The Indignados protests in the Spanish and Greek press: Moving beyond the ‘protest paradigm’?

Abstract

The protests of the Indignados in Spain and their counterpart of Aganaktismeni in Greece have been the most vocal expression of civic discontent against the ways the Euro crisis has been handled by national governments and the Eurozone. This article studies how these protests have been covered in the mainstream press. Drawing upon the ‘protest paradigm’, which longstanding research has employed to describe the template and biased way protests have been traditionally covered, we have conducted content analysis of mainstream Spanish and Greek newspapers. We argue that the overall coverage moved beyond the protest paradigm. It adopted a more positive tone in reporting the protests, including the individual voices of the protesters and covering the performative aspects of the movement in positive terms. At the same time, however, the protests were overwhelmingly reported as a mere expression of resentment against the status quo rather than as offering valid political alternatives.