This article explores British newspaper coverage of Turkey's bid to join the EU in 2004. It poses three sets of questions in relation to that coverage, namely, how does coverage deal with support for, and opposition to, the bid; how does coverage represent Turkey and the European Union; and how does coverage engage with domestic British public and political opinion. In the course of exploring these questions, the article argues that the coverage positions Britain as apart from the EU and that it represents Turkey as being more `different' than `similar' from Europe. More significantly, the coverage gives considerable space to non-British oppositional voices, which raises significant questions about why British oppositional voices were absent.
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