This book brings together leading European specialists in theories of the public sphere, media and democracy. It explores current key problems of communication, democracy and diversity, and how these are intertwined as part of media practice. Integrating geographical, historical and multicultural approaches, it develops existing thought on public phere and democracy. In particular, it focuses on three dimensions that reflect obstacles to the European democratic project. European public phere, the book scrutinizes the concepts inherent values and norms as well as the nature of the for mation and structure of a transnational public sphere: its efficacy, legitimacy, and pluralism. Examining media practices, journalistic cultures and the mediation of European issues in member states, it explores how the European public phere(s) are actualized for its citizens. Opening up the ethnic, cultural, and historical diversity of the continent, the book offers new approaches to the demands of modern European multiculturalism. In each case, the apparent struggle between idealism and realism forces the authors to question, as well as to offer, new ways of understanding the integration process and its communicative edge.