to when there are no upcoming EP elections. This expectation is based on the findings of De Vreese & Schuck (2004) who found that more activity on the European level (in this case the 2014 EP elections) leads to more EU reporting in the media.
The online database Lexis Nexis was used in order to retrieve the articles published by Dutch national newspapers. Key words to find articles specific to the study were ‘lobby’ AND ‘Europe’. The publications of de Correspondent cannot be found through Lexis Nexis so instead the following Google search was done: ‘site De Correspondent Europese lobby’. By logging in as a subscriber, twelve articles of this news platform were added to the media sample. A total of 106 articles were filed by the name of the news source and the type of article (news, analysis, column or opinion & debate).
Methodology
The study is structured in two parts: the first and more general part, deals with the quantity
and type of news articles about lobbyism in the EU during the selected time period, while the second part presents the results of an analysis of the textual aspects of those articles.
The paper will make use of a qualitative content analysis (QCA) in order to find an answer to the research question. Through classifying specific information as an instance of a category, the specific information is subsumed under a more general concept. At the same time, categorizing also produces new information about how the cases compare (Schreier, 2012, p. 11). Content analysis is often defined as a quantitative method. Berelson (1952, p. 18) for example says it is “a research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication”. An argument against a purely quantitative content analysis comes from Kracauer (1952). He states meaning is often complex, holistic and context dependent. Thus meaning is not always clear at first sight and needs a closer read in order to determine what it means. Lastly, some aspects of meaning may appear only once in a text. This does not necessarily imply that such aspects are less important than aspects that are mentioned more frequently.
lobbyism is framed in Dutch national media. It first explores the associations made in the articles between lobbying and the European Union. Second it discusses how EU lobbyism is communicated to the readers and what relationship the coded messages seek with the reader. It thus explores the tone of voice of the media messages when reporting on EU lobbyism during the selected time period.
Given the limited number of articles, they can nevertheless be considered as representative of reporting about the EU lobby in the Netherlands, because they constitute the totality of articles published by all national newspapers during the period studied. The process of open coding from Grounded Theory (Schreier, 2012, p. 115) was adapted to build an entire data based coding frame for the analysis. The collected 106 articles were first conceptualized; different parts of the data were marked with appropriate codes to identify them for further analysis. Based on their common properties, the codes were grouped into categories. Finally, the categories were arranged in a hierarchical structure. The framework consisting of codes was constructed in a qualitative data analysis software program called MaxQDA. This program allows comparing and contrasting different codes and documents. Additionally, the MaxQDA tools for both analyzing and visualizing data are numerous.
It was decided to describe the findings in both percentage and descriptive terms, as this will give a complete image of both how often something was said and what was said about EU lobbyism. Thus the method used is a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis, with particular attention to the way in which EU lobbyism is communicated in the media.
RESULTS
In the period sampled in this research, the 13 news sources (12 newspapers and 1 website) published 106 different articles in which journalists reported about EU lobbyism. Reporting
about this topic represented 3,18 percent of the total reporting on the European Union. There was more reporting on EU lobbyism in the period of time when the EP elections in May 2014 took place. When looking for EU lobbyism in the period August - December 2013, only 12 articles were found in Lexis Nexis. It can thus be assumed that EU lobbyism became a more important topic as the EP elections were coming closer; however lobbyism in the EU still only made up a small piece of the total reporting on the European Union.
Figure 1
Total amount of articles on EU Lobbyism by news source and type of article (2014)
Figure 2
Total amount of articles on EU Lobbyism subdivided into type of article (2014)
Figure 1 displays how many articles each news source produced on the topic of EU lobbyism. Most of the articles (21%) were written by NRC Handelsblad. De Volkskrant published 18 percent and online news source De Correspondent published 12 percent of the
total amount of news articles. Of all news sources Het Parool, Metro and Spits published the least articles (4% altogether) on EU lobbyism. In order to see what kind of data was dealt with, the selected articles were subdivided into 4 categories, portraying in which type of section the articles were written, as displayed in Figure 2 (background story, news, opinion & debate or column). Of all selected articles, most articles (42,2%) were background stories, followed by news articles (35,3%). The least articles were subdivided into the categories of opinion & debate (18,6%) and columns (3,9%). Of all their stories, de Correspondent, de Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad published the most background stories. In fact, de Correspondent devoted the greatest amount of their total articles to background stories about EU lobbyism (91,67%).
