The Role of the New Media in the Promotion of Identity Frameworks.

The ongoing process of EU geographical widening is counterbalanced by widespread pessimism among community citizens, who are left puzzled in the attempt to understand where Europe’s movable epicentre lies or whether EU enlargement will ever come to an end. As remarked by Fossum (2003: 320), the issue of citizens’ allegiance to the EU is also compounded by the fact that “the EU is not a state and further that there is still no consensus as to what it is or ought to be”. Against a background of confusion and lack of popular endorsement, the EU is therefore seeking effective ways to promote new values while prompting consensus and civic participation. The institutions’ need to foster a sense of common identity and deeper solidarity among citizens finds reflection in important changes in institutional discourse and, consequently, in new moves in the framework of EU communication policies. The paper sets out to investigate the different strategies employed in EU institutional discourse in order to encourage, via the new media, the construction of a new system of collective values that EU citizens can identify with. As previously outlined by Balirano and Caliendo (Forthcoming), Information and Communication Technologies perform a key function in providing more effective Union-to-citizen communication and inspiring a sense of belonging to Europe. These objectives are clearly prioritised by the European Commission’s White Paper on European Governance (2001): “Providing more information and more effective communication are a pre-condition for generating a sense of belonging to Europe. The aim should be to create a trans-national “space” where citizens from different countries can discuss what they perceive as being the important challenges for the Union” [italics added]. Being the communication between Community citizens and institutions increasingly perched on the use of Information and Communication Technologies, the EUROPA website plays a leading part in generating consensus around the EU institutional apparatus. The paper’s analysis of the website’s textual and visual formulations - in terms of their different content and pragmatic aims - reveals the presence of new identity-formation features, mainly aimed at bringing together Europe’s diverse and growing number of members on the basis of their common interests and more practical needs.