THE BIRTH OF A EUROPEAN PUBLIC SPHERE THROUGH EUROPEAN MEDIA REPORTING OF RISK COMMUNICATION

It is argued that a European public sphere as well as European integration may be triggered and enhanced by various forms of media content. However, in the predominant academic perspective of communication science this process is mainly seen to take place within journalistic coverage of traditional political discourses, for example in coverage of the European Convention. Some also discuss the role of the entertainment media, pointing out how certain media offerings; crime series, sports events such as the European football championship, or events like the European Song Contest, are commercialized across Europe. More recently, as a result of the bombings in Madrid in March 2004 and London in summer 2005, risk communication about terror attacks seems to have become a ‘European issue’.

In this article I will argue that risk communication about environmental issues can play a significant role in the constitution of a European public sphere. First, I will discuss this thesis from a more theoretical point of view; then I will review empirical findings on journalistic coverage of risk communication on environmental issues; finally, the empirical results will be summarized and discussed in terms of their significance to the constitution of European public sphere.

We can consider risk communication relevant for Europe on the grounds of three distinct aspects. The first is the transnationality of environmental issues. Examples of this aspect includes; the impact of industrial air pollution stretching far beyond the boundaries of any one country, as demonstrated in the debate in Germany concerning the air pollution of the Czech Republic and the former German Democratic Republic; the risk of river contamination resulting from the chemical waste of huge pharmaceutical companies near Basel for the adjacent countries of Switzerland, Germany and France; a change of flow of the river Oder causing floods in Poland and Germany; and an accident in an atomic power plant like Chernobyl posing a radioactive threat to the whole of Europe. If we look at these examples in detail, the so-called environmental problems are in fact consequences of particular economic policies. Thus, even epidemic diseases like bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) can be interpreted as effects of risk technology, caused by a radically economic and environmentally insensitive agricultural industry.

The second rationale for the significance of risk communication about environmental issues to Europe is the fact that solutions to environmental problems like those described above must be sought after in the political realm. Thus, transnational environmental problems need transnational political debate, decisions and regulations.

The third reason consists of the fact that the mass media are the most common source for information about the environment, as Schulz (2003: 387; see also Europäische Kommission 2001: 12 pp.) showed in his detailed empirical work with reference to the Eurobarometer polls since 1999. Schulz concludes that media coverage in European countries puts ‘certain environmental issues on the agenda, particularly those not immediately apparent’ (authors own translation). Furthermore, the media interpret certain incidents as alarming and thus sensitise the public to these issues, impacting on the way they are perceived. Consequently, those events are considered a danger, not only within the realm of the media, but also in the everyday life of the audience (Schulz 2003: 403).

A consideration of these three aspects – the transnational character of environmental problems, the need for transnational political solutions, and the mass media as a vehicle for information on environmental problems – suggests the hypothesis that journalistic risk communication on environmental issues could contribute to a nascent European public sphere.

What exactly do I mean by risk communication in the context of this article? First of all, ‘risk’ refers to the way events and their potential effects are perceived, valued, and constructed through communication (Ruhrmann 1992: 6; Bayerische 1993; Hribal 2001: 441). However, here I will specifically address public risk communication and leave aside notions of individual risk communication that are part of everyday life, such as a family's consideration of cycling in icy weather. Public communication is best defined as communication that takes place on at least three levels and proceeds through a correlation between these. The relevant fields include media reporting; debates and decisions within the political system; and public opinion, which might be illustrated through the employment of opinion polls – albeit I would not argue that such surveys resemble a comprehensive account of public opinion. In addition, there is a fourth dimension that may be included in this list; strategic communication by means of public relation and marketing.

An academic approach to public risk communication did not emerge until the second half of the twentieth century, when great ecological debates took place. The key publication to trigger this process was the book ‘The Limits of Growth’ (Meadows et al. 1972), an account of the ‘Club of Rome’. In fact, this title was fundamental for subsequent environmental policy as illustrated by its further development in Waldsterben (i.e., forest dieback – a phenomenon debated in Germany during the 1980s, Thorbrietz 1986, but now referred to internationally today). Likewise, other incidents such as the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl atomic power plant as well as various storms and floods since the 1990s emphasized the need of transnational environmental policy. Moreover, ecological debates are particularly pronounced in European countries, with Europe playing a central part in the worldwide efforts to generate solutions for environmental problems. This becomes evident in the promotion of the ‘Kyoto Protocol’, an agreement between 141 nation states (not including the United States of America) concerning the reduction of greenhouse gases (http://www.climnet.org/EUenergy/ratification.htm, 30.04.05).