For the qualitative content analysis, the collected 102 articles were coded; different parts of the data were marked with appropriate codes to identify them for further analysis. Those codes were grouped into categories based on their common properties. To describe the way in which EU lobbyism is portrayed in the media, the topic is broken down into 4 main categories: Representations in the media, opinions in the media and main critiques on EU lobbyism. Finally the approach of journalists on reporting this topic is discussed.
Representations of EU lobbyism in the media
The first main category in order to describe how EU lobbyism is portrayed in the media was ‘Representations of EU lobbyism in the media’, subdivided into negative, positive and neutral representations. Those sub codes and their coded segments will be further analyzed in this section.
The category Representations of EU lobbyism in the media has 135 coded segments in total, of which the most (100) were marked as negative, 22 as positive and 13 as neutral. Figure 3 shows that, in the negative representations category, EU lobbyism was mostly portrayed as being too powerful, unfair and as having excessive influence on EU policies.
Figure 3
Amount of coded segments that negatively represent EU lobbyism in the media (2014)
All coded segments in the negative representations group showed examples in which corporate lobbyists had successfully influenced EU policies. Their successes were mostly portrayed as controversial successes because interests of the corporate sector were in conflict with public interests. Examples from the articles will be given in order to illustrate why the segments of texts were coded as too powerful, unfair and controversial. For example, some of the headlines in the articles referred to the corporate financial lobby as ‘a beast that needs to be tamed’ (FD, NRC Handelsblad, 2014). The following fragments illustrate why the EU lobby is seen as too powerful:
‘Market power is quickly translated into political power,’ said the CEO of the World
Health Organization. ‘Few governments give higher priority to public health than to big business’ (Correspondent, 2014). ‘The EU is the messenger of a new kind of super capitalism, where the financial sector is almighty instead of the government. The power of corporate lobbyism is overwhelming in the EU’ (FD, 2014). Those coded segments claim that the
effective lobby of multinationals heavily influences EU policies in favor of multinationals, which is not always in favor of the public interest.
being around someone who smokes are bad. This is one of their strategies to obstruct stricter smoking policies which are better for public health’ (de Correspondent 2014). This section
portrays (the tobacco) lobby as being unfair for holding back important information while constructing public health policies. De Correspondent claims it is unfair for several reasons. The most important one being that on the long run, EU institutions and member states have to pay the costs of people who get sick due to smoking. This can be somewhat influenced by stricter smoking policies, if the tobacco lobby did not manage to excessively influence this process.
In the positive representations group, lobbying was portrayed as a possibility for every European citizen to influence EU policies. NRC Handelsblad paid the most attention to it by interviewing a lobbyist; in fact this newspaper published the only article in which a lobbyist was interviewed. ‘Claiming that you have nothing to say in the EU is too easy; there are a lot
of possibilities for citizens to influence EU policies. Everyone can start a lobby group’ (NRC Handelsblad, 2014). EU lobbyism is thus portrayed as a meaningful opportunity for citizens,
but it was not further explained how lobbyism can be an opportunity for citizens, and how easy it is to join a lobby. In conclusion, the negative representations were much more displayed in the media sample than the positive ones. If there were positive representations, they were not as strong as the negative representations, because the positive examples of lobbying were not clarified and backed up with facts.
Opinions on EU Lobbyism
The second main category in order to describe how EU lobbyism was portrayed in the media was ‘opinions on EU lobbyism’, subdivided into negative and positive opinions. The coded segments (22 in total) mainly come from the opinionated pieces and columns. The results show 21 negative opinions and 1 positive opinion. The negative ones will be explored in more
detail in Figure 4, which displays all types of negative opinions. Most of the text fragments in this group were coded with ‘lobbyism has a bad image’, followed by ‘lobby is immoral’ and ‘lobby is a threat for democracy’. In one coded segment, corporate lobbyism was seen as a plague. The journalist compared lobbyists to ‘a cluster of bees buzzing through Brussels’ (NRC Handelsblad). This comparison was made because there are so many lobbyists, all over Brussels and always looking for influence. It is a very negative opinion about EU lobbyism, because it portrays lobbyists as irritating bugs that need to be stopped.
