Forever New? Perception and Self-perception of Brussels Media Correspondents from New Member States

Brussels press corps plays a central role in communicating the EU to its citizens. By doing so it may contribute to the birth of a European public space. More than a thousand of journalists of various nationalities are present in the European capital; however, the successive waves of enlargement could have pluralized the EU and its press corps. Ten years after the 2004 enlargement, the newcomers are formally fully integrated into the EU. But is it so also cognitively? Social representations and stereotypes are known to have long-lasting effects. By focusing on the cleavages and hierarchies in the Brussels press corps, the aim of this paper is to contribute to the study of the representations of actors from New Member States more globally. How do Old Member States’ correspondents see their New Member States’ counterparts, and vice versa? Is “Old versus New Member States” (still) a relevant cleavage in the Brussels arena? The paper is based on a series of semi-directive interviews with both Old and New Member States’ journalists in Brussels, completed by some interviews with Brussels communication professionals. The data is analyzed using both content and discourse analysis. The results suggest that the (self-)perception of exclusion is much stronger within the journalists of New Member States than it is in the representations of their Old Member States’ colleagues. Other cleavages seem to be more prominent, structuring the daily work of Brussels correspondents, mainly the one between small and big Member States, and between prestigious and unknown media outlets.