Legitimation Mechanisms in the Bailout Discourse

Abstract

This study examines how the discursive struggles over the constituents of the financial crisis in Greece are policed by mainstream domestic media, in favour of the hegemonic interpretations of the crisis. The study focuses in particular on the discursive mechanisms the Greek press employed to legitimate the bailout agreements Greece signed with the troika. The analysis points to the discursive mechanisms of naturalisation and objectivation that empower the reconstruction of the hegemonic neoliberal rhetoric. The media studied actively participate in the discursive struggle over the crisis, exercising political agency by legitimating the bailout policies as the single course of action for the financial recovery of the country, while selectively omitting or discrediting alternative voices and interpretations.

KEYWORDS:

• legitimation
• hegemony
• discourse
• discursive struggles
• news
• financial crisis
• bailout
• Greece

Introduction

The public discussion on the financial crisis in Greece is articulated around a set of discourses over the meaning of the crisis and the ways to overcome it, with media holding a key position in mediating the discursive struggles in which social and political actors fight over the definitions of the crisis. The mainstream media, in particular, are criticised for favouring and supporting the hegemonic discourse over the crisis, by privileging the political and economic elites in expressing their views and providing their framing and interpretations while marginalising or excluding counter-hegemonic or other alternative voices (Mylonas 2014; Titley 2012). In this respect, the mainstream media are not only seen to mediate the public discussion but also to intervene as active agents in the discursive struggles over the social construction of the crisis.

Within this context, this study examines how the domestic mainstream media in Greece covered and represented the bailout-related news, over a two-year period (April 2010–June 2012); that is, the news referring to the memoranda Greece signed with the troika, which were considered vital for the economic “salvation” of the country. The study focuses in particular on the discursive mechanisms the domestic press used to legitimate the necessity of the bailouts, not only reproducing the hegemonic discourse of the crisis but also contributing to its construction. The analysis is theoretically informed by the discussion on the role of media in the social construction of reality (Tuchman 1978a; Berger and Luckmann 1967; Hall at al. 1978), combined with the concept of hegemony, and specifically the media's role in reiterating and legitimating hegemonic discourses over critical issues for societies (Hall et al. 1978; Gramsci 1971; Gitlin 1980, 1986; Herman and Chomsky 1988). The analysis is further informed by discourse theory (Laclau and Mouffe 1985), which sees discourse as central to the social production of meaning and is often employed in the examination of hegemonic discourses articulated in the social.

Hegemonic Discourses and (Re)Constructions of Reality

The concept of hegemony, departing from the seminal work of Gramsci on class power, connects hegemony not only to the political and economic dominance of a class but also to its cultural dominance (Bates 1975; Scott 2001, 89), and broadly seeks to reveal the ways in which culture and ideology intertwine (McKinley and Simonet 2003, 9). From this perspective, hegemony is “leadership as much as domination across the economic, political, cultural and ideological domains of a society” (Fairclough 1992, 92) and is related to the various means through which the dominant ideology in a culture is reproduced and largely accepted even by social groups whose interests are not supported by it (Dow 1990, 262; Scott 2001, 89). Laclau and Mouffe, moving away from an exclusive focus on class domination, see hegemony broadly as a form of politics (1985, 139). Deetz explains that

The site of hegemony is the myriad of everyday institutional activities and experiences that culminate in “common sense,” thus hiding the choices made and “mystifying” the interests of dominant groups. Dominant group definitions of reality, norms, and standards appear as normal rather than as political and contestable. (1977, 62).

Of course, diverging or counter-hegemonic opinions, views and versions of reality circulate in society. Actually, the openness of the social is the precondition of every hegemonic practice (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 142). As Fairclough notes, hegemony “is never achieved more than partially and temporarily, as an ‘unstable equilibrium’” (1995, 76). Given that meaning and definitions of reality are never fixed, but are constructed and re-negotiated (Derrida [1976] 1998; Barthes 1976) in discursive (power) struggles, the acceptance and maintenance of the hegemonic order depends largely on its legitimation. According to Weber, “[e]very system of authority attempts to establish and to cultivate the belief in its legitimacy” (1964, 325). Berger and Luckmann describe legitimation as a second-order objectivation of meaning, as a process of explaining and justifying. “Legitimation ‘explains’ the institutional order by ascribing cognitive validity to its objectivated meanings … [and] justifies … [it] by giving a normative dignity to its practical imperatives  … ” (1967, 93). In his map of power relations, Scott identifies legitimation as one of the two main elements of persuasive influence (the second is signification), leading to “commitment to or recognition of ideas or values that are accepted as beyond question, as providing intrinsically appropriate reasons for acting … [limiting the subalterns’] … willingness to consider action alternatives” (2001, 14–15). For van Dijk, “legitimation is one of the main social functions of ideologies” (1998, 255), whereas “[i]deologies are representations of aspects of the world which can be shown to contribute to establishing, maintaining and changing social relations of power, domination and exploitation” (Fairclough 2003, 9). The power of ideologies lies in their capacity to discursively facilitate the articulation of hegemonic practices, while maintaining a material character, in as much as they “are not simple systems of ideas but are embodied in institutions, rituals and so forth” (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 109).

