Samenvatting

Recently, the European Union seems to have a popularity problem. Especially in the Netherlands the attitude of citizens and journalists has changed dramatically over the past fifteen years. This resulted in low voter turnouts over the years and eventually a Dutch 'no' towards the European Constitution on the referendum.
Many politicians and researchers have tried to find an explanation for the unpopularity of the supranational organisation among the Dutch citizens. Some point at the media for being overly critical and negative about the EU.
This study of the news media coverage of the 2009 European parliamentary elections in the Netherlands provides insights into the attitude of the Dutch press towards the EP elections 2009. This is especially interesting because of the current political changes in the Netherlands. Therefore the central question of this research is, 'How can the media coverage of the 2009 European parliamentary elections in the Netherlands be characterized?'.
In order to put the study in perspective an oversight is given of the Dutch people, Dutch journalists, and their relationship towards the EU. The Dutch have been known for decades as a pro-European people but the position of the Dutch changed: the Netherlands became a nett payer, the euro was introduced and immigration problems arose. Aside from that, the attitude of the Dutch journalists changed. The Dutch newspapers changed their focus from an information providing role to a player in the game for media attention.
The results clearly stated that there are huge differences in visibility of the European Parliament elections of 2009 between the three Dutch newspapers.
With respect to the perspective of the coverage a more complex picture was found. The results showed that the quality paper featured a more European perspective than the sensationalist press. Overall, national Dutch political actors were dominantly present in Dutch coverage. However, this was not the case for the popular press since it was the only newspaper in which EU actors and national actors were almost evenly featured.
The tone of the news is generally negative. However, when trying to make a comparison between all three newspapers, significant differences are discovered. The quality paper and sensationalist press were both mainly negative, but the popular press was mainly neutral.

Moreover, it was found that conflict was present, to a great extent, in the more elaborated newspapers in Dutch media. It was found that there is a relatively high percentage of coverage in which EU actors and national actors criticise one another, especially in sensationalist press.
To conclude, this study illustrates that there is not one type of Dutch coverage about the European Parliamentary elections 2009. Based on this research cannot be claimed that the Dutch press clearly shows one type of coverage.