Seeing Europe Through the Eyes of Others: How 'Local' is the EU in Asia-Pacific News?

With the advent of European unity, understandings of the terms ‘Europe’ and ‘European’ have become even more complicated than they were before. A contested concept within its borders, how is ‘Europe’ understood and seen from the outside? This paper deals with the under-researched issue of public perceptions of the European Union (EU) outside its borders, and the role of the international media in shaping such perceptions. The study addresses a (con)textual perspective in image creation, treating international news media discourse both as a product and as a process. The domestic contextualisation of images of the EU in Asia-Pacific news texts is scrutinised in order to assess features of the content of the EU news texts as well as regional newsmakers' attitudes and behaviours when representing the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]