One of the main fields where these discursive struggles of describing and defining social reality take place is the mainstream media. News, in particular, is considered one of the main sources of knowledge and power in society (Entman 2004; Tuchman 1978a, 217). According to Tuchman, “news does not mirror society. It helps to constitute it as a shared social phenomenon, for in the process of describing an event, news defines and shapes that event” (1978a, 184). In this context, the media are considered major cultural institutions in building common-sense and securing consent (Herman and Chomsky 1988) by favouring and echoing “the definitions of the powerful” over social reality, reproducing thus “symbolically the existing structure of power in society's institutional order” (Hall et al. 1978, 57 and 58).

Especially in issues of high controversy or in crises, when meaning can be highly contested and the discursive struggle over it among social and political agents is intense, the role of organic intellectuals, such as journalists, is critical in certifying “the limits within which all competing definitions of reality will contend” (Gitlin 1980, 254), privileging those that echo the views of actors in power positions (Gitlin 1986). In cases where the dominant social definitions of reality are threatened, the assignment of “an inferior ontological status, and thereby a not-to-be-taken-seriously cognitive status, to all definitions existing outside the symbolic universe” (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 115) helps in protecting the prevailing articulations. This is offered mainly by elite agents and official sources, and, in the name of objectivity, is assigned readily by journalists and media, in the news. As Reese notes, media professionals largely

accept the frames imposed on events by officials and marginalize the delegitimate voices that fall outside the dominant elite circles. By perpetuating as commonsensical notions of who ought to be treated as authoritative, these routines help the system maintain control without sacrificing legitimacy. (1990, 394).

In this vein, the dominant media not only are the channels through which hegemonic discourses circulate, but they become active agents in their articulation by policing the counter-hegemonic voices in the discursive struggles over critical issues for societies. Of course, in these discursive struggles a multitude of alternative voices and definitions do circulate, finding their expression—mostly, but not exclusively—in non-dominant or alternative media. However, the dominant mainstream media are privileged spaces where the main discourses of society are reconstructed, most often by hegemonic actors offering their interpretations on social reality and their views on both the dominant and alternative versions of reality. Their privileged status derives not only from their wide audience reach but also from their legitimation as one of the main cultural institutions, together with other elite institutions—mainly from the political and economic fields—to address the main issues of, and for, societies that alternative media lack.

Research Outline and Methodology

The bailouts Greece signed with the troika received extensive coverage, presented largely as the only means for the country's “salvation”. Therefore, the interest in this study lies in investigating how the hegemonic discourse on the bailout agreements is legitimated by the Greek media, by identifying the main legitimation mechanisms that facilitate the construction of the hegemonic articulation of the crisis.

The two daily newspapers with the highest circulation at the time of research, Ta Nea (The News) and Kathimerini (Daily), were chosen for the study. Both are long-established newspapers in Greece, the first targeting a middle-class centre-left readership and the second targeting a more conservative right-wing readership, more closely affiliated to the economic elite. Additionally to their wide reach in the Greek public, they are also sound examples of the mainstream media system in Greece, which has traditionally been characterised by strong state control, close ties between the state and the media, and a weak professional culture on the part of journalists (Hallin and Papathanassopoulos 2002; Hallin and Mancini 2004). Most major Greek media organisations are part of large company groups and have often been used as vehicles for the exchange of economic or political favours (Hallin and Papathanassopoulos 2002). Of course alternative media do exist, addressing a different discourse over the crisis. However, their position in the discursive struggles over the crisis is arguably rather frail, since, apart from their smaller reach, they do not belong in the same cluster of elites—together with the economic elite and the political elite—as the leading media in the country, and their power as institutions addressing the major issues of the Greek society is thus significantly weaker.

For the purposes of the study, news texts were selected and analysed from three time periods associated with significant developments regarding the bailout agreements. Each one of the research periods includes one week preceding and one week following the core events. The first period (16 April 2010–10 May 2010) was marked by the Greek government's and the troika's (European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)) agreement for a rescue package of €110 billion to prevent Greece from bankruptcy. During the second period (20 October 2011–19 February 2012), a second bailout loan programme of €130 billion, accompanied by a 53.5 per cent “haircut”¹ of Greece's debt to the private sector, was agreed between the Greek government and the troika. During the third period (29 April 2012–24 June 2012), national elections were held twice, as the government of PASOK had previously resigned and a steady government was needed to implement the bailouts. The result of the double elections was a tri-party coalition government of New Democracy (right-wing party, main opposition previously), PASOK (the socialist party that was previously in power) and Democratic Left (a small left-wing party).

