The Media, European Integration and the Rise of Euro-journalism, 1950s–1970s

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Martin Herzer

   Pages 1-13

3. The Media and the Many Europes

   • Martin Herzer

   Pages 15-63

4. The Emergence of the Euro-journalists

   • Martin Herzer

   Pages 65-113

5. The Rise of the Euro-narrative

   • Martin Herzer

   Pages 115-174

6. The Dominance of Euro-journalism

   • Martin Herzer

   Pages 175-251

7. Euro-journalism and the Emergence of a European Polity

   • Martin Herzer

   Pages 253-294

8. Conclusion: The Media, Politics and European Identity Building

   • Martin Herzer

   Pages 295-309

9. Back Matter

   Pages 311-357

   PDF

This book explains how the media helped to invent the European Union as the supranational polity that we know today. Against normative EU scholarship, it tells the story of the rise of the Euro-journalists – pro-European advocacy journalists – within the post-war Western European media. The Euro-journalists pioneered a journalism which symbolically magnified the technocratic European Community as the embodiment of Europe. Normative research on the media and European integration has focused on how the media might help to construct a democratic and legitimate European Union. In contrast, this book aims to deconstruct how journalists – as part of Western European elites – played a key role in elite European identity building campaigns.

• European Union
• European Communities
• European Coal and Steel Community
• European Integration
• Supranationalism

“The book is extremely well-structured with helpful introductory contexts to the various phases of Europeanisation as constructive enthusiasm for it moved from the margins in the 1950s to a hegemonic position in the 1970s. … Herzer’s timely contribution is laudably historical as befits a volume in this excellent series. … His book supplements this approach through insightful interviews with key contributors across four main countries: Germany, France, UK, and Italy.” (Martin Conboy, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 57 (3), 2022)

“It provides a rich and detailed insight into European journalism history against the background of European integration history while also adding to our understanding of present day EU–media relations. … Herzer’s book is a time travel companion well recommended.” (Carolin Rüger, JCMS Journal of Common Market Studies, August 28, 2020)

“An important new contribution to the (still under-researched) symbolic politics of the European project, Herzer’s book offers a much-needed portrait of the rise of Euro-journalists. Through a unique multi-archival and fine-grained analysis, Herzer unveils their critical role in restaging the European Union from a mere economic endeavor to a grand project of political integration. A must-read for anyone interested in the perennial debate over Europe’s public sphere.” (Antoine Vauchez, Université Paris 1-Sorbonne, France)

“An important contribution to the history and sociology of the ‘European public sphere’, and a long overdue account of the role of the media in the rise of supranational neoliberalism over alternative modes of European cooperation.” (Wolfgang Streeck, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Germany)

“Thoroughly researched and incisive, Herzer’s book convincingly breaks with much of the conventional wisdom on the « permissive consensus » of the early years of the European communities and the lack of a European public sphere. He masterfully demonstrates how advocacy journalists, embedded into elite networks in Brussels and national polities, made a decisive contribution to the recognition and legitimation of the EEC/EC as the incarnation of Europe.” (Jay Rowell, University of Strasbourg, France)

“This insightful and convincing study, based on research conducted in various archives in four countries as well as interviews with numerous journalists, challenges normative EU scholarship, which has focused on the instrumentalization of the media to build a democratic and legitimate European Union. Instead, Herzer shows how during the postwar decades, the Western European media became partisans of an – ultimately ineffective – elite effort to sell supranational European integration to national publics. This book constitutes a major contribution to both European integration history and media history.” (Peter Hoeres, Julius-Maximilians-University, Germany)

 

 

 

 

• European University Institute, Florence, Italy

  Martin Herzer

Martin Herzer holds a PhD in History from the European University Institute, Italy. He was a visiting doctoral student in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics and a teaching fellow at the Centre d’Histoire at Sciences Po Paris.

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