Debating News Media: Politics, Identities, and Alternatives in the Greek Mediascape

ABSTRACT

Against the backdrop of intertwined crises, this study explores discursive interplays between news media, journalists, and the audience. Analyzing media texts, it sets as its epicentre something that rarely concerns the academic community, i.e., the way in which Media talk about themselves, exploring their reflexive function and the ways they configure their relation to state and party politics, as well as professional identities. Employing focus groups, our study sheds light on the dialogue between journalists and the audience, delving into their argumentative strategies and psycho-discursive practices. Furthermore, the combination of critical approaches to discourse analysis with the use of lexicometric techniques allows us to bring to the fore “unmapped” territories of the media landscape, enhancing our findings with higher levels of reliability. This interdisciplinary research design throws into sharp relief the antagonistic discourses as well as the contingency of meanings that are crucial to democracy, carving out the space to challenge normative perceptions of freedom of speech, pluralism, accountability and citizens’ participation in the public debate. Therefore, the gap between the rules governing the Media and their operation in practice emerges, pointing to alternative ways of collectively reinventing the entire mediatic ecosystem.

KEYWORDS:

• Media
• journalists
• audience
• pluralism
• participation
• discourse analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Stamatis Poulakidakos [Assistant Professor, Department of Communication and Digital Media, University of Western Macedonia] who provided insight and expertise, the anonymous reviewers for their insightful observations, as well as all the participants who made this research possible.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Obviously, the way “reflexivity” is treated by Habermas and in this article qua reflection differs from how Beck and Lash understand this concept (Beck, Giddens, and Lash 1994).

Additional information

Funding

This research is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund-ESF) through the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning 2014-2020” in the context of the project “Media in the limelight: A dialogic approach” (M.I.S. 5049510); Ministry of Finance, Industry and Competitiveness and the European Social Fund (ESF).