From a set of 576 bailout-related news texts equally distributed in each research period and newspaper (print edition) that had been previously selected for a study on the news framing of the bailouts (Doudaki et al. forthcoming), 60 news texts were qualitatively analysed as most relevant to this study's purpose. The analysis focused on news reports and did not include opinion articles, commentary or editorials, because the aim was to look into the ways in which reality is discursively constructed in allegedly neutral accounts of events, as they are presented through conventional news reporting.

A text-centred qualitative content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon 2005; Titscher et al. 2000) was employed to locate the discursive legitimation mechanisms and their constituents. No preconceived categories were used in order to allow the categories to flow from the data inductively (Kondracki and Wellman 2002). The analysis followed a series of iterative coding processes, moving from the detection of specific elements and their systematic categorisation to the identification of general mechanisms of legitimation. Even though a predetermined analytical framework was not followed but the categories were derived from the material, the analysis does not introduce new concepts. Rather, pre-existing concepts from the theories of hegemony and social construction of reality instructed the analysis, along with discourse theory, and were put together to make up an analytical framework of legitimation mechanisms (see Table 1).

TABLE 1 Legitimation mechanisms in the news discourse over the Greek bailouts

Naturalisation	Objectivation
Symbolic annihilation (omission, trivialisation, condemnation)	Expertise
Mystification	Institutional sourcing
Simplification	Quantification
	Reification

Legitimising Mechanisms in the Discursive Struggles over the Crisis

The analysis revealed two main legitimation mechanisms, each articulated by specific components. The first mechanism—naturalisation—is built around symbolic annihilation, mystification and simplification. Objectivation, the second mechanism, is constructed by expertise, institutional sourcing, quantification and reification (see Table 1). These mechanisms work most often in combination, creating a “signification spiral” (Hall et al. 1978, 223) that leads to the amplification of their symbolic power.

Both naturalisation and objectivation assist the promotion and legitimation of the hegemonic discourse over the crisis by creating a supportive structure where the bailout agreements appear as natural and objective realities, while selectively marginalising, omitting or discrediting alternative voices and interpretations. The media work as vehicles of legitimation, exercising political agency in a process through which a number of floating signifiers in the crisis discourse become nodal points, privileged discursive points that (temporarily and partially) fix meaning in the discursive struggle over the crisis (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 112–113).

Naturalisation

“One of the most important general functions of ideology is the way in which it turns uncertain and fragile cultural resolutions and outcomes into a pervasive naturalism” (Willis 1977, 162). According to Fairclough, the naturalisation or automatisation of ideologies gives them their common-sensical power (1992, 87). Naturalisation, one of the two main legitimation mechanisms identified throughout the analysis, broadly concerns the ways in which the information, the opinions and the discussion on the financial crisis and the bailout agreements, as appearing in the news texts studied, become taken for granted and practically unquestioned, and are presented as “the way to do things”, as “the way things are” or even as “an objective historical given” (Tuchman 1978a, 196). Through naturalisation and its constituents—symbolic annihilation (omission, trivialisation, condemnation), mystification and simplification—the hegemonic discourse of the crisis is normalised and diverging opinions and ideas within the discursive struggle over the crisis are neutralised.

Symbolic annihilation

Symbolic annihilation describes the under-representation or misrepresentation of particular (social) groups in the media (Gerbner and Gross 1976, 182) through the mechanisms of omission, condemnation or trivialisation (Tuchman 1978b, 17). It “points to the ways in which poor media treatment can contribute to social disempowerment and in which symbolic absence in the media can erase groups and individuals from public consciousness” (Means Coleman and Chivers Yochim 2008, 4922).

From a different starting point, Berger and Luckmann view what they call nihilation as a kind of negative legitimation: “Legitimation maintains the reality of the socially constructed universe; nihilation denies the reality of whatever phenomena or interpretations of phenomena do not fit into that universe” (1967, 114).

In the following examples, a supportive structure for the symbolic annihilation of any alternative to the neoliberal austerity policies, in the discursive struggle over the crisis, is created by the journalists’ selective use of sources, data and interpretative frameworks.

Omission

As relevant research has recurrently shown, critical actors, main constituents of the financial crisis, as well as alternative framing and interpretations of the crisis are often absent from the related news discourse (Doudaki et al. forthcoming; Mylonas 2012; Tracy 2012). The absence and marginalisation of vital information for the apprehension of the crisis constituents and of alternative views and definitions adds to the establishment of “a powerful, constraining environment that appears entirely natural to social actors” (Abercrombie, Hill, and Turner 1980, 166). In this way, “the ruling ideas” regarding the crisis are presented as the unquestioned and taken-for-granted reality (Scott 2001, 90) of the crisis.

