Katjana Gattermann

The personalization of European Union politics in news coverage and its consequences for democracy

(NWO VENI grant, 2016-2020, project no. 451-15-003, €250.000)

This former project offered a novel, interdisciplinary approach to the study of the personalization of European Union politics in news coverage. The personalization of politics is a long-observed phenomenon in modern democracies that has received considerable scholarly attention in national politics. However, little was known about the scope, causes and consequences of personalization in EU politics. A few years ago, institutional and political developments suggest that such a trend, whereby politicians increasingly become the main focus of political processes, has been underway: the Lisbon Treaty created new political offices and, for the first time, the major European party families put forward top candidates for Commission President in the 2014 EU elections.

The media provide a crucial link between EU citizens and their representatives. Studying the personalization of EU news coverage is therefore important in view of the debates about the EU’s alleged accountability deficit. The project integrated three subprojects which aim at (1) understanding whether we see an increase in personalized news coverage of EU politics over time, (2) explaining which factors are responsible for variation at the temporal, country and individual level, and (3) assessing the effects of personalized EU news content on citizen awareness, political trust and cynicism towards the EU. To do so, the project relied on an innovative longitudinal and comparative research design, studying newspaper coverage in six EU countries (Ireland, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany) from 1994 to 2015, and applied an original multi-method approach, combining computer-assisted content analyses with experimental methods.

The project’s findings have important implications for EU politicians, journalists, citizens and future research as it will ultimately evaluate whether the extent of personalization in EU news and its underlying conditions make a difference for citizen awareness and attitudes towards the EU and its decision-makers. It thereby contributes to the question of the EU’s democratic legitimacy.

Publications

Gattermann, K. (2022). The Personalization of Politics in the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [order here]

Gattermann, K. & de Vreese, C.H. (2022). Understanding leader evaluations in European Parliament elections. European Union Politics, 23(1), 141-160.

Gattermann, K. (2020). Media personalization during European elections: the 2019 election campaigns in context. Journal of Common Market Studies, 58(S1), 91-104.

Gattermann, K. & Marquart, F. (2020). Do Spitzenkandidaten really make a difference? An experiment on the effectiveness of personalized European Parliament election campaigns. European Union Politics, 21(4), 612-633.

Gattermann, K. & de Vreese, C.H. (2020). Awareness of Spitzenkandidaten in the 2019 European elections: The effects of news exposure in domestic campaign contexts. Research & Politics, 7(2), 1-8.

Gattermann, K. (2020). Die Berichterstattung über die Europäischen Spitzenkandidaten in traditionellen, Online- und sozialen Medien im Europawahlkampf 2019. In M. Kaeding, M. Müller, & J. Schmälter (Eds.), Die Europawahl 2019: Ringen um die Zukunft Europas (pp. 205-217). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Gattermann, K, & Vliegenthart, R. (2019). The writing is on the wall: the limited professionalization of European parliament election campaign posters. Journal of European Integration (online first)

Gattermann, K. (2018). Mediated personalization of executive European Union politics: Examining patterns in broadsheet coverage, 1992-2016. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(3), 345-366.

Gattermann, K. & de Vreese, C.H. (2017). The role of candidate evaluations in the 2014 European Parliament elections: Towards the personalization of voting behaviour?, European Union Politics, 18(3), 447-468.

Gattermann, K., de Vreese, C.H. & van der Brug, W. (2016). Evaluations of the Spitzenkandidaten: The Role of Information and News Exposure in Citizens’ Preference Formation. Politics and Governance, 4(1), 37-54.

Blog posts

Gattermann, K. & Marquart, F. (13 July 2020). What difference do Spitzenkandidaten make for European voters? LSE European Politics and Policy Blog (EUROPP blog)

Gattermann, K. (19 June 2019). The “Spitzenkandidaten” in the media: did they make a difference this time? UACES Ideas on Europe

Gattermann, K. (13 June 2019). The “Spitzenkandidaten” in the media: A comparative perspective. Euroflections: Leading academics on the European elections 2019

Gattermann, K. (30 April 2019). Personalisierung im Europawahlkampf: Ein Rückblick und ein Ausblick. Regierungsforschung.de

Gattermann, K. (18 December 2017). Europa in de media: afhankelijk van nationale ontwikkelingen. De Hofvijver

Negative personalization effects

This is an informal collaboration with Diego Garzia, Frederico Ferreira da Silva, Loes Aaldering, and Alessandro Nai.

We study voter perceptions of leadership traits, particularly the “darker” personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) and how these perceptions shape candidate evaluations, affective personalization, and voter behaviour, using a range of different methods (experiments, surveys) and data sources (surveying voters, candidates, or experts).

Publications:

Aaldering, A., da Silva, F.F., Garzia, D., Gattermann, K., & Nai, A. (2025). Leader effects in an era of negative politics: who has a negativity bias? Politics & Governance, 13, 9187, 1-21.

Nai. A., Silva, F.F., Aaldering, L., Gattermann, K., & Garzia, D. (2025). Ripping the public apart: Politicians’ dark personality fuels affective polarization. European Journal of Political Research, 64(3), 1575-1588.

Nai, A., Aaldering, L., Silva, F.F., Garzia, D., & Gattermann, K. (2023). The dark side of the mood. Candidate evaluation, voter perceptions, and the driving role of (dark) personality traits. Electoral Studies, 86, 102715.

Nai, A., Garzia, D., Aaldering, L., Silva, F.F., & Gattermann, K. (2022). For a Research Agenda on Negative Politics. Politics & Governance, 10(4), 243-246.