National elites and transnational discourses in the Balkan War: a comparison between the French, German and British establishment press

This article is based upon a survey of the establishment press in France, Germany and the UK during the Balkan war of 1999. The sources are Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde and the Financial Times. The objective is to see what their reportage reveals about the political agenda of the various elite readerships and their perceptions of the international order. Our findings indicate that there has been a degree of synchronization in the focus of public attention mediated through the press but that there are also marked differences among these French, German and British papers in their contents and perspectives. Despite the existence of a certain degree of transnational discourse, the European public sphere stills remains fragmented.