The conditioning impact of information environments on EU public opinion dynamics, Germany 1994-2006

This study investigates the circumstances under which both identity- and utilitarian focused explanations of public EU support come into play. It is claimed that in particular the salience of relevant issues in the mass media environment conditions the impact of individual level explanatory factors. We test our assumptions within the German context, drawing on survey data collected between 1994 and 2006 (51 waves). Our findings show that news saliencies of immigration and economic issues moderate the effects of anti-immigration attitudes and economic evaluations respectively. The main findings show that when immigration is more salient in the news environment, the influence of immigration attitudes on European integration becomes significantly less negative. There was no moderating effect of economic news and individual-level hard factors, nor was there a significant interaction effect of individual factors with real-world indicators. We conclude that mediated information has a bigger impact on public opinion dynamics than real-world contextual changes.