Domestic adaptations of Europe. A comparative study of the debates on EU enlargement and a common Constitution in the German and French quality press

The article investigates why a specific European issue is debated in one country but disregarded in another, and why issues are debated differently in different European countries. To understand this national filtering, expectations are formulated as to how specific policy traditions and issue-specific conflict constellations within a country are reflected in media debates. A systematic content analysis of the debates on EU enlargement and a common constitution for the years 2000–2002 in the German and French quality press reveals considerable variation in issue salience, actors’ prominence and actors’ responsibility attributions between and within the countries. This variation can be seen to be connected with different policy traditions and conflict constellations. The study seeks to go beyond merely describing variations in media coverage across Europe and systematically uses cross-national and cross-issue comparative research to understand this variation.