Ex post evaluation of the European Union Solidarity Fund 2002-2016 : task 3 : media survey report

This report contains the final report of the media survey under Task 3 of the Ex Post Evaluation of the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) and constitutes the part of the fourth deliverable of the evaluation. The report presents the analysis undertaken of the media coverage for the seven case studies selected for assessment. It takes account of comments received from the Steering Group for the study on the draft report of the media survey. The aim of the task has been to survey media reporting of seven EUSF case studies. Apart from the broader objective of analysing the public and political image of the EUSF as represented in the mass media, specific dimensions of the evaluation framework are of particular interest. These include questions related to the effectiveness, relevance, coherence and solidarity aspects of the EUSF in general. To address the research goals, a media survey tool was developed and deployed in each of the seven cases with the aim of identifying relevant documents (i.e. media articles related to the EUSF). Having identified the subset of relevant EUSF-related documents, the next step was to analyse the content based on a framing conceptualisation that involves a valence/sentiment analysis (i.e., positive, neutral or negative frames) of the relevant media articles. This allows for a cross-country comparative analysis of the frames and sentiment that emerged in the sample of articles identified. This report begins with the broader conceptualisation that has informed the empirical analysis before moving on to explain the methodology involved. The results of the data collection effort are then presented, followed by an analytical summary for each of the seven cases. The comparative analysis then draws out some of the commonalities (and differences) across the cases. The last section concludes with an overall discussion.