Journal of Contemporary European Studies

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Bridging dominant and critical frames of the

Greek debt crisis: mainstream media, independent
journalism and the rise of a political cleavage

Fani Kountouri & Afroditi Nikolaidou

To cite this article: Fani Kountouri & Afroditi Nikolaidou (2019) Bridging dominant and
critical frames of the Greek debt crisis: mainstream media, independent journalism and the
rise of a political cleavage, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 27:1, 96-108, DOI:
10.1080/14782804.2019.1581600

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2019.1581600

Published online: 01 Mar 2019.

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JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES
2019, VOL. 27, NO. 1, 96–108
https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2019.1581600

ARTICLE

Bridging dominant and critical frames of the Greek debt crisis:

mainstream media, independent journalism and the rise of
a political cleavage
Fani Kountouria and Afroditi Nikolaidoub
a
Dept. of Political Science & History, Panteion University of Social & Political Sciences, Athens, Greece; bDept. of
Communication, Media and Culture, Panteion University of Social & Political Sciences, Hellenic Open University,
Athens, Greece

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This paper presents media and political frames on the debt crisis in Greece as Frames; political parties;
revealed during the first two years (2010–2012) of the bailout program. Our Greek crisis; documentary/
goal is to discern the dividing line between dominant and critical frames as independent journalism;
alternative/mainstream
they were articulated between mainstream media and the so-called ‘inde-
media
pendent journalism’ and powerful and powerless political actors. There are
hardly any studies that have analyzed the emerging power of critical frames
produced by less visible actors and that try to see the alignment of political
and media frames. The analysis stands for the complexity of the framing
process revealing three opposite narratives: the debt crisis as a situation of
exception, as the moral and political bankruptcy of a model of development
adopted in Greece and as a humanitarian and democratic crisis. Those frames
undertaken by political actors, mainstream and ‘independent’ media are
linked to a set of causes, responsibilities and solutions that shaped the
major political cleavage between pro-memorandum/anti-memorandum
that dominated Greece till 2015.

Introduction
This article will detect the framing building process where major and minor political actors, newer
and older media, mainstream and alternative media organizations, elite and non-elite actors,
converge and compete in the production and articulation of hegemonic and counter discourses
in order to take up a more integrative concept (Scheufele 1999; de Vreese 2012; Reese 2007) of the
framing strategies. This attempt brings in light some interesting assumptions concerning the
processes of frame building, frame competing and frame alignment during periods of crisis.
Our scope is to examine how, in Greece during the first period of the debt crisis, the process of
building dominant frames by major political parties and mainstream media and critical frames by
mainly online alternative media and resource-poor political parties fed the public discourse and
contributed to the emergence of new political cleavages. We argue that the pro-memorandum/
anti-memorandum (Lialiouti 2017; Tsirbas, 2016) dividing line is shaped as follows: on the one hand
is the dominant frame of the debt crisis, as it takes form through the alignment of government
frames and the mainstream media and, on the other hand, the critical frame of the crisis, high-
lighted by opposing political forces as well as by a type of journalism which aims at being an
alternative voice, independent from political and economic elites.

CONTACT Fani Kountouri fkountouri@panteion.gr Dept. of Political Science & History, Panteion University of Social &
Political Sciences, Leof. Syggrou,136, Athens 17671, Greece
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES 97

We focus on the first cycle of the crisis when the initial frames that will prevail during the
biggest part of the crisis take form. When drawing a timeline of the eight years of the debt Greek
crisis (2010–2018), we discern three temporal and thematic cycles of framing (Kountouri and
Nikolaidou 2015). The first such cycle begins with the announcement of Greece’s entry to the
mechanism of financial assistance (memorandum signed with IMF, ECB and EU) and ends with the
2012 elections of major political transformations. The second cycle signifies the domination of the
pro-memorandum/anti-memorandum cleavage along which the developing frames are articulated,
ultimately granting a coherent conceptual form to two opposing poles. The third cycle begins with
the signing of the third Memorandum (August 2015) by the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA)
and the party’s withdrawal from its anti-austerity rhetoric and practice and ends up with the end of
the third economic adjustment program in August 2018. The first cycle, it is where the different
interpretations of the crisis are shaped, its causes and consequences, and it is also where the pro-
memorandum/anti-memorandum dividing line that will be imposed on the subsequent framings of
the crisis is fostered. Furthermore, it is the beginning of the economic, social and political crisis
when the society comes face to face with the measures imposed by the Bailout program,
experiences its consequences at the level of subsistence and responds to the crisis through new
forms of political participation.
Therefore, this article contributes to the research conducted in Greece in the area of political
communication, and the still unexplored forms of digital journalism, with the bridging of different
types of frames that shaped the debt crisis and the revealing of the major dividing lines that have
marked the narratives on crisis in Greece.

