Engineering Europeanization: the role of the European institutions in shaping national media regulation

Abstract:

This article investigates the processes through which the European Union has become a major actor in national media regulation. The European Union is not viewed as a monolith but as a constellation of institutions that pursue Europeanisation with different policy instruments and intersecting agendas. Therefore, the article illustrates how the European Commission (in turn, operating through different Directorates-General and the Merger Task Force), the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament have successfully constrained and ultimately 'Europeanised' the policies of five Member States (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK). The ensuing pattern is one of policy convergence - a result that is somewhat surprising considering the usual argument that the impact of the European Union is refracted by institutional structures that produce national modes of adaptation to Europe.