Beaverbrook Seminar Room (room 230), Ferrier Building, 840 Dr. Penfield, McGill Campus. This is a public event.

Europe – An economic giant and a democratic dwarf?
The logic of European policy processes and the obstinacy of the media as a frame for development of European public sphere(s)

Processes which lead to political decisions have their own specifics. Political communication has to take account of that and must at the same time follow the necessities of mediatisation of politics. The political communication is already on the national level a quite complicated process, where many aberrations may nourish skepticism about the functionality of its results. This is all the more true for political reporting about the politics of the European Union. “Everything has to be very simple” once stated a German correspondent in Brussels.
After a short introduction about how European integration developed from an economical, to a political and to a democratic project, I will address the specifics of European policies and contrast this to the characteristics of news production. On these grounds I will discuss the possibilities of a success of political conveyance on the European level and the chances for European public sphere(s).