On the use of frames

The article is structured around two central questions that deal with the use of frame building and
the frame analysis. It is necessary to point some of the early work in frame building analysis that
have a special concern on that frames can be contradictory or oppositional, do not come
intentionally and are the result of interactions and conflicts between different actors that have
unequal resources (Vliegenthart and van Zoonen 2011). This paper continues a discussion intro-
duced by Gitlin’s (1980, 7) contribution over ‘the prevailing definition of things, the dominant
frames’ and Gamson’s (1992) evocation of dominant (government and economic elites) and critical
frames (respondents).
We build on the above perspective in order to understand the frame building through a process
of frame competing (Chong and Druckman 2007) and frame alignment (Benford and Snow 2000) in
order to understand how strategic actors with unequal resources develop frames about an issue
and try to establish these in the public discourse and the news media (Hänggli and Kriesi 2010;
Matthes 2012).
We adopt the distinction between dominant/critical frames mainly to point out the varying
visibilities of said frames. Dominant frames are more visible as they are supported by actors with
a more central and long-standing position in the political and journalistic ‘hierarchy’, such as the
government and the more popular newspapers and television broadcasters. Critical frames are
articulated by less visible and resource-poor actors: recently constituted websites and printed
magazines, as well as voices from the left-wing opposition who have not at the time become
central players.
We will treat the above hypotheses using frame analysis as a methodological tool. According
to Entman’s definition (Entman 1993, 52), frames define problems, diagnose causes, evaluate
causal agents and their effects and suggest remedies. The narrative structure of a problem
(Snow and Benford 1992) is based on its definition, causal attribution and remedies offered that
could be described through three framing processes: the configuration frame (the problem
definition), the diagnosis frame (the causes of the problem) and the prognosis frames (the
solutions on problems).
98 F. KOUNTOURI AND A. NIKOLAIDOU

The configuration frame refers to the categorization of the problem (Gerstlé 2008) that is
immediately displayed at the time where the deviation from a desired situation is established.
The diagnosis frame refers to the causal attribution of the problem. This is to detect the causes and
responsibilities, the culprits search, the identification of victims (Snow 2001, 40). Essentially the
causal attribution of responsibility challenges the problem management. The prognosis frame
responds to what needs to be done for the problem and works in the search for a possible solution
and the possible strategic actions that it exposes from its structure in the problematic situation
(Scheufele and Nisbet 2008, xx).
Taken into consideration the above theoretical precautions our analysis is based on two main
research questions:
RQ 1: What were the dominant and critical frames used to debt crisis discussion? The first
research question focuses on the frame building process and especially on the competitive frames
promoted by strategic political actors, mainstream media and documentary journalism – as a form
of ‘independent journalism’ during the very first period of the memorandum agreement.
RQ 2: To what extent those frames interacted in order to create generic frames? The second
research question focuses on the frame alignment process as an integrated approach trying to
understand the multiple interactions creating strong and permanent frames.

On the Greek debt crisis

The debt crisis has become an object of analysis from various methodological points of view and
disciplines. Moreover, its impact has been so powerful that it breaks through most of the research
queries that are posed by the social sciences and humanities in relation to the present.
Several studies focus on the analysis of political parties such as the New Democracy, PASOK and
SYRIZA (Vasilopoulou, Halikiopoulou, and Exadaktylos 2014; Visvizi 2014). Another strong trend in
the literature unveils mainstream foreign and Greek media coverage in order to detect the various
trends in the formation of the news, Greece’s international image (Tracy 2012; Souliotis 2013;
Papathanassopoulos 2015; Capelos and Exadaktylos 2015). Mylonas (2014) focuses on the hege-
monic narratives that were produced by prominent media like e-Kathimerini and makes an account
that these journalistic discourses reproduce the narrative that characterizes the crisis as a national
and ethical problem (and not as a systemic and global one). This remark will be further reinforced
by our paper.
However, few of them directed their research toward the new online portals, blogs and social
media that sprung after 2008. For instance Zarali and Frangonikolopoulos (2013) who examine
the content of some of the most popular news portals and blogs ascertain on the formation of
an ‘anti-memorandum’ pole that puts the emphasis on fear-mongering and conspiracy theories
and cultivates a love–hate relationship with dominant Europe, while at the same time adopting
xenophobic behavior toward Others (309). This ‘anti-memorandum’ discourse displays different
characteristics to the one that is consequently formatted by the so-called ‘independent
journalism’.
In fact, various researchers detect that during the economic crisis mainstream media are enlisted
to support the elite’s views, while alternative voices emerged (mainly online) due to pressures in
journalistic industry and culture (Pleios 2013; Iosifidis and Boucas 2015; Nikolaidis 2015; Touri,
Theodosiadou, and Kostarella 2016). Iosifidis and Boucas (2015) talk about the emergence of ‘new
models of journalism’ (like Editor’s Newspaper or Unfollow magazine) and the use of internet by
independent journalists and of documentary journalism. Nikolaidis (2015, 4) mentions that the
‘alternative’ trend in the media industry confronts the ‘ideological legalization’ of the memoranda
that the dominant media proffer. However, the naming of these media as ‘alternative’ (Spyridou
et al. 2013; Touri, Theodosiadou, and Kostarella 2016) and their self-labeling as ‘independent’
encapsulate a variety of convergences between traditional and new media and forms of journalism,
which point to the dynamic of this trend in the formation of public sphere.
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES 99

