EXPECTATION OF EUROPE, AND AFTER?

EXPECTATION OF EUROPE, AND AFTER?
TRANSFORMATIONS OF MEDIA DISCOURSE IN EUROPEAN ROMANIA 2010-2012
Project number PN II-RU PD_225/2010, CNCSIS-UEFISCSU
Grant director: Valentina PRICOPIE
Institute of Sociology, Romanian Academy
This post-doctoral project is also supporting the International Conference
Social Europe and the Media: discourses, perceptions, mentalities, November 2010
Scientific content
The identification of the discursive transformations marking the Romanian social context after January 1, 2007, is inscribing into a temporal continuity of „expectation for Europe”, that we stressed in our doctoral thesis (Mutations actuelles de la presse
roumaine en vue de l’intégration européenne, Lyon, 2006). The corpus of the thesis reunited all articles referring to the European
integration of Romania issued in ten national daily papers (Adevarul, Azi, Cotidianul, Cronica romana, Curierul national, Evenimentul zilei, Jurnalul national, Libertatea, Romania libera and Ziua) between January 2002 and December 2004, as well as the articles
referring to the same general thematic dedicated by these daily papers to the signing of the adhesion treaty of Romania to the
European Union in April 2005, or of various reports from all over the country, as for example those from May and September 2006.
The final sample reunited a total of 16,799 articles, from which 6.79% are opinion texts (mostly editorials). In the mentioned work,
we followed this temporality of expectation, progressively dramatized by political and media discourse, finding the first discursive
confirmation in September 2006, in the same time with the proclamation of the effective date of the European integration of
Romania; other discursive transformations preparing this political and social event. However, the transformations we are talking
about are determinated by a constant effort from the actors of the Romanian public scene, especially political actors and journalists,
of rendering the national news in a dramatized European perspective. We are defining actuality „non pas comme un présent qui
ne peut se dire, mais comme un état de tension ancré dans un passé composé et en permanence dans l’attente de quelque chose à
quoi nous sommes suspendus et une forme de coprésence du journaliste et du lecteur à l’occasion de quelque chose” (C. Jamet and
A.-M. Jannet, 1999 b, p. 28), while the dramatization consisted in the formulation of an amplified representation of actuality („la
formulation d’une représentation amplifiée de l’actualité dans le but de séduire, de convaincre ou d’émouvoir ses destinataires”, C.
Jamet and A.-M. Jannet, 1999 b, p. 19).
The first researches dedicated to the transformation of the press in general were proposed by two researchers from Quebec,
Jean Charron and Jean de Bonville, in 1995-1996; nevertheless, the first exhaustive study on this problematic is proposed by the
two authors at the end of 2004, and identifies the difference between a „normal change” and a „mutation” or a „metamorphosis” of
the journalistic discourse as follows „La distinction entre changement normal et mutation ou métamorphose renvoie en somme à
la dichotomie courante dans les sciences sociales entre changement dans la structure ou dans le système, d’une part, et changement
de structure ou de système, d’autre part. En effet, on accepte volontiers le fait que le changement normal concerne les transformations à l’intérieur de la structure lequel conserve néanmoins sa configuration d’ensemble. Par ailleurs, l’acceptation courante de
terme comme mutation ou métamorphose dénote plutôt un changement de structure. Le premier terme, plus général, désigne une
transformation profonde et durable, tandis que le second spécifie l’objet formel (la structure ou la forme) et l’ampleur du changement (jusqu’ à ce que cet objet ne soit plus reconnaissable). – (C. Brin, J. Charron and J. de Bonville, 2004, p. 69). According to the
two authors, we can identify mutations of the discourses in moments of profound political and social change that marks the context
for producing the respective discourses, and the change is explicated by the syntagm „paradigmatic crisis” that is not representing a
crisis of professional competency on the part of the producers of political discourses, but sits at the base of a necessity of an identity
and professional reconfiguration.
