The Euro Crisis’ Actors and their Roles

This study investigates the depiction and complexity of actors in the print news coverage of the Euro Crisis between 2010 and 2012. Based on an empirical study of 40 newspapers from ten European countries, we examined the role and visibility of different types of actors. We also looked at two important assumptions from the political communication and the European studies’ literature: the trend towards the personalization of political news; and the relapse in Europeanization, which suggests that the Euro Crisis has contributed to further empower both the national governments over the European institutions and some countries over the others. Our main conclusions point to a personalized news coverage, mostly dominated by the views of national political leaders and economic actors. Finally, we discuss some of the reasons behind these features of the news coverage and their implications for the development of European integration and for the actual existence of a European public sphere.