We could understand online journalism as suggested by Siapera and Spyridou (2012), as

a Bourdieusian field formed by media actors with important social and symbolic capital,
previously gained in mainstream media. The journalists that created them, as well as the
forms they opt for, were forged within mainstream media. For instance, Stelios Kouloglou
journalist, documentary filmmaker, creator of Television Without Frontiers (TVXS) and lately,
SYRIZA’s member of the European Parliament had a distinguished career in the 1990s and
2000s in private and public media organizations. Aris Chatzistefanou creator of the two doc-
umentaries – see the second part of this paper – had also a background in private television
and radio, and his show Infowar (SKAI TV) dealt with issues often presented international current
affairs from an alternative and activist perspective. Consequently, not only they are not char-
acterized by amateurism or small-scale community structures as ‘alternative media’ are often
associated with (see Harcup 2003; Fuchs 2010) but they maintain and expand their social and
professional networks and audience online.
The terms ‘independent’ journalism and ‘alternative’ media that we use in this paper following
the journalists themselves and other scholars refer to their critical content and form although, in
fact, the term ‘critical media’ could encompass better their function (Fuchs 2010, 179–180). This
media self-positioning as ‘independent’ is established through the profile of the websites (usually
in the ‘who we are’ or editorial sections), the frontispieces, or even the website logos, where not
only they use the word ‘independent’ but also they expose the journalists’ personal trajectories in
and against the mainstream media. Journalists’ social and symbolic capital gives them the validity
of an ex-insider. The principle of independence is complemented by the participation of the users-
citizens in the journalistic process – as producers and distributors of content, as well as co-
producers through alternative forms of funding (Kountouri and Nikolaidou 2015) and of activists,
social scientists and politicians who do not have broad access to the hegemonic media. Moreover,
this pole proves to be formed and be discursively dependent on global and acknowledged
alternative voices (like Zizek’s, Klein’s), on political figures and journalists that were at the time
supporting SYRIZA and had years-long experience with mainstream media. Therefore, ‘indepen-
dent journalism’ was economically independent but were neither new in the political communica-
tion arena nor political neutral.

Empirical data and methodological framework

The analysis of political frames is conducted on the basis of press releases and political speeches by
PASOK, the party that won the 2009 elections and announced the country’s signing of the Memorandum
in May 2010, and by SYRIZA, that became the official opposition in 2012 (and later, in 2015, the governing
party). For both parties, we take into consideration the entirety of the press releases during three months
of 2010 (February, March, and April 2010). Two choices need to be justified. The first is that the party of
the main opposition at the time, New Democracy (ND), is excluded from the analysis. The center right
party of ND was a key player in the construction of the anti-memorandum frame during the period
between the assignment of the bailout agreement (in May 2010) and November 2011 when the President
of the party accepted the loan agreement and agreed to participate in a co-operation government. Our
choice was based on the party’s retreat from its anti-memorandum line before the 2012 elections as it is
where the dividing line (austerity-anti/austerity) is established through a new bipartisme (ND-SYRIZA).
The second methodological choice is that three months were selected as the starting date of the research
for being a key date, as it is where, for the first time, the different interpretations of the debt crisis are
shaped, its causes and consequences, and it is also where both the political elites and the media come
face to face with the first regulations on salary and pension cuts, as well as structural adjustments
(regarding mostly fiscal measures), are announced. This is also the time when Greece enters the support
mechanism (signed on 3 May 2010) and the protests of the first period take place.
The analysis of the media framing stands on two tendencies: that of the ‘mainstream media’ and
that of the so-called ‘independent journalism’ that emerges in 2010 and also includes the production of
100 F. KOUNTOURI AND A. NIKOLAIDOU

documentary films on the crisis. The mainstream media are analyzed on the basis of news reports by
private television broadcasters – more specifically by Mega Channel, the most popular, at the time,
private channel – and certain, popular as well, newspaper headlines. This analysis is in no way
exhaustive and refers mainly to media content from March, April and May 2010.
The alternative media are analyzed on the basis of two successful documentaries by two
journalists Katerina Kitidi and Aris Chatzistefanou: Debtocracy (2011) and Catastroika (2012).
During this period documentary filmmakers but also journalists delve into the exploration of the
crisis and of its effects in Greek society, shed light to political and historical issues and observe the
political processes behind the elections (Karakasis 2014; Papadimitriou 2016). The choice to focus
on the two documentaries is justified by their innovative production (through crowdfunding) and
mostly by the popularity they acquired through their online free distribution, participation in
various festivals and numerous screenings in self-organized spaces and organizations. Both doc-
umentaries acquired an important impact in the public sphere.1