Thus, risk communication in this paper refers to the public debate about environmental damage that may be or is caused by complex technologies; important issues include air pollution, water pollution, climate changes, radioactivity, floods and defects caused by nutrition, as well as the associated epidemic diseases.

In the Anglo-American social sciences the term ‘public sphere’ is mainly used in the context of Jürgen Habermas’ analyses of the changing public sphere since the nineteenth century, the so-called ‘Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit’ (Habermas 1962), whereas in the German speaking social sciences, the term ‘public sphere’ or ‘Öffentlichkeit’ is not bound to a specific theoretical concept. It simply means the sphere that is distinct from private life and which principally offers open access to every member of society (Gerhard 2002). In this more general concept, public sphere relates to interactions between the mass media, politics, public opinion and professional public relations.

In terms of the European perspective we could distinguish between three types of European public sphere. The first type would be the ‘Pan-European’ public sphere, given, for instance, in the assembly of the European Convention or a pan-European newspaper or television channel – something that does not currently exist. The second type would be a European public sphere through Europeanization of national public spheres, through the achievement of consensus – may it be via national parliaments, national public debates or in national media discourse. The third type would be a European public sphere through Europeanization between national publics, whether it is bilateral, multilateral, mutual or not.

Since there are no Pan-European media, my discussion of empirical findings will naturally focus on the second and third type, asking whether journalistic coverage of environmental risk communication is building consensus or at least making connections between public discourses across European countries.

Following this discussion of the theoretical context, I will now detail empirical findings on European media coverage about risk technologies and their related environmental problems. In doing so I will address questions of how the media cover risk technologies in different European countries? Which events are referred to, what are the linchpins, and how are these events contextualized? And what similarities and differences can be found?

Empirical research on media reporting of risk communication is heavily focused on national studies. In Germany, Kepplinger (1988, 1989, 1991) was one of the first to research ‘risk’ journalism; the Swiss forerunners in this field are Saxer et al. (1986). In the 1980s, the Chernobyl hazard gained a lot of media attention in many countries. Since the 1990s, public understanding of biotechnology has become a focus for the scientific community – but as a rule these studies are referring to only one or two European countries, mostly in the North-western region of Europe, such as the UK, Sweden or The Netherlands (Rowe 2000; Bauer 2002; Gutteling 2002). As far as I am aware there are no transnational comparative studies on media reporting of ‘global’ environmental danger, like climate change.

To search for transnational aspects by comparing the various single national studies would be a delicate methodological task, as they do not only cover different subject areas, timeframes and types of media, but also employ various methodical instruments and sampling. Nevertheless, the Swiss researchers, Schanne and Meier (1992) carried out a methodologically sensitive literature review on 52 North American and European studies carried out between 1980 and 1991. All of these studies focused on press coverage on high-risk technologies that caused environmental damage, such as accidents in atomic power plants (such as the reactor in Three Mile Island, USA) or incidents involving toxic gas (as was the case in Bhopal, India).

Moreover, there are two original studies that investigate a transnational European perspective; the first is Biotechnology in the Public Sphere by John Durant, Martin W. Bauer and Georg Gaskell's from the London School of Economics and the London Science Museum (Durant et al. 1998). The second study is Steffen Kolb's PhD thesis completed at the University of Hamburg (Kolb 2005), for which he analysed press coverage about ‘leaded petrol’ and its effects on air pollution and public health from 1965 to 2000 in Germany, England and France.

Durant et al.'s (1998) study was financed by the European Commission and involved an analysis of three particular aspects relating to risk communication. They analysed; (1) politics relating to environmental issues and biotechnology; (2) media coverage of those issues; and (3) the public perception of biotechnology between 1973 and 1996 in 15 countries: 12 EU membership countries as well as Switzerland, the United States of America and Canada. For each country, they compiled a trend profile and made comparisons according to the three objects of investigation. However, biotechnology within the context of the study is defined as gene technology, referring specifically to medicine, reproductive technology and agriculture.

The study's findings concerning the issue of environmental politics showed that the political debate about biotechnology started at various points of time in the different countries concerned. Moreover, the particular issues discussed and measures introduced were often of very a different nature. Generally, it was found that the political discussion began earlier in countries that had an established biotechnological industry, in Sweden for instance. Also an early discussion resulted in a variety of political regulations and diversity of ethical considerations; the EU regulations introduced in the 1990s being the most groundbreaking of these (Durant et al. 1998).

