Bridging dominant and critical frames of the Greek debt crisis: mainstream media, independent journalism and the rise of a political cleavage

ABSTRACT

This paper presents media and political frames on the debt crisis in Greece as revealed during the first two years (2010–2012) of the bailout program. Our goal is to discern the dividing line between dominant and critical frames as they were articulated between mainstream media and the so-called ‘independent journalism’ and powerful and powerless political actors. There are hardly any studies that have analyzed the emerging power of critical frames produced by less visible actors and that try to see the alignment of political and media frames. The analysis stands for the complexity of the framing process revealing three opposite narratives: the debt crisis as a situation of exception, as the moral and political bankruptcy of a model of development adopted in Greece and as a humanitarian and democratic crisis. Those frames undertaken by political actors, mainstream and ‘independent’ media are linked to a set of causes, responsibilities and solutions that shaped the major political cleavage between pro-memorandum/anti-memorandum that dominated Greece till 2015.

KEYWORDS:

• Frames
• political parties
• Greek crisis
• documentary/independent journalism
• alternative/mainstream media

Acknowledgments

The sections on documentary journalism are part of a post-doctoral research implemented through IKY scholarships programme and co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund - ESF) and Greek national funds through the action entitled “Reinforcement of Postdoctoral Researchers”, in the framework of the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development Program, Education and Lifelong Learning” of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 2014–2020.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. About the public online discussion on the issues raised by Debtocracy see the numerous references in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtocracy

2. Greek Ministry of Finance. European Commission. 15 January 2010. Retrieved 9 October 2011.

3. ‘With his consecutive international meetings at the summit level, Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou is changing power relations. He is placing the issue of the creation of a European support mechanism for member-states at the heart of the EU’s political life’. Government Spokesman G.Petalotis, 24/03/2010).