The EU on the news agenda: From negligence to all-time highs

News coverage of the European Union is assumed to beneficial for the future of the integration process. A widely visible EU on the news agenda potentially contributes to public learning about EU matters, to higher turnout at European elections and to generally alleviating the communicative deficits of the EU. The truth is that, nevertheless, the EU has been overall a rather marginal and neglected news issue. Rather than looking at consequences of such a lack of EU news coverage for European publics, however, this presentation takes one step back and considers the circumstances under which the EU does become a newsworthy issue. EU news visibility is addressed in a comparative fashion both cross-nationally and over time and factors are sought that explain variation how prominently the EU is covered in the news. In a final step more developments over the past two years are taken into account that have led to an all-time high in EU news visibility. The discussion of the findings feeds into discussion of the communicative practice of the EU now and in the future.