Bachelor Colloquium 

Hannah Ruppelt

23.10.2015

Supervisors:

Dr. Martin Rosema

Prof. dr. Kees Aarts

Overview

• EU-Spitzenkandidaten

• Democratic deficit

• Research question

• Hypotheses

• Methodology and analysis

• Findings

• Implications for the 2019 European elections

Topic:

 

Citizens' knowledge about the EU-Spitzenkandidaten for the 2014 European elections

The EU's democratic deficit 

European Parliament

EU citizens

European Commission

European Council

Solution for the democratic deficit?Spitzenkandidaten procedure!

EU citizens

European Commission President 

European elections

European Parliament

Citizens:

not interested and not aware

 

Media:

sceptical

Channels for political knowledge

Formal education

Political discussions

News consumption

Internet presence of candidates in social media

To what extent did the usage of established and new media sources influence a voter’s political knowledge about the 2014 EU-Spitzenkandidaten?

Research question

• News consumption via TV 

• News consumption via newspapers

• News consumption via Internet

• Internet usage

Hypotheses

Data set

Coding

 

Methodology and analysis I

Can you identify the European party group or the national party of Juncker, Schulz and Verhofstadt?

Citizens' knowledge about the candidates

Cross-Tables

Spearman's Rho correlation

 

Methodology and analysis II

Findings

The impact of age

Relationship between internet use and knowledge about the candidates

Age

What does my research show?

• All relationships between media variables and knowledge about the candidates are significant and positive

• Established media and new media both influenced citizens' knowledge

• Reading newspapers showed strongest correlation

• Internet less influential as assumed 

Implications for 2019 European elections

• Spitzenkandidaten procedure has been established

• Future news coverage will be less sceptical 

• Spitzenkandidaten procedure can reduce democratic deficit (requires informed citizens)

• More & better news coverage by all channels needed

• More & better campaigning by parties/candidates needed

Thank you for your attention!

Do you have questions?

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