Figure 4
Negative opinions in the media about EU lobbyism (2014)
The following fragments from the data illustrate best that the EU lobbyism has a bad image. ’The past years I had to defend myself. It goes like: You are a lobbyist and you work in
the European Union. This is seen as a bad thing. I am Klaas Bruinsma in stereo. I am a criminal because I am a lobbyist’ (de Volkskrant). This corporate lobbyist is interviewed and
from his personal experiences as a lobbyist he can conclude the EU lobby has a bad reputation. He explains it is the ‘dominant opinion that the corporate lobby firms have excessive power due to the millions they can spend on lobbying. They go too far in reaching what their companies need’: ‘Big tobacco industries in Brussels have a bad reputation due to their costly
mentions the ‘revolving door mechanism’ as a cause for the bad image of EU lobbyism. This means former EP officials start to work as lobbyists because they have direct lines with actual officials in the EP. This type of nepotism is mentioned as a cause for the bad image of EU corporate lobbyism.
22,2% of the coded segments in the negative opinions category was coded as ‘the lobby is immoral’. The best example was given in a text about the agricultural lobby. The two largest agricultural firms (Monsanto and Syngenta) tried to influence EP members to adopt a law that made it more difficult and expensive for other agricultural firms to register new crops and seeds. A professor in agricultural biodiversity, claimed ‘it is incorrect to claim you
invented something or own something nature made’ (De Correspondent), referring to the two
agriculture firms that tried to get patent on seeds that were available to everyone in a particular part of nature.
Three coded segments were found in which scholars had the opinion EU Lobbyism is a threat for democracy. ‘Europe is often seen as far away; decisions coming from the EU are
complex, ambiguous and it is often not clear how policies are established. Corporate lobbyists have a big influence, however EU citizens have no clue about that. In this sense, citizens have the feeling they have no influence on what is going on in the EU’, (De Correspondent).
In this category, the negative opinions were way stronger represented in the media sample than the positive opinions. From the coded segments in the negative opinions group, it becomes clear how media focus on extremely powerful lobbies, such as the agriculture- and tobacco lobby. They focus less on non-profit lobbies, as those have less influence in the EU policy process.
The third main category grouped all criticism on EU lobbyism. Criticism could also have been subdivided into negative representations of EU lobbyism. However, there were a lot of segments in the data coded as criticism (47) and therefore it was decided to portray it as a main category; for this subject to be investigated in more detail. The subcategories of criticism on lobbyism portray that lobbying is in conflict with public interest, that there is a lot of competition between lobby groups and EU institutions, results of lobbying are bad and there is unequal access (meaning big and rich corporations have more access to the EU institutions than smaller firms or non-profit lobbies).
Figure 5
Main critique on EU lobbyism (2014)
There were 18 fragments in the data where it was claimed that results of lobbyism were in conflict with public interests. The fragments in a text about the ‘immense influence of the agricultural lobby’ were most significant. The journalist described how 2 large agricultural firms almost succeeded in convincing EP members to adopt a law on seeds and crops, making it difficult for other companies to produce new seeds and crops within the EU.
‘The law is a threat to the variety of what grows on our fields and what we can eat from our plates. “The new law on seeds will lead to a decrease in crops”, predicts Haring.
“If it becomes expensive to register new crops, companies will not register 5 new ones, but only 1 instead. This means a huge loss for agricultural biodiversity”’ (de Correspondent).
Another article explained how big corporations in the tobacco, alcohol and fast-food industry are a threat for public health, because their large firms succeeded in easing the policies for those industries. ‘Multinationals are one of the largest obstacles in tackling
non-transmissible diseases such as obesity, lung cancer (due to eating fast food and smoking) in society. This is no longer a radical thought among public health scientists’ (de Correspondent).
In the criticism category it became clear how all media paid the most attention to outcomes of lobby activities, and how they were in conflict with public interest.
