The missing crisis – European citizens, the media and communication about the crisis

If one takes into account media coverage on the various European crises, one could easily assume that citizens’ trust in the European project is being severely eroded. The news media do not only routinely present a scene of constant threat to and destruction of national economies, but also provide citizens with an overwhelming amount of coverage on the various crises. This coverage contains large amounts of irritating, contradicting and not least highly specialised information. It is thus not surprising that questions about what exactly is at stake, how to understand and overcome the crisis blur into the image of one constant crisis. At the same time citizens may now identify less with the European project, as the common currency, a core symbol of a shared Europe, threatens to breakdown.