Dominant frames: the problem, its causes and its solutions in the government party
and media elites
The government of PASOK resulting from the 2009 elections frames the issue of the public debt
as unprecedented and as the most urgent problem the country has faced since its transition to
democracy. The entirety of the press releases issued by PASOK during the examined months
focuses almost exclusively on the administration of the financial crisis. Of the total of 55 press
releases made by Government Spokesman G. Petalotis, 31 are briefings on the crisis, while the
rest refer to various government actions also related to the financial crisis. Two months before
the signing of the first Memorandum, Government Spokesman G. Petalotis focuses on the
unprecedented situation experienced by the country and its need for salvation, without the
loan agreement with the Troika appearing yet as a possibility. PASOK spokesman mentions that
‘the government is making huge efforts to take the country out of the unprecedented crisis it is
undergoing and to tackle the huge problems bestowed upon us by the irresponsible and
disastrous policies of New Democracy’ (04/03/2010). Further on, approaching the signing of
the agreement, he will declare that ‘it is common knowledge that the present government has
been called upon to tackle unprecedented and unheard-of situations unlike anything the
country has witnessed since the transition to democracy. In this crucial moment, the country’s
salvation is the exclusive national duty and obligation of the leadership, as well as of the people
of this land’ (19/04/2010). The highlighting of this frame of cruciality is assisted by the govern-
ment’s disclosure of information on the actions of Greece and the international economic
environment, as well as of statistical data through which the dynamics of numbers as negative
objective indexes is deployed.
The cruciality of the problem is complemented by a dilemmatic frame (‘necessary measures or
bankruptcy’, ‘salvation or bankruptcy’). The dilemma ‘bankruptcy or salvation’ schematically por-
trays a positive and a negative version, cultivates fear with regards to the possibility of implement-
ing an alternative form of politics, and does not point out the particular parameters of the
implementation of the proposed salvation. Through this mechanism, the dilemmatic practices
cause quite an impression; they over-accentuate the cruciality of the situation and force the
creation of a common front by everyone for reasons of national necessity. The dilemmas reinforce
the unprecedented situation discourse, while at the same time urge people to pursue return to
normality. The dilemma ‘bankruptcy or salvation’ became a reference point in electoral reality, as it
was incorporated in the election campaigns of both PASOK and New Democracy (in 2012 and 2015
respectively); its goal was to stress the impasse the country would find itself in were it to declare
bankruptcy and, thus, force a return to normality.
The examined media (Mega Channel and newspaper headlines) tend to conform with the
government strategy while, at the same time, maintain certain discrepancies. The existence of
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES 101

this, albeit diverging, condescension is an important resource for the ‘aggressive’ communication
strategies of the governing party. The emphasis put on these frames is assisted by the divulgation
of opinion polls showing public support to the necessity of the measures, and by the highlighting
of official sources of institutional actors whom ‘society deems to be trustworthy’. At the same time,
the media give prominence to – and therefore sanction – the leadership skills of G. Papandreou.
Full consent to the cruciality of the problem is expressed through referencing the dramatic tone
of the Prime Minister’s speech, as reflected in the newspaper headlines: Eleutherotypia (03/03/
2010): ‘State of War: Papandreou’s dramatic speech the precursor of harsh measures’; Ta Nea (03/
03/2010): ‘Giorgos gives a dramatic speech in view of measures to come. Sacrifice-War: Against
those who got rich at the expense of the public purse’; Kathimerini (03/03/2010): ‘Papandreou:
Measures or Collapse. Prime Minister dramatically talks of the end of an era for the country’. Mega
Channel supports the cruciality discourse through highlighting the urgent need for the promoted
changes (‘the measures were not an option, they were a necessity to ensure the country’s
salvation’). On the 3rd of March 2010, following the announcement of certain measures (tax
increases, 13th salary, salary freeze) presented in the news report as the most ‘odious measures
to be adopted since the country’s transition to democracy’ in order to ‘avoid bankruptcy’, the
commentator declares that the ‘overall conversation had to do with whether the measures were
necessary. The measures were indeed necessary, maybe even overdue. The country has a limited
borrowing capacity and might be on the verge of defaulting on its payments. The measures were
painful, of course, they were painful, the measures were unfair, of course they were unfair. The
measures are unfair but necessary [. . .]’ while the presenter adds that ‘we are entering a difficult
tunnel, but the government’s priority is to salvage the country’s creditworthiness. The country’s
salvation is the top priority and for that it must be able to continue borrowing’.
The cruciality of the unprecedented situation is accompanied by the unveiling of the causes that
led to the problem (diagnosis framing). From the side of the government (and the media) the
causes are personified by the previous government but also certain social and professional groups
which are targeted as being responsible for the crisis. The Greek Ministry of Finance published
Stability and Growth Program 2010 where listed five main causes poor GDP growth, government
debt and deficits, budget compliance and data computability. Furthermore, the report point causes
that refer to the previous government such as previous excess government spending and tax
avoidance.2 The attribution of responsibilities to others (previous government) is complemented by
institutional acts such as the request (on February 2010) to set up a Committee of Inquiry into the
economy for the period 2004–2009. Moreover, a process of cultivating collective guilt takes place,
specializing in groups that bear the moral burden of the ‘culprit’. Here the consent of the media
frames becomes more emphatic.
The need for the government to adopt harsh and unfair measures is legitimized by the media
through the stigmatization of social mobilization. Critique against certain forms of action, the use
of derogatory characterizations for trade unions (‘guilds’) and, above all, the claim that the budget
is burdened by certain professional groups tend to legitimize the need for measures but also create
a frame of pointing fingers at certain groups. As Mega Channel headlines read (10/03/2010) ‘Sit-ins
and extreme reactions by the trade unions’, ‘Sit-ins in Athens cause havoc’, while it is commented
that ‘the right for strike action is sacred. What I am not certain about is the sanctity of 100 people
cutting in half the capital city’s main artery with a sit-in and causing such trouble to its inhabitants.
I do not know if it is sacred for those who are so immensely privileged to protest in this manner’. In
another report (28/03/2010) the anchorman mentions that ‘all workers belonging to the so-called
closed professions are strongly reacting to the “opening” of their professions. However, closed
professions are costing Greek tax-payers 4 billion annually’, while the title of the report reads ‘The
government goes to war against guilds operating at the expense of competition in various
professions’ and ‘guilds are costing us money’. Furthermore, social mobilization is portrayed as
a problem insofar as it hinders traffic (bottlenecks and hardship): ‘Sit-in by fired Olympic Airways
employees causes gridlock in Panepistimiou street for the seventh day’.
102 F. KOUNTOURI AND A. NIKOLAIDOU

