Supporting the EU’s approach to climate change:the discourse of the transnational media within the ‘Brussels Bubble’

Abstract: The Union’s global climate change policy has been widely seen as an expression of its normative power, where it is committed to act through multilateral frameworks in order to tackle the effects of changes in the climate and safeguard the future of people around the world. Internally, the EU’s approach to climate change is complemented by high levels of support from citizens. This article explores another internal source of support for the EU’s leadership in global climate change policy, namely the media. The focus here is on the transnational media’s reporting and coverage of the Copenhagen summit, which is widely considered to be one of the key points in the development of global climate change policy. The article shows that within the ‘Brussels bubble,’ the transnational media supported through its reporting the EU’s ambitious agenda in global climate change policy around the time of the Copenhagen summit

Mothers' Labour Market Participation: Do Grandparents Make it Easier?

Childcare arrangements are key in women's ability to juggle motherhood and working outside the home. As such, the study of the access to childcare and its use is of great policy relevance. We focus on a particular kind of informal childcare, the one provided by grandparents. Empirically, assessing the effect of grandparental childcare is not an easy task due to unobserved preferences. In light of the potential outcome framework, we interpret the biases resulting from unobserved preferences as arising from the non-compliance of mothers to the availability of grandparents and from preferences of grandparents for activities other than childcare. Using an Instrumental Variable approach on Italian data, we find that the effect of grandparental childcare on mothers' labour supply is positive, statistically significant and economically relevant. The effect is stronger for lower educated mothers, with young children and living in the North and Centre

Personalization according to politicians: a practice theoretical analysis of mediatization

Following the evolution towards media-saturated societies, this article presents practice theory as an alternative framework for mediatization studies. We discuss how it can help us grasp the diversity of social and cultural changes related to the highly integrated media. This is demonstrated by studying politicians' personalization, not as a product of media logic but by looking at politicians' media-related practices and media's anchoring of practices. Our in-depth interviews with Flemish politicians show that their practices are in many ways organized by the media, but through this mediatization at the same time aim to retain control over them. It is also shown that politicians' practices are not only directly influenced by media, but also by other politicians' media-related practices. Together, these findings draw a complex picture of the mediatization and personalization process