Civil society coalitions in the EU media regulation: when field theory meets network analysis

The field of Eurocracy has increasingly been shaped by the emergence of actors lobbying on the area of digital regulation, which has heavily increased during the Von der Leyen Commission. We study the extra-institutional actor networks that have been involved in the EU digital policy formulation, and hypothesise that beyond clearly visible networks of opposition, the subjacent social structure of discourse networks was dominated by Big Tech. We do so by analysing the role of actor coalitions that have emerged to channel specific demands and pressures in relation to the ongoing regulatory struggle, as well as the dominant discourse coalitions. Specifically, we use Social Network Analysis to examine the cooperation and competition patterns among the actors involved. Our work is relevant for the study of EU personnel in two ways. First, digital regulation is a pertinent example of dynamics in emerging fields, where dominating policy entrepreneurs establish discursive dominance over a long time. Second, our innovative methodological approach indicates why analysing organisational discourses are relevant to understand the networks that contribute to the structure of the EU field.