The targeting of the collective is also conducted through the emergence of a frame of collective
guilt, highlighted by an MP of the governing party and former Minister Theodoros Pagalos who
announced, on the 21st of September 2010, during a meeting of a special committee: ‘we all “ate”
it together’. ‘Our answer to the outcry against the country’s political representatives and to the
people’s question “where did the money go?” is this: We appointed you. We all ate it together. In
the context of a relation of nepotism and patronage, corruption, of buying off and debasing the
very notion of politics’. This declaration took on a life of its own; it became a website, http://mazi-ta
-fagame.gr, and, in August 2012, the title of a book published by Th.Pagalos.
Interestingly enough, although journalists express doubt (Mega 04/05/2010) on the policies
adopted (‘measures are unfair and one-sided as the burden falls on the backs of wage earners and
pensioners’) and claim they will ‘deepen recession without promoting measures to boost devel-
opment’, reactions to social protest remain negative. A discussion on the adopted measures is
titled ‘Concern about reactions’ and the presenter observes: ‘anyone expecting this package to
pass without reactions is a fool. Of course, there will be reactions, this package is incredibly harsh.
Obviously, there will be reactions; it is reasonable and democratic for there to be reactions.
However, from there to occupying the Acropolis and giving the impression that Greece is at the
mercy of social upheaval [. . .] is a completely different matter. If social reactions cause the program
to fail, our next option is bankruptcy, our foreign creditors tell us so’.
The solution to this unprecedented situation is given through the emergence of the frame of
crisis as opportunity for structural adjustments, used by the media and government officials with
the ultimate goal of socially and politically legitimizing the promoted reforms. This prognostic
framing has to do with emphasizing the frame of structural adjustments deemed necessary to
tackle the crisis in the domestic sphere. The Government Spokesman (press release 20/10/2010)
clearly states that: ‘there are opportunities in times of crisis which must not go untapped.
Opportunities for a new productive model of sustainable development, for a fairer tax system,
for a logic of redistribution and, ultimately, for a better, more qualitative, transparent and anthro-
pocentric state’. Crisis as opportunity aims at appeasing the negative impact of the measures that
cut back on pensions and salaries, complemented by the frame of ‘national interest’ that has
a unifying effect and tries to activate reflexes of consent in the social imaginary.
At the same time, with regards to the promotion of the new – and particularly the more crucial –
draft laws (such as the ones related to tax reforms), the Government Spokesman (19/03/2010)
declares that ‘the government draft law for the restoration of tax justice was presented yesterday.
For the first time in many years, an effective and radical shift in the country’s tax system is
attempted in order to put an end to tax injustice, combat and discourage tax evasion [. . .] With
significant tax reductions for many of our middle-income fellow citizens. With the revocation of
absurd injustices and corporate exceptions’.
Once again the private television broadcaster will consent to this frame, stressing that the
sacrifice made by Greek citizens will be counterbalanced by the structural adjustments promoted
through draft laws such as the Τax Βill, which receives immediate support and positive evaluation.
In a news report titled ‘Drastic changes in taxation. Corrective measures for a fairer tax system’ (18/
03/2010) the new Tax Bill is presented as capable of overturning ‘injustices and going after tax
evasion’, while the journalist stresses that ‘with the passing of the new Tax Bill the government
wants to succeed in redistributing the tax burden’, using the discourse of G. Papandreou of ‘we put
an end to the injustices and exemptions of the system’. The channel’s main broadcaster will point
out that ‘there is a systematic effort to not have wage earners and pensioners carry all the weight.
Changes are being made towards the right direction, changes that show the existence of reflexes
within the government’s top economic officials’, while the news report commentator will point out
that ‘it would be unfair not to acknowledge that, for the first time in many years, there is
a legislative effort to broaden the tax basis. For a revolution to take place towards a fairer tax
distribution, a revolution must also occur within the administration’. This is the image projected by
the printed press as well. A front-page headline of newspaper To Ethnos (19/03/2010) reads ‘Self-
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES 103