Reporting approach
The fourth main category describes the reporting choices of the journalists while reporting on EU lobbyism. This was not discussed in the articles itself; instead this category includes observations about the reporting choices of the different news sources while coding their content. This last part will look at the differences in reporting between the news sources, in order to find out if the way media report about EU lobbyism heavily depends on which type of news source is analyzed.
There were several lobbies that were discussed most in the total media sample. Those lobbies involved the energy firms, the tobacco industry, the banking-, agriculture- and privacy lobbies and lastly the (non-profit) religious lobby.
The occasions for all the newspapers to report on EU lobbyism were news-related. The headlines of the articles were mostly about the outcome of a EU negotiation process; either a policy got through or it failed. The occasion for de Correspondent to write about lobbying was
less related to the news. In all articles they published, it was their intention to explain EU lobbyism, by giving examples of what was going on in a specific lobby area in the EU (energy, agriculture, privacy). They want to ‘let people know what is going on behind closed doors in Brussels’, is what the EU expert of de Correspondent says in his first article about EU lobbyism. The articles of de Correspondent were much longer and thus more in-depth stories compared to the newspaper articles analyzed in the sample. Additionally, the reporters of de Correspondent were putting facts, figures and opinions in perspective and giving their interpretation of the concepts they investigated. The more traditional newspapers would report the same facts, figures and opinions, but they did not conclude with their own interpretation of the data. They left this part open for the reader. De Correspondent chose to interpret data because it gives meaning to what they wrote about. This outcome in difference is not that surprising, as the Correspondent claims to give insight in what is ‘behind the everyday news’ and they use long reports to make this happen.
Out of the total articles, 44 somewhat explained EU lobbyism in general, after having defined the news. In 39 articles EU lobbyism was investigated more closely by explaining a specific kind of lobby in more detail. In the rest of the 19 articles, the EU lobby was not explained at all; instead the focus was put on the news. In order to check what the mutual differences and similarities were, a distinction between the different news sources was made. De Volkskrant, NRC Handelsblad and de Correspondent were most critical toward EU lobbyism because they contributed the most negative representations and opinions in the sample. Between those three, de Correspondent was the most negative and critical, whereas NRC displayed the most positive representations and opinions of the three. In conclusion, the most differences between the news sources are found in their choice for reporting about EU lobbyism. For newspapers it is news related and for the Correspondent it is not as much related to the news. Their approach is different as well, as the newspapers mainly explained
that the lobby succeeded in influencing policies to their benefit, de Correspondent looked at one case at a time more specifically and investigated the reasons why lobbyists had successfully influenced policies, and what complications it had for public interest.
DISCUSSION
Visibility of EU lobbyism in the news
From the articles analyzed in the sample treated in this study, it can be assumed that media devoted more attention to EU lobbyism as the EP elections were coming closer. This finding corresponds with findings in the theory that claim EU news tends to be cyclical in nature, and coverage peaks around events such as elections (Peter, 2004; Boomgaarden et al., 2010). Although there was more reporting on EU lobbyism, assumed this was the case due to an increased activity on the EU institution level, it only made up a small fraction (3,18%) of the total reporting on the EU. Again, this outcome is in line with findings on EU reporting in general, which claim EU affairs are not as visible as other political news (de Vreese et al., 2006). Thus in this aspect, the case of EU lobbyism does not seem to be that different from general reporting about EU affairs.
There is not a single explanation for why EU affairs are not a constant on the news agenda of media outlets. Lecheler conducted interviews with Brussels correspondents and she found that journalists perceive their audience as uninterested and uninformed (Lecheler, 2008). Anderson and McLeod would not agree as they argue it is not the audience that is uninterested, but journalists and the media-outlets they work for (Anderson & McLeod, 2004). Moving away from ‘blaming’ either the audience or the journalists, de Vreese et al. suggest part of the explanation lies in what they call ‘the un-intangible news moment’. The decision making process of the EU is very slow, which does not create a real news moment for the audience. This is because the implementation into the national political level of a EU policy is years
after the decision was made. The scholars suggest that media tends to focus on the output factors of the EU (when a decision is finally implemented) instead of focusing on the way policies are instructed (De Vreese et al., 2006).