With regard to media coverage, the authors analysed at least one broadsheet as well as one weekly news magazine in each country, for example, the Austrian Die Presse and Profil, the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Spiegel as well as Times and Independent in the UK were subject to investigation. The results reveal an increase in frequency and amount of media coverage about biotechnology in all countries under examination from 1973 to 1996, demonstrating an initial growth in 1982, a relatively high level of press coverage between 1987 and 1991, and an explosion from 1992 onwards. However, within this general increase of coverage, individual countries varied greatly. By far the least coverage was found in Greece; with Poland, Italy and Switzerland in second place. The level of media coverage in Austria, Denmark and Finland was average, whereas the most frequent level of reporting was found in France, Germany, Sweden, and The Netherlands, with Great Britain being the greatest. The Times published one relevant article almost every day, the Austrian broadsheet Die Presse carried articles about the subject about once a week, and the Greek and Polish newspapers only once a month (Durant et al. 1998: 221).

Moreover, Durant et al. (1998) show a change of frames concerning the reporting on biotechnology during the 23 years investigation period. Gradually, amenities and improvements of biotechnology were emphasized, which lead to a general shift from risk communication to benefit communication. However, this general trend was variously applied across the different countries studied; the improvement frame was found in only 26 per cent of all articles in The Netherlands, for instance; whereas in Poland this was the case in 86 per cent of all articles (Durant et al. 1998).

In their study, Durant et al. (1998: 221) arrange the frames and validations into a ‘modernisation discourse’ that mainly refers to the positive, progressive aspects of biotechnology and a ‘double concern discourse’ that refers to positive as well as negative and dangerous aspects of biotechnology. In the latter, ethical considerations are a significant issue. The ‘double concern discourse’ was found particularly in the Austrian, Italian, Dutch and Swiss media – countries with diverse levels of coverage and differences in the national significance of biotechnology industry sector. The ‘modernisation discourse’ was very strong in Finland, Germany, Poland and Greece – once again these countries show no commonality in terms of coverage or importance of sector; the German media coverage was high and the biotechnology industry important, but in the other three countries the opposite was the case. Consequently we can argue that wider cultural issues, such as, national political and journalistic traditions as well as certain elitist structures may be of significance to the amount and valence of journalistic risk communication.

Supporting evidence for the argumentation that countries apply specific traditions when dealing with certain subjects can be found in Görke et al. (2000). Görke et al.'s (2000) analysis, based on their contribution to Durant et al.'s (1998) cross-national study, included a further German national broadsheet, Die Tageszeitung (taz). The findings reveal that while the frame ‘scientific progress’ was predominant in the German coverage during the 1970s (with basic research and medical application as the most important subjects), the frame ‘regulation’ became more important during 1985 and 1991, with its central themes of political responsibility and regulation by the government. However, between 1992 and 1996, yet another frame was established; the ‘globalisation’ frame (Görke et al. 2000). Here prominent topics included transnational references, international companies, as well as the United States of America as an agent with particular interests.

To conclude, there is no evidence that biotechnology has been an important journalistic subject common to all European countries. However, an increase of coverage about biotechnology over 23 years was recognized in some countries, particularly in North-western Europe. Moreover, there is a coherence in the change of frames, albeit chronologically displaced and to varying extents. But a consensual and synchronical European discourse can hardly be recognized.

However, let us consider the second comparative European study. Steffen Kolb's (2005) content analysis was suggested by a group of international climate scientists of the GKSS research centre in Geesthacht near Hamburg (von Storch et al. 2003). They had discovered a decrease of lead in the air and flora of Western Europe after leaded petrol was reduced due to EU regulations brought in during the 1980s. The scientists were interested to know if this example of a successful environmental policy – with Germany as the political ‘dynamo’ – was supported by and enhanced through media discourses.

After extensive archival research in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Paris and London, Steffen Kolb analysed 1,104 articles published in the German broadsheets; Frankfurter Al lgemeine Zeitung, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Bild, Spiegel, 168 articles in the French; Figaro, Le Monde, Liberation and Nouvel Observateur, as well as 237 articles in the UK newspapers; the Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Independent and the Sunday Times. All articles were published between 1965 and 2000.