employed professionals hunted down. Presumptions and cash registers everywhere to combat tax
evasion’. In a more descriptive tone, Ta Nea speaks of ‘Five changes and one reversal’ (19/03/2010),
while Kathimerini, along the same line, reads: ‘Cash registers and VAT to all but doctors’ (19/03/
2010).
The promotion of structural measures is aided by the internationalized administration of the
crisis. A particular extroversion can be observed in the Prime Minister’s movements during the
management of the crisis: regular trips abroad, meetings with foreign leaders and Greece’s
initiative in the constitution of a support mechanism are all depicted as moves to change the
country’s negative image abroad, an image consolidated, according to the government, by the
errors of its predecessor. The government handling of this internationalized mobilization aims,
among others, at highlighting the Prime Minister’s leadership dynamic. The Greek initiative to
create a support mechanism and more specifically the assignment of this successful – according to
the government – initiative to the Prime Minister is employed by the media to this end.3 In this
context, the constitution of the support mechanism is recorded as a ‘major success’ (Government
Spokesman 29/03/2010). Importantly, the agreement is portrayed in very favorable colors: ‘The
agreement of Eurozone leaders to create a new European financial support and stability mechan-
ism with a minority participation of the International Monetary Fund is the result of efforts made by
the government and the Prime Minister, for they managed to win the trust and political support of
European leaders and the European Central Bank. This agreement was neither obvious nor was it
given away to us. It was the result of sound strategic planning, persistent effort, methodical
handling and tough negotiating. It was an agreement for Europe as a whole’.
The government’s strategy of internationalizing the solution to the crisis comes in contrast with
the opposite pole, where internationalization is related to the causes and form of the crisis, not its
solution.

Critical frames. The problem, its causes and its solutions in the digital ‘independent
media’ and in the opposition party
We argue that there are three critical configuration frames emerging on the so-called ‘alternative
media’ and the opposition discourses. The first frame defines the crisis as the economic and moral
bankruptcy of the model of development adopted by the country since its transition to democ-
racy, and considers our era to be a symptom and capstone of a long period of austerity. The second
one defines the crisis as humanitarian, while the third considers it to be a crisis of democracy. All
three frames highlight a different temporal dimension of the crisis and interpret it through an
economic and moral, but also political lens. And, crucially, they are linked to a powerful diagnostic
frame which unveils the crisis as a systemic problem of capitalism.
With regards to the first, dual framing, as the introductory sequence of Debtocracy also suggests,
the crisis is not defined as an ‘unprecedented’ and unforeseeable problem in Greece’s post-
dictatorship era, but rather as the culmination of an ‘unhealthy’ situation, whose symptoms can
be traced back at least to the period of the dictatorship. At the same time, this configuration frame
is also defended by SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras (interview to Mega, 26/03/2010): ‘New Democracy
has no right to speak, for it has brought the country to the verge of catastrophe. And, obviously, it
is not only New Democracy that has brought the country to this state, but the mode, the model of
development adopted during the past 20 years by the governments of K. Mitsotakis, K. Simitis, all
the way to K. Karamanlis. G. Papandreou is also responsible for the previous 20 years of PASOK,
they are not outside the game, they are a ruling party, they were in government’.
More specifically, right after its opening credits, documentary Debtocracy begins with a shot of
the Greek Parliament and a speech given by dictator G. Papadopoulos, combined with the voice of
Strauss-Kahn in order to introduce the ‘anti-democratic’ framing of the crisis. Then come the words
of Greece’s prime ministers from 1981 onward, fused with images of the Parliament building as
well as of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier monument located in front of it. Greece’s Prime
104 F. KOUNTOURI AND A. NIKOLAIDOU

