Abstract
The discursive construction of Europe was manifested in various guises in these newspapers. The book offers a nuanced and detailed unravelling of how this manifests itself—beyond the habitus over the EU in both countries. In Italian journalism commentary-laden news is common. This places in even starker relief how a UK newspaper like The Times employs argumentation and metaphors to convince further already Eurosceptic readers through what is described as impartial and fact-based. This is better described as persuasive news. Other UK newspapers are much worse. The discursive construction of Europe by the two newspapers was also rendered visible when such use of metaphor and argumentation was conspicuous by its absence. Scafuri in Il Giornale and Riddell in The Times bore testimony to this. At various junctures the role of owners in the discursive constructions over arguing against a referendum (euro) or conversely in favour of one (the constitution) was apparent, as here with Murdoch and The Times. Conversely, Berlusconi’s II Giornale offered continuous Europe-related character assassinations of rival Romano Prodi. Some of the invisible has been rendered visible, with these newspapers not challenging prejudices but instead reinforcing and advancing them—selling the public short.
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Rowinski, P. (2017). Newspapers and Their Discursive Construction of Europe. In: Evolving Euroscepticisms in the British and Italian Press . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64140-9_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64140-9_12
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