European versus Domestic Politics: Media Negativity during the 2019 European Elections Campaign in Italy

Abstract

This article aims at understanding to what extent European issues and actors are covered through a negative tone within the news coverage of the 2019 EP election campaign in Italy. We rely on an original dataset based on content analysis of the 50 days prior to the 2019 EP elections in four mainstream newspapers (n=3,943) and four mainstream TV newscasts (n=1,873). Our findings show that the media negativity is primarily associated with domestic politics, while all in all European politics is covered using a less negative tone. This general picture is the results of two differentiated patterns: newspapers are less negative towards both EU politics and Eu and foreign political actors, while TV news are more negative towards Eu and foreign political actors.