In the same time, we cannot dissociate the notions from the structure and conjuncture („Les termes de structure et de conjoncture sont susceptibles de rendre compte du fait que les paramètres, considérés comme concepts génériques, sont susceptibles
d’adopter des formes spécifiques lorsque observés dans leur réalité historique. - J. Charron and J. de Bonville, 1997, in Communication, 17, p. 22) in the case of our analysis; thus, we will approach the discursive transformations as a form of „temporal structure”
and as the direct effect of a specific conjuncture (the moment of the effective European integration).
Knowing that „le discours des médias se fonde autour du présent de l’actualité, et c’est à partir de ce point de référence
absolu qu’ils regardent timidement vers l’hier et le demain, procédant à ce que le milieu professionnel appelle des <<mises en perspective>>” (P. Charaudeau, 1997, p. 151), further we render schematically the essential transformations that marked the recent
past of the discursive staging at media level of the phenomenon of European integration:
1. During 2002 – 2005, the number of articles dedicated to European integration doubles year after year;
2. The privileged domain of the articles referring to European integration becomes gradually as it follows: the interior
policy (an important discursive transformation is operated in this matter, as the articles concerning European integration were
placed in the pages designed for exterior policy during 2000-2002, and in 2002-2003 they are transferred – as informational content – from the pages concerning the exterior policy to those pages concerning the interior policy. Thus the European integration
of Romania topic becomes a subject of interior policy in an assumed manner.
3. The first specialized supplement on this topic is issued by Azi newspaper in 2002; the supplement entitled European Opportunities is edited and financed by the IDEE Foundation: Azi newspaper prints 11 editions of the supplement that are distributed free of cost alongwith Azi newspaper, every Thursday. The supplement is afterwards republished independently as a bi-monthly
publication. The above mentioned daily magazine edits in its turn a single issue on the topic – named Today in Europe – focused
on the Summit from Sevilla, on 21st of June, 2002.
4. On the 18th of December, 2003, Curierul national daily newspaper launches a unique issue of its supplement –European
Union. What Are We Integrating In? is focused on the first wave of integration in may 2004, as well as on the ongoing preparations
of UE for the integration of Romania and Bulgaria.
5. At the end of 2003, the first permanent column referring to the evolution of the integration process comes into being;
it marks the first form of orientation concerning the evolution of the European orientation of the media discourse. Namely, it is
all about the permanent column entitled Saptamana europeana (European week) and started in Curierul national, the 4/5 October
2003 issue, in the page dedicated weekly to Din presa internationala (The international press). The first experiment in this direction
belongs to Evenimentul zilei daily magazine. This newspaper presents the page entitled Drumul spre Europa (The way to Europe) in
its issue on the 17th of May 2003. The same topic is re-edited on daily basis columns published under the name of Viata in Europa
(Life in Europe) on the 3rd of July 2005. From 2004 onward, few weekly columns and then few daily ones envisaging European
integration or European Union are published by some of the analyzed magazines. Thus, starting with 5th of March, 2004, Jurnalul
national publishes the weekly page entitled Integrare (Integration); on 29th of July, 2004, Cotidianul daily magazine starts publishing a page having the same title Integrare (Integration), that is republished weekly in November, alongwith the change of the
newspaper’s format; on the 21st of November 2004, Azi launches the page entitled Integrare (Integration) (only a single issue, that
is not continued ever after).
Objectives, methodology and expected results of the project
Starting from these formal transformations, we can identify the place of European expectations on the temporal axis of
media dedicated to the topic of European integration ; in this way, the temporal discursive markers are the planning, the projection
towards future, the view on the past (because, contrary to the historians’ opinions, the journalists use the view on the past having
as an unique purpose the idea of building and dramatizing the expectation at the discursive level, according to C. Jamet and A.-M.
Jannet, 1999b, p. 28) and the anticipation. All these are dramatized by the means of the verbal play on the past – future axis, in order
to dramatize the present. This favous a filmic perspective on the media event „European integration”. However, the most important
element that values this expectations concerning Europe consists in the calculation of the remaining period until January 1, 2007
in years (beginning with 2003) and after in days, in hours, in minutes and in seconds (beginning with 2004), the remaining time
becoming an apart entity, an active actor of the media discourse. As well, the two variables of the emotion, hope and anxiety, are
present in the media discourse in order to participate to the same expectations.
