Abstract
The present chapter argues that although India and the European Union (EU) have been called ‘natural allies’, this rhetoric has not been translated into any substantial improvement of trade relations. Despite the rather unclear India’s perception of the EU—especially the image of the EU as a single political entity and the vague state of the ongoing free trade negotiation talks—India’s perceptions remain substantially understudied. The knowledge about the media’s coverage of the EU provides ample opportunity to assess how the EU is perceived in India, as images presented in the media are claimed not only to influence attitudes among the general public but also to impact foreign policy-making. This chapter assesses the degree and depth of awareness that major Indian newsmakers have of the EU by analysing Indian online media coverage of the EU. In order to see how discourse influencers in India frame the EU, the study examines whether the EU is presented as an economic, political, normative, or environmental actor.
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Notes
- 1.
The EU has strategic partnerships with ten countries to date: Brazil, Canada, China, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States. The EU holds regular meetings at the heads of state level with these countries and undertakes various other activities encompassing trade, politics, and culture (Barcevičius et al. 2015).
- 2.
Hindustan Times (hindustantimes.com); The Indian Express (indianexpress.com); The Hindu (thehindu.com); The Times of India (timesofindia.indiatimes.com); and The Economic Times (economictimes.indiatimes.com).
- 3.
The data is based on the number of annual statements of the year 2005–2006 (Registrar for Newspapers in India 2018).
- 4.
The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution recognizes the following 22 languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu (Legislative Department 2015).
- 5.
Findings displayed in Fig. 6.1 based on own calculations. The two three-month time frames capture in each case one month before, one during, and one after the EU-India Summit in March 2016 (1.2.2016–30.4.2016) and India-EU Summit in October 2017 (1.9.2017–30.11.2017). The third period captures only the month of October (1.10.2017–31.10.2017). The search engine generated most relevant results by omitting duplicate or low-quality content irrelevant to the search phrase ‘European Union’, ‘EU’, or ‘European’.
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Babalova, N., Goddeeris, I. (2019). Towards Stronger Political Ties? The EU’s Shifting Image in the Indian Media During the EU-India Summit of October 2017. In: Jain, R. (eds) Changing Indian Images of the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8791-3_6
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