The European Public Sphere: European Commission Initiatives on Creating Transnational Media Networks

The results of the European Parliament Elections 2014 demonstrated a rise of Euroscepticism in the EU. The reasons of this are a lack of information about the EU in the Member States and insufficient mechanisms for debate and citizens' engagement in decision making. The analysts explain it also by the weakness of providing a forum for the development of common identity and legitimacy of the European public sphere. This thesis looks at media as mechanisms of the European public sphere. The thesis examines institutional models of two transnational audiovisual media on European affairs supported by the European Commission: the Euronews television and the Euranet Plus radio network. The author considers the roles of Euronews and Euranet Plus in the European public sphere and in attempting to reduce Euroscepticism.