Ministers talk about debt and austerity in different time periods. In a contradicting final quote, the
voice of G. Papandreou condenses the government’s contemporary framing of to the crisis:
‘unfortunately, our homeland is in intensive care; for the first time since 1974, the country’s
financial impasse is threatening our national sovereignty’.
This placing of references along each other aims, on the one hand, at linking Papandreou’s
verbal metaphor (‘our homeland is in intensive care’) to the equivalent phrasing by dictator
G. Papadopoulos and, on the other, at refuting the claim ‘for the first time since 1974’. It unveils
a long-term dimension to the austerity measures that does not justify the bio-political conse-
quences of an ‘unprecedented’, highly urgent situation. Also, the journalist (in voice-over) clearly
points fingers towards ‘two parties’ and ‘three political families’ that have acted for the past 40
years, granting this nepotistic model of transition a moral framing.
The political system’s moral bankruptcy is linked to the other parallel framings of crisis as
humanitarian and as a crisis of democracy. The first framing is the subject matter of an entire
sequence of Debtocracy: it talks about ‘poverty, shutdowns, unemployment’ and features various
doctors – and, more specifically, the president of Medicins du Monde – explaining that Greece is
now viewed as a country in humanitarian crisis. This frame – also present in documentary Oligarchy,
produced the following year by Stelios Kouloglou, journalist and later on MΕP for SYRIZA – is the
main frame of the second documentary, Catastroika, released on the internet on the 26th of
April 2012, a few months after the Movement of the Squares and exactly before the 2012 elections.
In the documentary’s introduction, the aforementioned framings are summarized and a framing of
prognosis is set. Long shots of graffiti-filled buildings transmit clear messages against capitalism
and in favor of revolt, and images of a gray, heavily clouded sky are an obvious metaphor for the
crisis. The recognizable and by now popular voice of Aris Chatzistephanou explains: ‘2012, after two
years of “bail-out”, the governments of the memorandum increase the debt from 115% to 160% of
the GDP. One in two young people are unemployment, thousands are emigrating or are called to
live on a 500 euro salary, suicides have increased by 20% and the number of homeless people in
Athens has exceeded 20,000. The Constitution is circumvented; bank executives and former
officials of the military junta are occupying key positions in the state mechanism. Everything is
ready for the final act in the tragedy of Greece’s complete divestment’.
Apart for the humanitarian crisis (unemployment, emigration, suicides, and homelessness), the
‘circumvention of the Constitution’ or the ‘circumvention of civil democracy’ as mentioned in voice-
over in the first documentary – that is, the crisis of democracy – is also a consequence of the
strategy for the administration of the financial crisis adopted by the government and the creditors.
This frame is emphasized throughout the entire documentary with continuous repetition (either
by the interviewees or the voice-over). The identification of Memorandum, divestment and anti-
democracy is underpinned by their location- and nation-exceeding dimension. The documentary
references other countries like Chile and Turkey where ‘neoliberalism’, that is, the ‘free market and
minimal state’ as described by Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, has proven to be an anti-
democratic condition. The presentation of this frame begins with true dictatorships, passes on to
Reagan’s and Thatcher’s neoliberalism and concludes with a new means for the imposition of
massive privatizations: debt. The proponent and advocate of this rhetoric is Naomi Klein, already
well-known to the Greek public through her best-selling book The Shock Doctrine, which is also part
of the constitution of this frame in the public sphere.
Through the mentioned examples it becomes clear that the frame describing the crisis as a crisis
of democracy is closely related to a powerful diagnosis framing, according to which the causes are
to be found in the international capitalist system.
This diagnosis frame has to do with looking for the causes outside Greek history and any type of
Greek model of development. If the mainstream media and government rhetoric have pinpointed
responsibility in specific professional groups and interests, and the solution in international power
associations, the so-called independent media and SYRIZA’s opposition discourse claim the cause
of the problem lies in the international capitalist system.
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES 105

The framing of the crisis as an international, mainly European, problem is projected by SYRIZA
itself. In an interview given on the 21st of April 2010, G. Dragasakis, who later on became vice-
president, mentions: ‘That is where we say there is a fundamental mistake; Greece has a significant
role to play at the international level, precisely because this is not a Greek problem. The debt
problem is not a Greek one, neither is it a Greek national peculiarity; it is, rather, a global debt crisis
which, for specific reasons, begins from countries of the perimeter, such as Greece, Ireland, Iceland,
etc.’. Even SYRIZA’s press department, in a release issued on the 28th of April 2010, mentions ‘in its
present form, the situation confirms our view that the solution of the problem should have begun
elsewhere, from Europe. This is a European problem, it is now made clear by how things are
unfolding in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy.’
This viewpoint on the causes of the problem overturns the blame-game staged by the main-
stream media, both domestic and European. The constitution of the crisis as an international
systemic problem responds to the stereotypical comments of foreign publications on the ‘bad
habits’ of the Greeks and confuses the narrative of foreign media and domestic dominant dis-
courses on the collective guilt and ‘collective responsibility’ of the Greeks (see above) to repay the
debt.
Crisis viewed as the chronic crisis of the domestic political system, but also as a crisis of
democracy – both consequences of a deeper systemic, structural crisis of the capitalist system –
can spark a more militant framing of prognosis.
More specifically, always in reference to the two examined documentaries, two packages of
proposals are articulated. The first one has to do with defining the debt as odious, creating an audit
committee and, by extension, defaulting on payments; this proposal is analyzed in detail in
Debtocracy. Using sketches and an explanatory voice-over, the documentary illustrates the concept
and history of ‘odious debt’. Then, it presents testimonies and evidence that prove the debt can,
indeed, be deemed odious and anticonstitutional. Against the moral legitimization of the debt by
the mainstream media, this documentary presents and stages not only the moral delegitimization
of the defenders of the debt and the Memorandum, but also the literal delegitimization of the debt
itself.
This type of prognostic framing was already present on the internet. The cases of Argentina and
Ecuador, for example, and how they tackled their debt as well as the argumentation on the odious
debt are presented in Debtocracy summarizing and systematizing the discussion for a broad
audience.
This is also the positioning of SYRIZA from early on. On the 25th of January 2011, the president
of SYRIZA’s parliamentary group, Alexis Tsipras, declares: ‘The debt created by military expenditure,
the Olympics, tax exemptions, and the Memorandum is impossible to repay. The government
should stop playing hide and seek and start claiming a renegotiation of the debt. A renegotiation
without new memorandums, a renegotiation based on society and not on bankers. SYRIZA and the
European Left demand a new, fair settlement, with a prolonged term, low interests, and a haircut
on the debt which will give society room to breathe’.
The last part of Debtocracy is entirely dedicated to presenting the initiative for the creation of an
audit committee in Greece, a venture undertaken by the Greek Parliament in 2015, after SYRIZA’s
coming to power. The proposal’s main defender at the moment was an economist and later on
SYRIZA MP Kostas Lapavitsas, with the support of Eric Toussaint (afterwards scientific coordinator of
the investigation into the public debt), David Harvey, Samir Amin, etc. As stressed in voice-over this
initiative was constituted by people from different political spheres, it is backed by academics,
writers, artists, and trade-unionists from around the world, and aims at ‘proving that the Greek
people, based on Greek and international law, are not obliged to pay’.
Moments before the end of Debtocracy, journalist Chatzistefanou suggests yet another solution.
Shots from protests and images of Giorgos Papandreou in his office are invested with the sound of
a helicopter (in clear reference to Argentina, where President Fernando de la Rúa left the
Presidential Palace on a helicopter) projecting a different prognosis that will be developed in the
106 F. KOUNTOURI AND A. NIKOLAIDOU

