Eurobarometer 56.3: Getting Information on Europe and European Union Enlargement, January-February 2002 (ICPSR 3480)

Version Date: Apr 22, 2010

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Principal Investigator(s):
Thomas Christensen, European Commission

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03480.v3

Version V3

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Summary

This round of Eurobarometer surveys diverged from standard trend questions and queried respondents on (1) media exposure and information behavior, (2) European Union (EU) enlargement and its expected effects, and (3) support for European integration and decision-making in the EU. For the first topic, media exposure, respondents from each EU member country were asked to identify the specific types of media they accessed regularly (among a variety of television channels, daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, and radio stations) and the types of television programs they watched most frequently. In regard to information behavior, respondents were asked to identify what sources of media they used to obtain information about the EU, as well as which topics they preferred to find out about through television or daily newspapers. The survey also queried respondents about their opinion of how informatively, objectively, or favorably television or daily newspapers presented news about the EU. In addition, respondents were asked about the extent of their interest in certain topics and their desire to obtain more information. Such topics include issues pertaining to the EU, facts about EU candidate countries, the opinions of people residing in other EU countries, and the contents of the respondent's national constitution and the treaties of the EU. Respondents were also polled about their knowledge and use of information services provided by the EU, their satisfaction with information received from these types of services, and how they preferred to communicate suggestions to the EU. For respondents who use the Internet, the survey asked them to identify their Internet access location, how often and why they visit the EU Web site (Europa), and topics they would like to find on the Internet, while all respondents were asked whether they would communicate with EU decision-makers online. For the second topic, EU enlargement and its expected effects, the survey polled respondents about their knowledge of EU candidate countries, whether they had visited or plan on visiting these countries, and with which countries they have connections. Respondents were asked about their views regarding how well-informed they felt about EU enlargement, which member countries would benefit from enlargement, criteria for membership, the positive and negative effects of the inclusion of new countries and the immigration of citizens, satisfaction with life in the future, and their participation in political debate about enlargement. For the final topic, support for European integration and decision-making in the EU, respondents were asked to identify the two most positive and negative aspects of the EU, as well as evaluate their favor towards the EU, the EU's priorities and effectiveness as a government, and the influence individuals, groups, and EU member nations have upon decision-making within the EU. In addition, the survey polled respondents about their attachment towards their community, region, country and the EU, and whether an advantage or disadvantage exists for their country, as an EU member, in defending its own interests. The survey also asked respondents other questions, including whether they support or oppose particular EU proposals or policies, whether politicians should express their views more often through the media, and to identify a responsible communications representative for the EU. Demographic and other background information includes respondent age, gender, nationality, marital status, left-right political self-placement, age when stopped full-time education, voting preferences for a "General Election" and referendum on the euro, household income, occupation, type and size of community, region of residence, and language of interview.

Citation

Christensen, Thomas. Eurobarometer 56.3: Getting Information on Europe and European Union Enlargement, January-February 2002. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2010-04-22. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03480.v3

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Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

country

Distributor(s)

GESIS, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2002-01-22 -- 2002-02-28

Date of Collection

2002-01-22 -- 2002-02-28

Data Collection Notes

  1. The original data collection was carried out by the European Opinion Research Group - EEIG on request of the European Commission.

  2. The codebook and setup files for this collection contain characters with diacritical marks used in many European languages.

  3. The documentation and/or setup files may contain references to Norway, but Norway was not a participant in this wave of Eurobarometer surveys. This collection contains no data for Norway.

  4. The fieldwork dates in the data file for the United Kingdom are not consistent with dates in the "Technical Specifications" section of the ICPSR codebook.

  5. The total number of interviews is 16,038. The table in the "Technical Specifications" of the ICPSR codebook incorrectly shows the total number of interviews as 15,926.

  6. A split ballot was used for for one or more questions in this survey. The variable V1954 defines the separate groups.

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Sample

Multistage national probability samples.

Universe

Citizens of the EU aged 15 and over residing in the 15 EU member countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Unit(s) of Observation

individual

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

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Original Release Date

2002-11-14

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Christensen, Thomas. Eurobarometer 56.3: Getting Information on Europe and European Union Enlargement, January-February 2002. ICPSR03480-v3. Cologne, Germany: GESIS/Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributors], 2010-04-22. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03480.v3

2010-04-22 The data have been further processed by GESIS, and the SAS, SPSS, and Stata setup files, Stata system file, and codebook have been updated. Also, the SAS transport (XPORT) file has been replaced with a SAS transport (CPORT) file, the SPSS portable file has been replaced with an SPSS system file, and a tab-delimited ASCII data file and data collection instrument have been added.

2007-02-12 The data were further processed by the ZA, and the SPSS setup file and the codebook were updated. Also, SAS and Stata setup files, an SPSS portable file, a SAS transport file, and a Stata system file were added.

2002-11-14 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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Weight

Please review the "Weighting Information" section of the ICPSR codebook for this Eurobarometer study.

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Notes