Budgetjam! A communications intervention in the political-economic crisis in Ireland

Abstract

This essay reflects on a communications intervention organized immediately following the ‘bailout’ provided to Ireland by the troika of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB), and preceding the implementation of an ‘austerity’ budget designed to further the transfer of banking debt to the sovereign. Reacting to the steadfast official narrative that ‘there is no alternative’, and the general failure of mainstream journalism to question the framing of the ‘bailout’, a network of political and community activists, journalists and academics experimented with ways of challenging the dominant framing of the crisis.

Keywords

Austerity Europe financial journalism Ireland jamming neoliberalism

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