next documentary: militant action and direct democracy. In the last sequence of Catastroika,
academics such as Alex Callinicos and Slavoj Zizek urge Greeks to keep fighting; Chatzistefanou
suggests in voice-over that ‘public assets should be controlled by those who created them, the
workers’. The film concludes with the sound of Cornelius Castoriadis quoting Thucydides and
granting this framing of prognosis a national identity: ‘you will either have freedom or you will
have a quiet life. You cannot have both’.

Conclusion
This paper focused on the frame building and frame alignment of competitive frames at the
beginning of the debt crisis, which was analyzed through three framing processes: configuration,
diagnosis and prognosis.
The first generic frame is linked to a hegemonic pole, one of the major political parties and the
mainstream media. The critical situation, the necessity of structural measures, the dilemma of the
‘bankruptcy-salvation’ axis, the ‘Greekness’ of the problem, the stigmatization of professional and
social groups are elements that shape the outlines of those dominant frames.
The second generic frame was supported by a critical pole. Its contribution to the crisis
generated a different framework of the crisis from the dominant one. The internationalization of
the problem, the democratic crisis, the bankruptcy of the political system, the humanitarian crisis,
the debt restructuring and the demand or even struggle for direct democracy are elements of
a critical frame produced by alternative media and minor-at the time-political forces.
These two frames that actually built a hegemonic and a counter hegemonic public sphere,
represent in fact the discursive debate about pro- and anti-austerity opinions. Thus, this paper
maps a specific moment in social history and political communication in Greece, the period that
SYRIZA, an outsider of the political system became a main opponent to the government and later,
in 2015, won the election.
From a theoretical point of view, our approach allowed us to evaluate the framing process in
close connection to the literature and to draw a first impression of how dominant and critical
frames were articulated by major and resource-poor political actors and mainstream and
independent media. In line with the existing literature, the frame building process of hegemonic
and counter frames points towards the prevalence of ideological or political orientations to the
way that journalists frame a given issue under critical conjunctures. This assumption underlines
the devaluation of other factors influencing the journalistic framing (Scheufele 2000, 307) such
as social norms and values, organizational pressures, pressures of interest groups, journalistic
routines. It seems that the media in question tend to replicate political frames, even if they still
retain some discrepancies. The existence of this divergent consent is an important resource to
the strategic mobilizations of political parties trying to gather resources in the political struggle.
The significant point is that the frame building process as examined in this article reflects the
establishment of a media-political system working together to the emergence of commonly
accepted definitions.
Nevertheless, research on the emerging online public sphere during the crisis period is further
needed in order to track down its impact and effects in the political transformation as well in the
reception of economic and political circumstances.

Notes
1. About the public online discussion on the issues raised by Debtocracy see the numerous references in https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtocracy
2. Greek Ministry of Finance. European Commission. 15 January 2010. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES 107

3. ‘With his consecutive international meetings at the summit level, Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou is
changing power relations. He is placing the issue of the creation of a European support mechanism for
member-states at the heart of the EU’s political life’. Government Spokesman G.Petalotis, 24/03/2010).

Acknowledgments
The sections on documentary journalism are part of a post-doctoral research implemented through IKY scholarships
programme and co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund - ESF) and Greek national funds through
the action entitled “Reinforcement of Postdoctoral Researchers”, in the framework of the Operational Programme
“Human Resources Development Program, Education and Lifelong Learning” of the National Strategic Reference
Framework (NSRF) 2014–2020.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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