However it cannot be claimed as the one and only explanation for why EU lobbyism is hardly visible in the news, the ‘un-intangible news moment’ seems to be a logic explanation for what is going on with EU lobbyism in the news. EU lobbying takes place while new policies are drafted by the European Commission (Coen, 2007; European Commission, 2001). According to de Vreese et al. media do not pay attention to what is going on at this stage of the process, as a new policy draft does not have any direct consequences for member states and its citizens yet.
Although this generally applies to the findings of this study as well, some of the articles from de Correspondent in the media sample did focus on how policies were instructed. In one of their articles, de Correspondent even covered a policy that was rejected by the European Parliament at the final stage in the policy implementation process. This means they devoted time and space to report about something that did not have direct consequences for member states and EU citizens. Instead of focusing on the outcome of negotiation processes; so instead of focusing on decisions that were made on implementing a new law or policy, the aim of the article was to give insight to the way in which a policy was (almost) instructed. In this case they wanted to expose ‘the excessive corporate lobbying activities’ from the agricultural sector, even though lobbyists did not succeed in getting the policy through.
The tone of voice on EU lobbyism
There are three main categories established from the coding scheme that portray the tone of voice in articles written about EU lobbyism. The first three categories, ‘Representations of EU lobbyism in the media’, ‘Opinions of EU lobbyism in the media’ and ‘Main criticism on
EU lobbyism have common characteristics. They show that the EU corporate lobby is mostly portrayed in a negative way. This finding is not that surprising, as the pattern of negativity characterizes the news genre; generally, media mostly focus on problems, struggles or conflicts. This is especially true for political news (de Vreese et al., 2006).
In the case of EU lobbyism, media first of all portrayed the corporate lobbyists as negative because they had too much power compared to the EP officials who decide upon the implementations of policies. Secondly, the process of lobbying was often portrayed as unfair, because corporate lobbyists were only preoccupied to reach goals of their industries; goals that were sometimes in conflict with public interest. What do those findings imply? Norris (2002) describes how exposure to negative news eventually leads to negative evaluations of the issues that someone is exposed to. This is in line with the assumption that media have a potential to impact citizens’ knowledge about and attitudes toward the European Union (Azrout, Van Spanje, & De Vreese, 2012). Besides the possible effects of a negative tone of voice in articles about EU lobbyism, the findings of this study suggest that media tend to claim that EU corporate lobbyists have more power than public interest groups such as NGOs (Bouwen, 2002). This outcome is in line with theoretical findings about EU lobbyism, which claim that large corporate firms have more resources to invest in lobbying activities (Richardson, 2000) and therefore corporate lobbyism has more influence on European institution officials. This is mainly explained by the fact that the EU institutions suffer from severe understaffing and budget constraints; thus the institution is dependent on external resources to obtain the necessary expertise for drafting policies. This information is provided by those lobbies that have the most resources (Bouwen, 2002).
In conclusion, EU lobbyism is not constantly visible on the news agenda of Dutch national newspapers, however reporting on this subject seemed to increase with the 2014 EP
outcome of EU policies, instead of focusing on the establishments of policies. In the media sample that was used for this study, EU lobbyism was mainly portrayed as negative, because corporate lobbyists were portrayed as exerting too much influence on European public policies. Large corporations in several sectors, such as the environment, the tobacco industry and the banking- and agriculture lobbies were portrayed as ‘the bad guys’, acting in favor of business interests, which was often in conflict with public interest.
The external validity is a minor implication of this study. The data collected for this research contained 106 articles in total. Those might be a limited number of articles, however they can be considered as representative of reporting about EU lobbyism, because they constitute the totality of articles published by all national newspapers during the period studied.
It is important to continue research on EU lobbyism and the media, as lobbyists are
exerting substantial influence on EU policies (Bouwen, 2002). As a next step in researching
the links between EU lobbyism and media coverage on this topic, it would be interesting to look at the effects on public opinion on EU integration for someone who is being exposed to news about EU lobbyism. In this way, media coverage on EU lobbyism is an indicator for public opinion on European integration.
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