The EU polity and its disintegrated public
challenges of public communication in multi-level governance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60054/PEU.2021.8.55-62Keywords:
EU polity, EU publics, public communications and awareness raisingAbstract
By being driven largely by its elitist logic and functional integration design, the EU lost the momentum for social construction of Europe-wide publics, beyond the mere technocratic, political and business circles, which proved to be quite exclusive. The integration and enlargement process faced, along with many other hurdles,, created a breeding ground for anti-EU rhetoric and sentiments. It was only after severe anti-EU propaganda appeared that the EU became aware of its public communications gaps which grew larger and larger once many new challenges and threats like refugee and migration crisis came on the agenda as well as discussions for further and deeper integration. Brexit just illustrated many of these concerns, but the post-Brexit public communication lessons do not seem to have been learned yet. Against this background it is crucially important how the EU will handle and approach its various and quite segmented and disintegrated publics. What is needed is definitely not the kind of information activities of One-size-fits-all, but rather targeted, customized and engaging communications that transcend national borders but also create communities of engaged publics at EU level.
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