Citizen Perceptions of The European Union: The Impact of the EU W ...

area are highly interdisciplinary, and often cover more than one field of research (e.g., studying election campaigning on the Internet and analysing attitude changes), this approach seemed more sensible than treating these fields of research separately.¹¹

In chapter 2, the Internet as an object of study is discussed, so as to define what is referred to here as a medium-technology-network. Chapter 3 lays out the theoretical foundations and the dual-perspective model that allowed for studying both users and communicators within the same framework. This is followed by a chapter on the user side and the process of online information seeking (chapter 4) and an analysis of the communicator side, which looks further into the communicative strategy of the EU and the role of the Web site within this strategy (chapter 5). Both chapters present the findings in these respective areas, but chapter 5 also includes information gathered through interviews in Brussels, in an attempt to close existing gaps in the literature.

Chapters 6 and 7 prepare the ground for the empirical enquiry. Chapter 6 provides a discussion on comparative research, which is followed by a secondary analysis of EB data and country profiles of the countries included here, so as to establish a frame of reference. Chapter 7 breaks down the theoretical considerations, including the issues that were raised through this study's findings, so as to establish the main hypotheses and research questions that guided the empirical work. Before addressing the findings in chapter 10, chapter 8 discusses the methodology and elaborates on the mixed method approach employed in this study, while chapter 9 provides information on both the data collection and analysis. In this chapter, the importance of language is raised again. Chapters 11 and 12 deal with the comparison of findings, draw together the conclusions of this study, and provide recommendations and practical implications. At this point the study takes a normative approach, aimed at recommending alternatives for the design, implementation, and use of the Web site as a means of interaction between citizens and institutions (Sawyer & Rosenbaum, 2000). Finally, chapter 13 discusses the restrictions of this study, including a re-examination of the method and the empirical data collection, and provides an outlook for future research in this area.