Public Communication in the European Union: History, Perspectives and Challenges

This book is a collection of essays that analyses and discusses EU information and communication policies and activities towards, with, by different publics developed both by the EU institutions at the European, national and local levels and by public organizations and civil society actors. The book analyses the EU communication activities against the backdrop of the theory of input and output legitimacy elaborated by Scharpf (1999). This approach will help us in investigating all the different dimensions of the institutional communication process. It would also offer an alternative normative model against which assessing the relationship between communication and democratic legitimacy in the EU. To better grasp the multi-dimensional nature of EU communication, the chapters are organised into six parts that reflect on what it means for the EU to communicate in a multi-level and multi-cultural setting: the policy background, communication and culture, information services, media relations, communication and new media, public diplomacy. Each part offers insights both on the systemic (how communication supports legitimacy) and the organisational (how communication is managed) dimension of EU communication. Some authors also present data drawn from empirical analysis conducted using different qualitative and quantitative methods (document and web analysis, interviews, content analysis, surveys). The originality and strength of this book stand on the capacity to discuss EU communication policies, strategies and actions in their diverse features and, at the same time, to have a clear general picture of the role and function that communication has within the European Union’s governance. The combination of different theoretical frameworks with the latest empirical research findings makes this book a fresh collection of insights of what the European Union can achieve with strategic communications.