A news report on the Greek government's goals regarding the reduction of the deficit, headlined “Four-year Program for ‘Zero Deficit’” (Ta Nea, 27 April 2010), representative of the mechanism of omission (but also of mystification, institutional sourcing, quantification and reification), starts as follows:

A four-year program with the target to reduce the deficit to zero was announced yesterday evening in the Parliament by the Minister of Finance, George Papaconstantinou, following Merkel's² statements for the need of new tough measures by Greece.

The Minister said that apart from the goal to reduce the deficit by 4% in 2010, “it is estimated that from 2011 and in the next three years a deficit reduction of up to 10 percentage points can be reached”. This objective should be achieved, Mr. Papakonstantinou said, primarily by reducing costs, but also increasing revenues. (Ta Nea, 27 April 2010).

Even though it is unquestionably the reified force of the deficit that needs to be tackled, its nature and special characteristics are totally mystified. Vital information for the comprehension of the issue is omitted. The reader never learns how big is the deficit or why it should be the first priority of the government. Also, the information on the structures that nurtured its growth or the repercussions of its tackling for society is completely missing. The reader does get informed on the ways that this can be accomplished: through the reduction of expenses and the increase of revenue. However, one never learns how these two will be achieved.

Instead, the government's main target is quantified (deficit reduction by four per cent in 2010 and by 10 per cent in the next three years), used as a means to legitimise the governmental policy; all other information related to the ultimate purpose does not need to be added or, if included, to be justified. In addition, it is uniquely the minister's position that is presented in this text, while the reaction of the opposition is restricted in the last paragraph, creating discursively a power imbalance between the two sides.

Condemnation

The media covering the economic crisis at the international level often employ a neoliberal discourse according to which the state policies have failed and the public sector is accused for the crisis, as opposed to the healthy private sector where economy can function unobstructed in full capacity (Tracy 2012; Mylonas 2012). In addition, protest and diverging opinions within the political system and society are condemned as harmful for the economy and the countries’ future and prosperity (Titley 2012; Mylonas 2014; Doudaki et al. 2014).

An example of condemnation (also, of omission, mystification and institutional sourcing) is provided by a news story headlined “Games in the Parliament in Critical Times” (Kathimerini, 25 January 2012). In this text, Members of Parliament (MPs) of the three parties forming the interim coalition government, who did not follow the governmental line on the voting of a set of new measures related to the memorandum's implementation, are directly condemned for playing “political games in critical times”, endangering the government's mission to save the country. The news report's lead sets the tone:

While the government is required to meet the tight timeframe set by the Eurogroup, so that Greece secures the new loan, members of PASOK, New Democracy and LAOS caused serious damage [to the government], choosing to vote against critical provisions of the Finance Ministry's multi-bill. (Kathimerini, 25 January 2012).

The interpretation on their disobedience is offered in the last part of the story under the inner title “Hostages of Organised Interests”: “Sources of the government note that ‘yesterday's image in the Parliament shows just how difficult it is to deal with the unions and how strong their influence is on the Members of Parliament’” (Kathimerini, 25 January 2012). The text does not leave any room for alternative interpretations: it is by no way the disagreement of the MPs with the governmental policy, it is their connection with specific interest groups. Still, the attachment to these special interests is mystified, since one is not informed on which these interests are (even though they are implied, for the provisions that were not voted concerned the professional groups of pharmacists and lawyers). The MPs’ disagreement is thus symbolically annihilated with them being condemned of serving organised interests, which, however, are mystified. Furthermore, in reference to institutional sourcing, the government is the only source in the text and is given the exclusive privilege of offering its interpretation on the issue, which is fully adopted by the journalist. Any other position, including the actors’ directly involved in the issue (the disobeying MPs), is missing.

Trivialisation

Through their stereotypical reproduction and repetition, main issues in the news tend to be trivialised. In the case of the Greek crisis, trivialising debt and deficit as main causes of the crisis (Doudaki et al. 2014) and homogenising their different elements creates a spiral of its automated reproduction, leading to the creation of a common sense about the sources of the crisis. Also, by developing a common-sensical discourse on the harsh measures implemented, severe austerity is naturalised as the orthodox path to recovery (Mylonas 2014).

Trivialisation can also be connected to neutralisation. A conflictual or polarised frame of an event can have a neutralising effect: the presentation, in the name of objectivity, of the opposing positions and arguments within a conflictual frame does not lead to consolidating or agonistically considering the different positions; it can reversely lead to them being neutralised, and thus trivialised and weakened.

In a news report on the stance of the European governments towards Greece in view of the imminent elections and the ratification of the second bailout agreement, the stereotypical image of untrustworthy Greece is trivialised to legitimate (also, through condemnation and institutional sourcing) the distrusting position of the Europeans and to support the fairness of their harsh policies. The news story headlined “The Political Situation Troubles Europe” starts as follows:

The concern of Europeans about what will happen to Greece after the elections and in particular whether the post-election political balances will ensure compliance with the agreements that the Papademos³ government has to validate, has become obvious. At the highest ranks of most governments of the euro-countries there is the impression that the Greek political forces as a whole are untrustworthy and that the chances for complications in the repayment of loans after the elections, are high. (Ta Nea, 11 February 2012).

