Sticking to the status quo with a twist: Western media representations of fiscal negotiations during the Greek economic crisis

Abstract

In a volatile global economic system, the need for comprehensive media portrayal of economic crises intensifies. Crises expose the deficiencies of existing financial systems and present opportunities for structural change, but media coverage consistently promotes hegemonic structures. During the Great Recession of 2008, media narratives of Greek and foreign newspapers represented Greece's debt crisis as a national problem rather than a systemic problem. This study examines newspaper coverage of the Greek economic crisis in the summer of 2015 to explore whether the lack of comprehensive coverage persisted in the aftermath of the Great Recession. A qualitative content analysis of legacy newspapers suggests the press has become more rigorous in interpreting the underlying mechanisms of a crisis instead of solely covering episodic events, but with a caveat: most analysis comes from editorials. The findings indicate that financial systems are portrayed as unmalleable institutions.