In terms of the European perspective, the findings reveal great differences in the German, French and English media, particularly concerning the extent to which the subject was reported on throughout the period of investigation (Kolb 2005: 277).¹ The media coverage in France and the UK started much later that in Germany and never reached the same intensity (see Figure 1).

In addition to this, different frames within single time periods became apparent. While the dominant frame in Germany in the 1970s was ‘ecology’, changing to ‘consumer issues’ during the 1990s, the predominant framing in France and the UK was of a more economic nature. Moreover, Germany's role as the driving force in terms of the implementation of EU regulations resulted in the early national debate of risks concerning health and ecology. For example, headlines in the German broadsheet Sueddeutsche Zeitung on 21 December 1973 state; ‘Too much lead in children's blood’ (‘Kinder haben zu viel Blei im Blut’); and on 21 September 1977; ‘It's raining lead at the {mountain} Großglockner’ (‘Bleiregen am Großglockner’). After the successful reduction of lead due to new laws in Germany and the introduction of EU regulations, headlines demonstrated a more scientific or economic focus. For instance, the weekly newsmagazine Spiegel metaphorically contrasted ecology and economy in the headline on 6 October 1997; ‘guzzle or stink’ (‘Saufen oder Stinken’), referring to the choice between using polluting, cheap leaded petrol (‘Saufen’) or more expensive, unleaded petrol (‘Stinken’) that is better for the environment.

In contrast to this, issues of ecology and health in the UK and French media were addressed much later than in their German counterparts. In fact the media in France and the UK considered the German debate as too excessive and interpreted it as a competitive strategy of the German car manufacturing industry. One example of this includes an article in the French Le Figaro on 28 March 1985, which read ‘The German profit of “proper” cars’ (‘La voiture, propre’ profite aux Allemands’). Hence, there appears to be no significant synchronical framing in the German, French and English media coverage of leaded petrol – at least not until the 1990s – and thus no consensual European public sphere on this environmental risk was established. However, there are indicators of coherence in the way this topic was covered in the three countries and thus a shared European framework can be hypothesized (Kolb 2005: 197). Namely, the coverage was highly focused on events and politics, thereby referring to national political decisions as well those concerning the EU regulations and the media reports on leaded petrol and its ecological effects did, to some extent, refer to political debates taking place in the other nation states.

Thus, a European consensus cannot be noted in media coverage of leaded petrol as an example for traffic pollution. Amount, periods, progression and frames of coverage are very different indeed. But in a long-term view we can recognize that the topic is set within transnational references, which may form the foundation of a European framework. Therefore, transnational references, not consensus, can be considered the basis of European public sphere.

However, let us consider an intriguing third example: BSE. With the consequence of such a severe and deathly disease, the plausibility of its risks is perhaps more emotive than topics like biotechnology or traffic pollution. Regrettably, there is no cross-national content analysis of media coverage of this issue;² however, a group of German students working for a research project at the University of Hamburg carried out a comparative literature review of several European works in 2002/2003. Mandy Breitmoser et al. (2003) concluded that the debate about BSE was structured around two discourses: the economic and the ecologic discourse. They found the economic discourse particularly dominant in England: in a similar vain to the debate about leaded petrol some media in the UK suggested that the ecologically centred debate on BSE in the continental media took place on the grounds of economic competition. Whereas the ecology discourse mostly occurred in North-western European media, thereby referring to political decisions and regulations as well as consumer concerns: ‘What on earth can we eat at all?’ (‘Was können wir jetzt noch essen?’) asked the German tabloid Bild on 26 November 2000. Interestingly enough, the focus on service aspects in journalism (‘news to use’) is a transnational similarity here. In addition to this, there are two further recurring transnational components regarding reports on BSE. First, there is no regular and continuous coverage but is rather confined to single, sensationalized cases of severe harm. Second, the media react strongly to the political system and its procedures, such as the proclamations of political parties, parliamentary discussions or law resolutions.

In conclusion of the empirical findings I would like to argue that journalistic risk communication in European media coverage does not take the form of a consensual discourse during specific time-periods. But it does take place in the sense of textual references to other countries and their policies, their media coverage and public opinion – though this might be controversially in the form of juxtapositioning between national viewpoints. In this sense we can talk of national media covering environmental risk issues in Europeanized framings.