In the next paragraph, reporting on the European partners’ discontent on the progress Greece has made in the implementation of the first memorandum's agreed terms, the country is presented through the words of European officials (even though we never learn their names, they are quoted) as doing “always too little, always too late”, with the distressing attestation that “with the picture that Greece presents today, the conditions that would allow their [the EU countries’] parliaments to ratify the new loan agreement of 130 billion euros, are not met”.

The alarmed tone of the news report about Greece not making it for the new loan, legitimates, through the condemnation and trivialisation of Greece's unreliability, the Europeans’ harshness and suggests that there is no alternative for the country than to follow the agreed terms, with a reliable, according to European standards, government.

Mystification

In the news texts studied, who is responsible for the crisis and which are the concrete societal effects of the measures taken for the memoranda's implementation are systematically concealed (see, also, Doudaki et al. forthcoming). Similarly, the reasons behind the crisis are consistently mystified, not connected to the specificities of the economic and political system; they are abstract, even though frequently quantified. Debt and deficit, which are presented as the main causes of the crisis, are specific numbers, possessing a quantifiable dimension that cannot be easily challenged, while—appearing disconnected from the specific reasons that caused them. In this way the numbers acquire a quasi-mythical uncontested power (McKinley and Simonet 2003, 18), legitimating the policies of harsh austerity. The mystification of the crisis, apart from supporting a blameless discourse, also braces fatalism, eschatologically strengthening the neoliberal discussion of the inescapable austerity: Greece is helpless, the powerful will save the country, it is inevitable (Mylonas 2012, 2014).

In the following example of mystification (also, of omission, reification and institutional sourcing) entitled “Three and a Half Hours of Pounding by the Inspectors” (Ta Nea, 22 April 2010), the position of the Greek side is presented only as a defensive reaction towards troika's demands, restricted in two out of the eight paragraphs of the text, while the focus is on the harsh pressure from the troika. The story is introduced as follows: “Hard bargain with the technocrats of the IMF and the EU. They require wild cuts in the private sector wages and immediate implementation of the [changes in the] social security system”. Accountability is mystified in this text; the Greek government is not directly blamed for the painful imminent measures and neither is the troika, since the measures will simply implement Ecofin's decisions, which is presented as a reified inhuman structure:

All these [measures, the minister of Finance] argued, will be based on decisions of the Ecofin of 16 February, which recommends to Greece, among other things, the reform of the pension and the health system, the abolition of collective labour contracts, the easing of restrictions on layoffs, the opening-up of closed professions, etc. (Ta Nea, 22 April 2010).

This evasiveness and positive signification on the description of the harsh measures to be agreed with the troika results in the mystification of austerity, which seems to entail vaguely “structural changes”, “reforms”, “easing of restrictions”, “competitiveness and growth”, thus having no concrete repercussions on society. Hence, mystification serves the articulation of the hegemonic discourse over austerity by obscuring its constituents.

Simplification

According to Bird and Dardenne, news:

is a way in which people create order out of disorder, transforming knowing into telling. News offers more than fact—it offers reassurance and familiarity in shared community experiences; it provides credible answers to baffling questions, and ready explanations of complex phenomena such as unemployment and inflation (1997, 336).

News about the economy does provide regularly examples of simplistic or one-dimensional accounts of composite issues and phenomena (Martenson 1998, 115). There is the assumption that complex processes of the economy need to be reduced to familiar and simplified news narratives to be readily accessible to the broad audience (Huxford 2008, 13). As it is difficult to adequately present all of their variations and nuances, their different constituents tend to be homogenised into easily presented main categories, avoiding structural connections between them (Tuchman 1978a, 180).

A news story entitled “A Matter of Time the Decisions in the Labour” (Kathimerini, 14 January 2012), reporting on the government's decision to implement cuts in the salaries of the private sector, focuses exclusively on the prime minister's parliamentary speech on the issue. In a text of 424 words, the opposition's standpoint is presented in 37 words with one 11-word quote, while the prime minister's quoted speech adds up to 215 words.

In the second paragraph the prime minister's rhetoric is deployed:

“It is preferable to have open businesses with slightly lower wages  …  instead of closed businesses and more unemployed,” Mr. Papademos emphasized, and maintained that the final governmental positions will be established “with a view to enhancing competitiveness and protecting the most vulnerable sectors of society.”  …  “The unemployed have neither minimum nor 13^th and 14^th salary. We must care for them as well  … ” (Kathimerini, 14 January 2012).