As to the European and Romanian political discourse in the period previous to the effective integration of Romania we
notice an alignment of the Romanian political discourse to the discourse of the European officials; certain metaphors are privileged
in this sense: the metaphor of the European family and the metaphor of the way toward Europe / European Union, the later being
re-run and stressed also by the media discourse : the way to Europe, the avenue to Europe, the European route etc. all that defining
the expectation horizon of the pre-European Romania, because „ce qui la valide comme actualité est que, par une sorte de contrat
enonciatif qui lie le journaliste au lecteur et l’information produite à l’horizon d’attente du même lecteur, l’actualité est ce qui, pour
cette durée variable, fait information, et que pour cette durée, l’information demeure vraie” ( J.-F. Tétu, 1993, in D. Bougnoux, 1993,
p. 718).
The political discourse as well as the journalistic discourse of pre-European Romania places itself in the position of anticipating the expectation of Europe. The moment of January 1, 2007 is considered a „fracture” in the temporal continuity of this
discursive expectations (already valorized in the case of political and media discourse in the period 2002-2006, in which case we
analyzed the functionality of constructing a new type of professional identity of the Romanian journalists and their manifest desire
to confirm for themselves a professional and discoursive European identity). A fracture in the temporal continuity of the expectation that circumscribes the identity of the Romanian journalism that we can interpret as an „anomaly” (we consider the concept
of anomaly in the way proposed by Kuhn, because the conditions of the contract between the journalists / politicians and their
public are subject to a transformation belonging to the nature itself of the act of informing, the expectation of Europe is confirmed,
and the discourse must valorize another orientation), a discontinuity securing continuity („La continuité devient une nouvelle
uniquement quand le journaliste s’attend a trouver une discontinuité”. (cf. M. Schudson, 1987, in Médiaspouvoirs, 6, p. 21), which
animates the discursive temporality confirming once again the European orientation adopted few years before).
This project aims to identify the transformation of the political and media Romanian discourse determinated by what we defined as
„expecting of Europe”, in order to value the new temporal valences gained at the discursive level by the perspective of expectation
and anticipation, without omitting the identification of the elements that were transformed in the pre-European period and their
eventual conservation in the post-integration discourse.
This project aims to realize an elaborate study of a European political and journalistic discourse into European Romania,
extended to the period 2007-2010 starting with the analysis of the argumentative discursive strategies of the political discourse and
of its media echoes into the national print press. We focus our scientific study on the evolution of the official political discourse that
mark and will mark this first European period of Romania, and also the way that public information media agendum is established,
starting with the media references to the political discourse.
Our methodological perspective is content analysis applied to the media discourse, starting with a content guide, structured with respect to our doctoral thesis conclusions, which studied the discursive, identity and professional transformations of
Romanian journalism. The content guide will be applied to an exhaustive media content selected from 3 central newspapers that
we have analyzed in our thesis. The period we aim to cover in January 2007 – December 2010. The method we choose is doubled
by the analysis of the media discourse post-adhesion and also by applying 2 series of demy-structural interviews on Delphi method
(in 2011 and in 2012) to specialized journalists that manage departments on European information in central print press.
Research objectives
1. Identifying the internal structural transformations of the central newspapers` discourse, after 2007, January 1.
2. The place and the role of the political actor into the media discourse – to a reconfiguration of a European public sphere.
3. Identifying the discoursive limits of the reconstruction of a public sphere in European Romania.
4. Redefying the European dimension of the political and journalistic discourses in the first European period of Romania
2007-2010.
5. Identifying and analysing the discoursive transformations generated by the expecting of Europe media phenomenom.
This project aims to offer a coherent and complexe image of the journalistic discourse about European Romania, in its firt
four years of effective appartenence tot the structures of European Union. The perspective we choose has also the advantage to be
a continuation of our PhD research project, where we can discover the origins of actual discoursive transformations in media.