Eurozone crisis Propaganda?: The EU's use of information campaigns

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the European Union's (EU) eurocrisis forms of traditional and social media are propaganda. Shortly after the eurocrisis started, the EU began to release favorable economic and European unity media. The EU blamed the United States and/or the Leman Brothers without placing blame on the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) started in 1998 or national/supranational problems. EU information campaigns are vast and cover many different aspects, but in 2013, the EU spent a total of $3.98 billion on information campaigns. The hypothesis asserts the European Union's use of traditional and social media on the Eurozone crisis is propaganda because the EU information campaign's messages are partly false, made to influence, appeals to emotion, serves an agenda, only presents one side of an argument, few points, presents popular opinion and the messages say different things but have the same meaning. Media was gathered from the EU Bookstore, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube; produced by the European Central Bank, Council of the EU, European Commission and European Parliament. The rubric was used for analysis and to code eurocrisis messages for propaganda elements. Finally, data gathered, determined which EU institution produced and media outlet disseminated the most propaganda elements.