The Role of the Media in the EU's Integration of Socially Disadvantaged Groups

Since it was founded, the European Union has been able to point to considerable success with regard to harmonisation on an economic and political level; citizens’ social integration and identity-formation as Europeans, however, still displays great deficits. Identification with the idea of Europe and of the EU is essentially an elite perspective; socially disadvantaged groups in the populace have a rather sceptical attitude towards the EU and feel less connected to it. Since the media play an important role in communicating information about the EU as well as in the formation of images of Europe, the Institute has developed a concept for a project together with University of Salzburg, which intends to investigate the connections between personal experiences, media offers and media use with the attitudes towards Europe among socially-disadvantaged groups.