In the most simplified manner (with the aid also of omission, mystification and institutional sourcing), wage cuts are portrayed, through the words of the head of government, as a measure to tackle unemployment. This is an argument that would readily appeal to the public opinion given the alarming dimensions of the phenomenon of unemployment in Greek society.⁴ However, no other relevant information is provided – for example, on whether there will be any guarantees that the companies will be obliged to hire more employees, should the wage reductions be implemented. The unquestioned adoption in the text of the framing and preferred definition of the issue provided by the political elite, which legitimates the measure of wage reductions, is actually a practice of political agency on the part of the journalist, in the discursive struggle over unemployment.

Objectivation

The second main legitimation mechanism is that of objectivation. Berger and Luckmann perceive objectivation as “the process by which the externalized products of human activity attain the character of objectivity” (1967, 60). Objectivation in this study refers broadly to the presentation and (re)construction of information and ideas as real and objective facts that cannot be contested, having a quasi-scientific ontological status. Tuchman notes that “when members of a society identify aspects of culture and structure as objective phenomena (the normal, natural, taken-for granted facts of life), they are affirming the facticity of the world as given by the natural attitude” (1978a, 196). The news plays a central role in objectifying public issues by bestowing them an “objective” status as real issues of high public concern (Hall et al. 1978, 62).

The analysis showed that the constituents of objectivation—institutional sourcing, expertise, quantification and reification—are used in the news to fortify the hegemonic discourse on the necessity and superiority of the neoliberal bailout policy over any other policy against the crisis.

Institutional sourcing

The dependence of media and journalists on “accredited sources” within the professional logics of impartiality and objectivity produces “a systematically structured over-accessing to the media of those in powerful and privileged institutional positions” (Hall et al. 1978, 58). Media researchers and theorists agree that journalistic frames are largely shaped by social actors who possess significant economic and cultural assets, and the sources in this process act as “the sponsor[s] of the frames” (Carragee and Roefs 2004, 219) or as their “primary definers” (Hall et al. 1978, 58). The media's heavy preference for institutionalised sources creates an “institutional bias” (Tuchman 1978a) on the social, since together with the information the worldview of these elites is also adopted and presented as the orthodox perception over social reality.

In a news report headlined “The EU Parliament is Warning” (Kathimerini, 13 June 2012) and in view of the national elections in Greece, European politicians provide as exclusive sources the no-alternative frame, totally adopted by the journalist. Greece is warned on the imminent disaster should the next Greek government reject the memorandum or does not fully comply: “The head of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, Hannes Swoboda, assessed that the denouncement of the Memorandum would amount to ‘a disaster for Greece'”.

The European political actors get also the privilege to offer their position on the diverging standpoint of the oppositional Greek political forces. Through the voice of Mr Swoboda, the left party SYRIZA—that keeps an anti-memorandum stance and in the pre-election period announced that it would denounce the memorandum should it ever be in power—is warned that it “will fail if it tries to ‘blackmail Europe'”. After the opposing stance is annihilated (with the help also of omission and simplification), the possibility of Greece not complying is also abolished; it is emphatically stressed, via the quoted speech of the leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, that there is no way out since:

even a left government has to negotiate: “Even if we say that we do not negotiate and throw the Memorandum in the trash, they should find money somewhere. Europe will cut the instalments. How will they pay the pensioners and employees and how will they meet their needs? Even a leftist government will be forced to negotiate”. (Kathimerini, 13 June 2012).

Through the very selection of the topic for coverage and the absence of any other voice in the text, the journalist and the newspaper adopt in practice the frame offered by the European politicians, acting as one of the agents that promote the European policy. Since any competing alternative is rejected through the most official sources, the European policy is objectified as the only way to Greece's “salvation” and gains unquestioned legitimacy.

Expertise

According to Scott, expertise is a type of power activated “when cognitive symbols are structured into organized bodies of knowledge in terms of which some people are regarded as experts and others defer to their superior knowledge and skills” (2001, 22). “Expertise thus performs an exclusionary function, controlling who can speak authoritatively about an issue” (Seymour 2009, 4).

The presence of experts in the news has increased significantly in the last decades. Experts are generally considered among the most credible sources, since they are seen as combining the qualities of knowledge and independence. They are able to provide expert or scientific knowledge, which journalists often lack, and are considered unattached to specific interests. According to Albæk (2011, 338), one of the reasons of their increased use is that journalists need the “compensatory legitimation” of experts for the issues they cover, to confirm the conclusions they have already reached and the news frames they have adopted.

In a news report headlined “The Pistol Became  …  a Bazooka”,⁵ complimented by the sub-headline “Experts Explain How the Europackage Shields Greece As Well” (Ta Nea, 11 May 2010), three Greek market analysts give their expert opinion and knowledge on the implications of the European Stability Mechanism's creation that had been decided the previous day by the European Union finance ministers. The readers are informed from the introduction: “Market analysts predict that  …  it creates more favourable conditions for Greece, for exit from the crisis”. While the experts verify that the support mechanism will have positive implications for Greece, they hurry to stress the necessity that Greece abides by the agreed terms with the troika:

Provided that the euro is stabilized, they note, Greece will no longer be used by the markets as an attack vehicle  …  The pressures are expected to ease and bankruptcy scenarios to subside.

