Bonjour à l’euro!
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Another interesting finding is that a strong correlation was identified between the
French media agenda and the Eurozone public agenda on euro-related topics. There are
several plausible explanations to this finding.
One
is
Le Monde’s position as a major player in the European newspaper arena.
Also, France possesses one of the most important wire news services in Europe – France
Presse (AFP). AFP could make stories from the French media reach exposure at
Eurozone level. In other words, there could be intermedia agenda-setting taking place,
with le Monde influencing other newspapers in Europe.
Another proposed explanation is France’s population, the second-largest from the
12 countries that adopted the euro. France makes up 20 percent of the Eurozone in terms
of population – meaning the impact on Eurozone polls maybe larger for France than other
countries.
The last explanation could be a potential correlation between the French media
agenda and other media agendas from the Eurozone. Further study could investigate this
topic. Originally, the authors planned on contrasting the French media agenda with the
German agenda by also analyzing the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. After selecting
euro-related articles for the constructed week, however, this approach of the study was
dropped due to the lack of identified coverage of the topic in the German medium for the
selected days. The lack of coverage in the German paper points to both the high level of
news wordiness in France and the much lesser level of newsworthiness in Germany.
Nonetheless, additional research might examine the relationships between media
coverage in different European countries and how they correlate with the European
public agenda.
Convention