Absurdity and the “Blame Game” Within the Schengen Area: Analyzing Greek (Social) Media Discourses on the Refugee Crisis

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the European threats regarding Greece's expulsion from the Schengen zone, we analyze Greek political and (social) media discourses on the refugee crisis. The main aim of this study is to explore whether and how the Greek media and social media discourses on the refugee crisis and the political decisions regarding it contribute to the discursive reconstruction of the Greek nation-state and its imaginaries. We assume that the refugee crisis led to a polarized climate that dominates the Greek and European political scene and questions European solidarity. Utilizing the Discourse-Historical Approach, we analyze the social media discourses of the Greek prime minister and the president of the main opposition party regarding the European debate on the Schengen agreement's suspension. Moreover, we employ content analysis to focus on the media coverage of the Schengen debate and the refugee crisis. Finally, based on Camus's allegoric novel The Plague, we emphasize the parallelism between the discourses on the Schengen agreement and the allegory of the plague. “Fortress Europe” and the emphasis on national borders within the European Union prompted us to utilize the allegory of Camus's The Plague to highlight the resurgence of the nation-state and the discursive deconstruction of European solidarity in times of crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugee crisis
• Greek politics
• social media discourses
• Greek media discourses
• Schengen debate

Notes

1. http://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html

2. Henceforth referred to as KWNS.

3. Our pilot study was conducted in the course of 2 weeks and included samples from the three selected newspapers. In particular, we reviewed, annotated, and coded all articles in the studied newspapers under the categories Politics, International News, Society, Financial News, and identified the most prominent key words related to our research questions. We included only neutral words that could relate to broader thematic categories, thus, not limiting our final sample of analysis. The resulting list of key words identified the main topics that would define our units of analysis and is therefore inclusive and does not limit the central concepts that inform our final sample selection.

4. The online versions of the newspapers can be found at http://www.kathimerini.gr (Kathimerini), http://www.efsyn.gr (Efimerida ton Syntakton), http://www.protothema.gr (Proto Thema).

5. Official statistics are not provided for Kathimerini as the company has decided to disclose all relative information. However, according to the knowledge of the researchers on the media field in Greece, the newspaper is ranked among the most popular national newspapers.

6. Circulation rates: 248.389 (monthly rate, December 2015), 18.3% in its category (evening daily newspapers), Athens Daily Newspaper Publishers Association, http://www.eihea.com.gr.

7. Circulation rates: 381.410 (monthly rate, December 2015), 26.9% in its category (Sunday newspapers), Athens Daily Newspaper Publishers Association, http://www.eihea.com.gr.

8. We decided to include news articles only under the category Politics, as our respective research questions approach the refugee crisis through the political lens and focus on the political discourse associated to the issue under study.

9. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-174_en.htm

10. See http://www.efsyn.gr/arthro/minyma-tsipra-me-apodekti-tin-komision.