Between risk and opportunity - media frames on the blue card directive in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands & Germany for the period of 2006 to 2009 and their contribution to public support for the European Union

This Bachelor thesis in European Studies has dealt with the research problem of continuously declining public support for the European Union. In search for the factors behind public support for the European Union, the attention was turned to the influences of the mass media on people’s attitudes towards the supranational project. An extensive literature review has revealed that biased media frames indeed matter to the formation of public opinion. Based on this observation, a content analysis examined to what extent newspaper media in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany employed the technique of risk and opportunity framing regarding the coverage on the Blue Card directive for the period between 2006 and 2009. The outcomes of the content analysis suggest that framing in terms of risk and opportunity indeed was made use of. However, framing in terms of risk and opportunity was relatively weak, not always one directional, and against our expectations predominantly neutral in terms of tone. Lastly, this thesis suggest that risk and opportunity framing on the Blue Card was only to an inconsiderable extent able to influence public aggregate support for the European Union over the period under study. The lack of visibility – or put differently the importance attached to the issue – coupled with predominantly weak framing in terms of risk and opportunity, reduced the likelihood of these effects to occur from the outset.