They rush at the same time to add that this ease should in no way detract from the effort to implement the programme that Greece has agreed with the European Union and the IMF. That would be disastrous, because the spreads would immediately surge and Greece could no longer borrow either from the markets or of course from the support mechanism, since it would have violated the terms of the latter. (Ta Nea, 11 May 2010).

Two main ideas are communicated throughout this text (which, apart from expertise, are also aided by the mechanisms of simplification, reification, omission and mystification): the policy decided is the right one; and Greece should stick to the agreement if it wants to be saved. As there are no other sources in the text and as any arguments questioning the hegemonic discourse on the European Stability Mechanism policy are expelled from the story, non-expert readers can hardly contradict the evaluations of experts that are presented as objective, incontestable facts. The governmental and European policy decisions are objectively legitimised in this neutral news report, through highly expert voices.

Quantification

Data and economic figures are often used in the news “more as tools of persuasion than aids to comprehension” (Goddard 1998, 87). In this context, the ideological implications of quantification in legitimating the governmental policies and the troika's decisions are considerable.

In an example of quantification (as well as of expertise, institutional sourcing and simplification), numbers, statistical data, analysts’ estimations, results of polls and even historical events are used to objectify the size of aid Greece has received, but also the height of risk of exiting the Eurozone should the austerity measures not be implemented. The news story, entitled “Merkel: Greece Received Help Equal to 150% of GDP”, starts as follows:

Greece has received help equal to 150% of its GDP, the German Chancellor said yesterday, while a poll in Germany showed that 83% of the respondents want Greece's exit from the euro if the country says “no” to the austerity measures.

Mrs Merkel compared the programme of Greece with the Marshal plan, stressing that “the funds of the famous Marshal plan that Europe received after WWII reached 3% of the European GDP” and she added that the “two support packages and one remission of debt equal approximately 150% of the Greek GDP”. (Kathimerini, 8 June 2012).

In the quoted speech of Merkel, a combination of incontestable data and undisputable historical facts strengthens her argument, which is given the privileged position of the headline and the first two paragraphs. The comparison with the Marshal plan, in particular, is not accidental, since it has high symbolic value for contributing to the reconstruction of the destroyed Europe after World War II, and is widely known by European citizens.

The news story goes on to present the views of the German Minister of Economic Cooperation, the poll's results echoing German public opinion (without any information on who conducted the poll and when) and the views of two bank experts, all sides warning, through the use of data, for the danger and potential disaster of Greece leaving the Eurozone.

The combined use of sources of different status—experts, politicians and the pulse of public opinion—creates a structure of objectivity and does not leave much room for contestation: it is not only the politicians that put pressure on Greece, it is also the experts that testify for the necessity of implementing the agreed policies. Furthermore, the German—namely, the European—public opinion is presented as assenting with its leadership, or, better, its leadership as addressing the sentiment of the European public opinion. However, in practice, the polls—conducted and analysed by survey experts—are one more apparatus of expert knowledge, often critiqued as used by political actors, parties and interest groups, as instruments of influencing public opinion (Hitchens 2009; Irwin and Van Holsteyn 2000) to attain support in their policies and aims. Quantified data thus become incontestable knowledge, creating an objective reality of the Greek crisis and legitimating the European policy over it; within this hegemonic discourse, Greece should not only fully comply with, but should also be grateful for, the austerity policy since it has been helped more than any other country in Europe.

Reification

Berger and Luckmann see reification “as an extreme step in the process of objectification, whereby the objectivated world loses its comprehensibility as a human enterprise and becomes fixated as a non-human, non-humanizable inert facticity” (1967, 89). Within this vein, the products of human activity are perceived “as if they were something else than human products-such as facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of divine will” (1967, 89).

News concerning the economic activity or civil disorders, such as riots, is often presented “as the product of forces outside human control [ … ] as alien, reified forces”, or as natural phenomena (Tuchman 1978a, 213–214). Their reification, according to Tuchman, reaffirms the status quo, as both the individuals and the governments are presented as “powerless to battle either the forces of nature or the forces of the economy” (1978a, 214).

A news report entitled “Professions and Markets Open Up to Bring Investments”, where the economy and the markets are totally reified, presented as entities outside any human intervention and control (supported also by quantification, simplification and institutional sourcing), starts as follows:

The success of the program that the government has agreed with the European Union and the IMF, to reduce the deficit, against the loan of 110 billion euros, is hanging by a thread. This thread is called growth. Or, “no great recession”. (Ta Nea, 8 May 2010).

