https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/13769 Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:03:57 GMT 2026-04-19T00:03:57Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145393 Title: The Maltese media coverage of the 2022 national and 2024 European Parliament elections Abstract: This thesis examines how Maltese media framed the 2022 national election and the 2024 European Parliament election, with a particular focus on the portrayal of the European Union and whether the EP elections in Malta reflect second-order election dynamics. Despite Malta’s highly mediatised and politically parallel media environment, scholarly attention to the comparative framing of national and European elections remains limited. This study addresses this gap by analysing 61 news articles published during the three months before each election across three outlets representing distinct editorial orientations: One News (Labour Party), Net News (Nationalist Party) and Times of Malta (independent). Using qualitative content analysis guided by framing theory, the study identifies key patterns in value, conflict, issue, narrative, personalisation and emphasis framing. The findings reveal significant differences in how the two election types were represented. Partisan outlets domesticated both elections, but with different emphases: One News framed the EU as a cooperative partner validating Labour’s achievements, while Net News portrayed the EU as a moral authority through which the Nationalist Party could “restore” Malta’s reputation. By contrast, Times of Malta adopted a balanced, issue-oriented approach, offering factual and contextualised reporting with limited emotional or partisan framing. Across outlets, the 2024 EP elections were consistently framed as less consequential, receiving reduced interpretative depth and lower issue salience than the 2022 national election. Overall, the study provides new empirical insight into Maltese political communication, revealing how media framing reinforces national priorities while shaping public perceptions of the EU. Description: M.A.(Melit.) Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145393 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145337 Title: The recognition of the Armenian genocide by the EU institutions and its member states Abstract: “The axe forgets, but the tree remembers.” This proverb captures the enduring legacy of the Armenian Genocide, whose trauma continues to reverberate through generations. While the perpetrators have persistently denied the events as genocide, Armenians have carried the memory of their suffering as a central part of their collective identity. This enduring remembrance underscores the moral imperative of recognition: without acknowledgement, justice remains incomplete and historical wounds cannot fully heal. The Armenian experience demonstrates how memory resists erasure and calls on the international community to confront historical truth with integrity and responsibility. This dissertation examines how the topic of the Armenian Genocide is approached by the European Union (EU), analysing the recognition efforts or lack thereof of EU institutions and Member States (MS). Although historians widely agree that the mass killings and deportations of Armenians by the Young Turk government constitute genocide, political recognition remains contested, particularly within the EU’s institutional framework. The European Parliament (EP) has consistently and explicitly recognised the events as genocide since 1987, reaffirming this stance on multiple occasions, most notably in its 2015 centenary resolution. In contrast, the European Commission and the Council of the EU have adopted more cautious approaches, avoiding the term “genocide” and prioritising diplomatic relations and the EU’s complex partnership with Türkiye. Through document-based analysis of resolutions, debates, national parliamentary records and other primary data, this dissertation addresses two central research questions: whether the EP’s recognitions influence the positions of other EU institutions and MS, and whether MS shape the EU’s overall agenda on genocide recognition. The findings reveal a clear institutional divergence, and by applying a Multi-Level Governance (MLG) lens, the differences across the various levels of government became particularly noticeable. The EP acts as the EU’s normative and symbolic actor, invoking human rights and historical justice, while the Commission and Council operate as diplomatic actors constrained by realpolitik and strategic interests. MS similarly display diverse approaches, shaped by domestic politics, diaspora influence, memory politics, and foreign policy priorities. Overall, this research demonstrates that the EP’s influence on executive institutions is limited, largely because its resolutions are non-binding and because of the sensitivities of EU–Türkiye relations. The dissertation demonstrates that debates surrounding Armenian Genocide recognition illustrate the enduring tension between normative commitments and strategic interests in EU external action, while highlighting how historical memory is negotiated within a multi-layered governance system. Description: M.A.(Melit.) Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145337 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145336 Title: Georgia's path toward EU integration Abstract: This dissertation analyses Georgia’s path toward integration with the European Union, with a focus on what the determinants of this relationship are and how these may act as enablers or obstacles towards a further integration. Since its independence in 1991, Georgia has perused closer ties with the Union during its post-Soviet transition, unresolved conflicts with Russia and shifting regional geopolitics. Now, the European Union has positioned itself as Georgia’s leading trading partner and key financial supporter, yet integration has advanced unevenly amid structural vulnerabilities and democratic backsliding in the nation. Hence, this dissertation aims to analyse what is helping Georgia get closer to the EU and what is stopping deeper integration. The introduction outlines the research background, aims, and central question, establishing the significance of Georgia’s European aspirations. Then the literature review looks at relevant literature on Europeanisation, EU conditionality, and post-Soviet integration, positioning Georgia within these broader debates. The methodological framework is outlined in the third chapter, explaining the case study design and mixed-methods approach used to analyse both qualitative and quantitative data. The fourth chapter presents the core findings, examining the economic, political, and societal determinants that act as drivers or obstacles to Georgia’s EU integration. Finally, the conclusion finds that the EU has successfully anchored Georgia within its economic and institutional framework through several enablers including economic and public support. Yet, the country’s full integration remains constrained by structural weaknesses, political polarisation, and inconsistent democratic reform which act as the main obstacles, highlighting that the EU’s integration policy has its limitations. Description: M.A.(Melit.) Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145336 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145335 Title: Malta and the EU through the Maltese satirical lens Abstract: The European Union is commonly understood through its treaties and institutions, yet across its member states its meaning is just as powerfully shaped by the laughter, irony, and satirical humour that emerge in response to the experience of integration. These dynamics become particularly striking in Malta, where a fiercely bipartisan polity confronts a supranational project that begins to reconfigure the contours of its political imagination. This dissertation contends that satire, long dismissed as marginal entertainment, can in fact constitute one of Malta’s revealing archives of Europeanisation. In a country where partisanship shapes identity, and political memory is intensely personal, the satirist’s line becomes a lens through which hopes, anxieties, and resentments towards the EU are crystallised with a clarity that formal discourse rarely achieves. In light of the limited scholarly engagement with Maltese political cartoons on the European Union, this research investigates how these satirical images can narrate Malta’s changing relationship with the EU. Using a qualitative, historically grounded methodology that combines archival research and interpretive visual analysis, it advances two guiding research questions concerning the narrative frames through which satire positions Malta within the Union, and the ways these representations evolve across key junctures – from the accession process to subsequent policy debates. What the analysis brings into focus is a satirical landscape that shifts between vulnerability, defiance, and ironic complicitly. This shifting dynamic becomes particularly evident in preaccession cartoons, which portray Malta as suspended between longing and apprehension, and later intensifies in representations that foreground the frictions of membership through themes in hunting, migration, and economic reforms, where supranational authority rubs sharply against local sensitivities. This dissertation demonstrates that satire is not peripheral to political understanding, but central, operating as a parallel form of public reasoning that registers what citizens feel before it takes shape in formal political expression. By foregrounding satire as a diagnostic lens, this dissertation offers an original contribution to political communication and cultural analysis. It shows that to understand how Malta sees the European Union, one must attend not only to official declarations, but also to the jokes told in their shadow. Description: M.A.(Melit.) Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/145335 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z