Value conflicts in a differentiated Europe: The impact of digital media on value Polarisation in Europe

ValCon’s main hypothesis is that one key factor to explain these new observable social cleavages within European societies lies in a mediatized logic of value contestation. To investigate this mediatized logic of value contestation, ValCon designs an innovative research methodology that bridges the fields of media framing and reception studies. This allows us to analyse how values contestation engages political actors, the media, and audiences in new ways. Beyond simply focusing on top-down mobilisation efforts by new populist parties and their impact on political preferences and attitudes, we further explore how broader audiences and the media engage in values contestation through a bottom-up dynamic of political mobilisation.

This mediatisation perspective helps us to understand how value conflicts are not only channelled through the media, but also constituted by the media. Moving beyond a standard country comparison by asking for trans- and crossnational trends in value contestation, the study combines and synthesizes public opinion surveys and media content analysis for three core value conflicts (freedom of speech; independence of judiciary; gender equality) in six EU member states (Denmark, Austria/ France, Germany, Poland, Italy, and Spain).