The results of the three main studies I have referred to resemble those of related works in the field of journalism in general and journalistic risk communication specifically. The findings I have discussed above concur with what Schanne and Meier concluded in their literature analysis of 52 studies: ‘Journalism constructs its own universe; a media-reality which does not represent reality. The journalistic construction is confined to events which are currently described by means of reduced facts and simple symbols’ (authors own translation,³ Schanne and Meier 1992: 269).

Consequently, journalistic risk communication has two distinct characteristics, which at the same time point to distinct structural failures. Due to the concentration on the incident, aspects concerning the process, structure, history and background of the event, as well as scientific considerations, are neglected. As the American researchers Eleanor Singer and Philis Endreny state: ‘Media don't report on risks, they report on harms’ (Singer and Endreny 1987: 14; Dunwoody 1992). Thus, events tend to become de-contextualized. Furthermore, media coverage on environmental risks usually only occurs around parliamentary decision processes, with the official authorities as primary sources of information. These sources are used first and foremost. Subsequently, journalistic risk communication is restricted to the scale of political bodies, which results in a biased re-contextualization of the incident being reported on.

Alongside these fundamental characteristics of journalistic risk communication – being heavily focused on incidents and on political reference – there is a third significant characteristic: the concentration on national coverage or even national profiling of risk communication concerning environmental issues. The empirical evidence demonstrates only a very limited type of European public sphere based on the discourse of environmental risk communication. There is no European risk communication in the sense of consensual and synchronical debate across various countries; but at least there is some evidence for European risk communication in the sense of national media coverage via transnational, European frames. That is at least a start.

Yet, some might argue, this comes as no surprise. After all, the prevailing working principles of journalism involve a defined sequence of choices: choice of subject, choice of sources, and choice of presentational form; thus implying certain journalistic artefacts – that is media-reality constructed by journalistic rules of coverage (Blöbaum 1994, 2000; Weischenberg 1995; Lünenborg 1997). In this respect, sensational cases of harm are more newsworthy than abiding risks; the political system offers the easiest way to access information; and a national focus is more obvious than the transnational angle. Thus, the discussed findings on journalistic risk communication may be regarded as obvious consequences of a certain (self-) understanding of journalism. Risk communication, which gives priority to single incidents of harm rather than abiding risks; to parliamentary and political decisions rather than other sources and strategies of problem solving; and to the national rather than the international angle then is a natural consequence of contemporary news journalism in modern western societies (Iyengar 1991; Weischenberg 2002).

So far I have discussed the facts and empirical findings on journalism as it is. Now I want to talk about the possible role for journalism in the nascent European public sphere.

Should not European media make a point of reporting differently on risks, in order to contribute to the constitution and development of a European public sphere? Supposedly, there are at least two possible ways to achieve this. First, by considering the professional rules and craftsmanship of modern journalism. With regards to this it would be helpful to expand and benefit from expert knowledge, research networks, investigative techniques and research sources on a transnational scale, extrapolating a single country's frontiers and single publishing company's borders, along the same lines as the co-operation established between correspondents based in Brussels (see Meyer 2004). Second – and again a more normative point – the role of journalism as a public communicator might be employed further beyond its function as a mediator of information. Journalism today should act as a mediator for the formulation of opinions about a European public sphere and its democratization – just as nineteenth century journalism was essential to the construction of national bourgeois public spheres as well as the democratization of national states. However, we should recognise that the emergence of a European public sphere, with all its impacts, is an unsystematic and anarchic process with loops and breaks: it is inconsistent, scattered and voluntary;⁴ just as it probably was in the nineteenth century.

The issue of a more active role for journalism in the nascent of a European public sphere and thus in the process of European integration remains controversial and must be discussed by media historians, communication researchers, by journalists and their professional organizations.

Irene Neverla is a professor for Journalism and Communication at the University of Hamburg. Her main fields of research are journalism studies, European public sphere, risk- and crisis communication, health communication, audience research, and sociology of time. Her latest publications are Global digital? Fotojournalismus heute, edited by Irene Neverla, Elke Grittmann, and Ilona Amann (Köln: von Halem Verlag, 2007); Zum Informationshandeln von Patienten und zur Rolle des Internets im Krankheitsfall (co-authored with Mascha Brichta, Hanns-Christian Kamp, and Dieter K. Lüdecke), in: Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, Vol 55, No. 1 (2007); and Medienalltag und Zeithandeln, in: MedienAlltag. Domestizierungsprozesse alter und neuer Medien, edited by Jutta Röser (Wiesbaden: VS, 2007).