Stefanie Walter examines the visibility of European Union citizens in the mass mediated
European public sphere and argues that it can help facilitate an exchange between
decision-makers and ordinary citizens. The results show that in comparison to other actor
groups such as political parties or civil society organisations the visibility of European
Union citizens is not marginal. Yet the image of the European Union citizenry that becomes
visible via the news media remains nationally entrenched and references to a truly European
citizenry are rare. The study also uses multilevel regressions to explain the visibility of
European Union citizens in the news coverage. The empirical analyses are based on a large-scale
content analysis of TV news and newspaper articles of the 2009 European Parliament election.p>