Growth, recession and deficit repeatedly appear in the text as absolute truths, are allocated agency as entities that possess magical powers and “lead lives of their own” (Jensen 1987, 17). This fatalist perspective alleviates responsibility from political actors, “shifting the attention from those institutions, officials and practices responsible for creating the prevailing economic conditions” (Huxford 2008, 15). Also, the creation of this mystified universe of uncontrollable forces supports the intervention of a larger institution, such as the troika, for Greece's salvation. The news story concludes by enumerating the measures that will take Greece out of the crisis:

Acceleration of the NSRF [National Strategic Reference Framework], stimulation of private investment, opening-up of markets and closed professions and privatizations are the main weapons with which the government will fight the challenge of growth. However, the market protests that at the same time that all these are announced, the government undermines growth, especially “green” growth, freezing investments and promoting an institutional framework inspired by statism, as they say. (Ta Nea, 8 May 2010).

While the measures that need to be taken to meet the goal of growth and save the country from disaster are positively signified (acceleration, stimulation of private investments, opening-up of closed professions), what actually these measures will require and which their implications will be, for society, are never mentioned. Instead, the market, as one of these reified forces, expresses its discontent that the government does not do enough for their implementation. Hence, the journalist serving as an active agent, the hegemonic narration over the crisis promotes the legitimation of the neoliberal policy of austerity, not only as “necessity and fate” (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 91) but also as the outcome of public demand.

Conclusion

This study examines how the discursive struggles over the constituents of the financial crisis in Greece are moderated by mainstream domestic media to echo hegemonic interpretations of the crisis. The study focuses in particular on the discursive mechanisms the Greek press employed to legitimate the bailout agreements Greece signed with the troika, as the single course of action for the financial recovery of the country. A qualitative contents analysis of news stories published in the two leading newspapers of the country was performed, instructed by the theories of hegemony and social construction of reality, and further assisted by discourse theory.

The analysis revealed two main legitimation mechanisms, those of naturalisation and objectivation, each constructed by a set of specific components. Naturalisation, concerning the ways in which the information, the opinions and the discussion on the financial crisis and the bailout agreements become taken for granted and practically unnoticed and unquestioned, is discursively constructed through symbolic annihilation (and its components of omission, trivialisation, condemnation), mystification and simplification. Objectivation, referring mainly to the presentation of information and ideas as real and objective facts that cannot be challenged, is constructed through institutional sourcing, expertise, quantification and reification.

The analysis showed that the neutral accounts of events, as they are presented through conventional news reporting, employ a hegemonic discourse, supporting the neoliberal policies of strict austerity the Greek governments and their partners have agreed upon and implement, as the orthodox path to recovery. Since the economic phenomena are reified, as entities of uncontrollable forces that “lead lives of their own” (Jensen 1987, 17), responsibility for creating the prevailing economic conditions is alleviated from political actors and the instrumentality of larger institutions, such as the troika, is advocated as divine intervention. Throughout these strategies, the hegemonic discourse on the crisis—what is the crisis and how it should be tackled—becomes naturalised and objectified, growing into hard-to-challenge institutional knowledge. Within this vein, the media studied actively participate in the discursive struggle over the crisis, exercising political agency by promoting the bailouts’ legitimation as “necessity and fate” (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 91) for Greece's salvation, while selectively omitting or discrediting alternative voices and interpretations.

Of course, it is not argued that the field of discursive struggles over the crisis is restricted in these two newspapers. Diverging opinions and arguments regarding the crisis are expressed both in alternative and mainstream media. Furthermore, even the dominant views and ideas are not unchangeably fixed but continuously negotiated and rearticulated. However, these media organisations are in the privileged position, being part of a cluster of elites, to address as validated institutions the major issues of the Greek society, regulating—not always fully or successfully—the conditions and boundaries of these issues’ discourses. Non-dominant and alternative media do not share this power. Nonetheless, once in a while they manage to articulate a counter-hegemonic discourse from within the ruptures of the discursive field of the crisis that reaches broader audiences.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Vaia Doudaki is Assistant Professor of Media and Journalism Studies in the Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus.

Notes

1. The Greek governmental bonds would lose 53.5 per cent of their face value.

2. The German Chancellor.

3. Loukas Papademos, former vice-president of the European Central Bank, was appointed to lead the country to elections, in head of an interim coalition government, after the socialist government of Papandreou had resigned.

4. In the last trimester of 2011 the unemployment rate was 20.7 per cent, and one year later it reached 26 per cent (National Statistical Service of Greece, 2012, 2013) http://www.mof.gov.cy/mof/cystat/statistics.nsf/labour_32main_en/labour_32main_en?OpenForm&sub=2&sel=2 (last accessed 2 April 2015).

5. The title refers to the appeal of the Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, to the European leaders, in March 2010, to “put the loaded gun on the table”; namely, to proceed to concrete actions to shield the Greek and European economy from speculators.