Maybe I am only a helpless naive idealist, but maybe scare tactics, disinformation, emotionalisation, populism etc are really more successful than somewhat rational at least decently balanced information. (I am not saying the EUs PR is the latter, but its IMHO closer to the latter than the former) But in the end I really could not sleep with such a huge amount of cynism in my life. Maybe thats why I am not a politician nor a PR guy.

But I may only mention that in Austria a party who did a pretty good job at being rational, fair in argumentation and reflected rather than adressing the gut feeling, managed to get 10% of the votes in national elections. Not a huge amount, but more than you could expect from a party which campaigns had a bit of an academic podium discussion feeling.

PS:
Doesn’t it come down to in the end what oneself honestly believes is the better choice? And I am talking about a rational opinion not a gut feeling.

Wouldn’t a “Europe” correspondant (as, eg, at the BBC) be a more useful post, for both readership and editorial spread? Surely journalism is (should be) more about digging out the real news/stories than passively sending in re-worked press handouts? (not that I accuse Svenska Dagsbladet staff of that).

“All the scare tales will fall back to you eventually if you are the one at power”

This sounds more like an unsupported popular myth in the same vein as ‘justice always prevails’, etc.

french Derek: “Propoganda can be failure to report or comment (good or bad news) as much as actual reporting/commentary”

Maybe it can be considered as such. Personally I think the lack of reporting is due to lack of interest. Just take the case of the Swedish press. Svenska Dagbladet, the last newspaper that had a correspondent in Brussels, axed the post shortly before the start of the Swedish EU Presidency.

I’ve been vaguely planning a post on this (applying the propaganda model to British EU reporting) for the last couple of weeks – especially with this ongoing nonsense about an “EU president” that the British press now seems obsessed with – but have been ridiculously busy of late.

First, it seems that News items are reserved for straight news reporting; and Comment is clearly signalled as such. NB there was a news item this last week which I haven’t seen reported in online UK newspapers. This concerned an EU-sponsored survey of the problems that both retailers and customers have in trying to do business between countries in the Single Market (I can often find something for sale in another country but can’t buy because of VAT, payment, or some other problem). Surely this would be of interest to UK readers? Bias (ie they’re doing something useful), negigence, lack of EU-based reporters, or what?

Second, there are regular news items (often just short clips); comment is rarer and can be heavily biased – as one expects of a comments column. But there is often a more open debate, where both sides (or more!) are offered.

Of course, the online blogs area gets a more mixed presentation – and plenty of reader posts, including from me.

Propoganda can be failure to report or comment (good or bad news) as much as actual reporting/commentary.

The Irish voted yes for several reasons, economic fear was only one aspect. Another one was certainly also that those in favour of the treaty were more motivated to turn up at the polls than last time, since they knew that it can’t taken for granted that the yes side wins.

Another argument is quite interesting and its a bit ironic as well. The Irish people resented being threatened by some politicians across Europe if they don’t vote yes. This time that had the result that most bit their lips, but on the other side the UKIP thought it has to foster the no side in Ireland and campaigned quite substantially. It seems if Irish people resent something more than being told by “Europe” how to vote, it is being told by British how to vote.

What you suggested that one should use more scare tactics on the pro European side (on the EU sceptic side, its pretty commonly used already anyway) is indeed very cynic. I think if you overdo it with this kind of cynism, especially if you are at power, you may do more harm than good. All the scare tales will fall back to you eventually if you are the one at power.

“In my opinion we do not lack EU haters on one side and EU self glorifying material on the other”.

Here I think you give a hint about what is wrong with the pro-EU propaganda. Self glorifying material is simply boring for the general public. At best it will leave the people indifferent and at the worst case it will make them angry. On the contrary, scary stuff is much better.

Just remember what made the Irish finally vote for YES. Was it sensible argumentation? I don’t think so. It was fear.

I just know the Austrian Eurosceptic propaganda (if you may call it that way) which is apart from some exceptions of plain terrible quality. Everyone who has only a slight idea of the EU can’t take it serious. There are few exceptions, where those agitating seem at least like they know what they are talking about, but their argumentation seems often so terribly biased and and on the brink of openly lying that it would never convince me either. I mean I am perfectly sure that people alike a Prof. Schachtschneider are intelligent, educated and know their field. But if someone tells me eg time over time again, that the Lisbon treaty as such will reintroduce capital punishment (and implying that it will dictate that on the memberstates), thats a point where they leave the arena of sensible argumentation.

On the other side, lets have a look on the pro European propaganda (let’s call it consequently that way as well). Yes I think I can agree with you insofar as it is bad as well. (In my opinion however not quite as bad)

In my opinion we do not lack EU haters on one side and EU self glorfying material on the other. We lack sensible information sources in between not specialiced on SUN scare stories or EUropean sunday speeches. We need more good journalism in Brussels and we need the whole spectrum of it. Liberal , conservative … and all of them please, independent from the EU.(I don’t think grants are a big problem, as long as they are fix and not dependent on the opinionated content but there must not be a connection to an EU institution otherwise)

Regarding the Referendums. If you look at them, the arguments of the no side varied largely. Actually it can be argued that eg in France, the no side, did to a large extend not vote against an ever closer Europe, but it voted against a “neoliberal” Europe. The party of Chirac being in favour did not really help either, as he was deeply loathed by many. Moreover many of the no sayers lived in the illusion that if they voted no, a new draft could be made, which would be more socialist in tendency. A pipe dream at best if you ask me. Anyway, these Referendums were not about the EU as such but about the specific treaty. In Ireland for example a key argument of the no side was that voting against the treaty does not mean one has to be oposed to the EU as such. As the Lisbon treaty is a watered down compromise of the watered down Constitutional treaty which was a watered down version of the Convent proposal which never made anyone enthusiastic, its not surprising that the no side managed a negative result in 3 out of 6 cases.

I tend to think also that these vast and complex things always are rather easy to be handled by no sides. There will always be aspects that someone does not like. Everony no matter what his opinions are, will find something he does not like about it. Its not possible in a different way. So the yes side has a harder game in general I think. Its different to a single issue referendum. You can be in favour of it or against. There are less chances of finding arguments that may attract each and everyone.

Slartibartfas: I’m not talking about a “clear cut undefeatable public general EU scepticism”. What I am saying is that the propaganda of eurosceptics is clearly not as bad as hinted by the author of the post, at least when aimed at convincing the general public. Your own example of referendums, 3 in favour and 3 against, could be used to support my point. Don’t you think eurosceptics’ campaigning has been doing pretty well provided that all major parties were supporting the approval of the treaties on each instances? I mean, they were against all odds.

Personally I think they’ve been doing a rather good job in convincing the people, and on the contrary the pro-EU propaganda has been quite bad.