LEGITIMATION MECHANISMS IN THEBAILOUT DISCOURSE

Vaia Doudaki

This study examines how the discursive struggles over the constituents of the nancial crisisin Greece are policed by mainstream domestic media, in favour of the hegemonic interpret-ations of the crisis. The study focuses in particular on the discursive mechanisms the Greekpress employed to legitimate the bailout agreements Greece signed with the troika. Theanalysis points to the discursive mechanisms of naturalisation and objectivation thatempower the reconstruction of the hegemonic neoliberal rhetoric. The media studied activelyparticipate in the discursive struggle over the crisis, exercising political agency by legitimatingthe bailout policies as the single course of action for the nancial recovery of the country,while selectively omitting or discrediting alternative voices and interpretations.

KEYWORDS legitimation; hegemony; discourse; discursive struggles; news; nancial crisis;bailout; Greece

Introduction

The public discussion on the nancial crisis in Greece is articulated around a set ofdiscourses over the meaning of the crisis and the ways to overcome it, with mediaholding a key position in mediating the discursive struggles in which social and politicalactors ght over the denitions of the crisis. The mainstream media, in particular, are criti-cised for favouring and supporting the hegemonic discourse over the crisis, by privilegingthe political and economic elites in expressing their views and providing their framing andinterpretations while marginalising or excluding counter-hegemonic or other alternativevoices (Mylonas 2014; Titley 2012). In this respect, the mainstream media are not onlyseen to mediate the public discussion but also to intervene as active agents in the discursivestruggles over the social construction of the crisis.

Within this context, this study examines how the domestic mainstream media inGreece covered and represented the bailout-related news, over a two-year period (April2010June 2012); that is, the news referring to the memoranda Greece signed with thetroika, which were considered vital for the economic salvation of the country. The studyfocuses in particular on the discursive mechanisms the domestic press used to legitimatethe necessity of the bailouts, not only reproducing the hegemonic discourse of the crisisbut also contributing to its construction. The analysis is theoretically informed by the discus-sion on the role of media in the social construction of reality (Tuchman 1978a; Berger andLuckmann 1967; Hall at al. 1978), combined with the concept of hegemony, and specicallythe medias role in reiterating and legitimating hegemonic discourses over critical issues forsocieties (Hall et al. 1978; Gramsci 1971; Gitlin 1980, 1986; Herman and Chomsky 1988). Theanalysis is further informed by discourse theory (Laclau and Mouffe 1985), which sees

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discourse as central to the social production of meaning and is often employed in the exam-ination of hegemonic discourses articulated in the social.

Hegemonic Discourses and (Re)Constructions of Reality

The concept of hegemony, departing from the seminal work of Gramsci on classpower, connects hegemony not only to the political and economic dominance of a classbut also to its cultural dominance (Bates 1975; Scott 2001, 89), and broadly seeks toreveal the ways in which culture and ideology intertwine (McKinley and Simonet 2003,9). From this perspective, hegemony is leadership as much as domination across the econ-omic, political, cultural and ideological domains of a society (Fairclough 1992, 92) and isrelated to the various means through which the dominant ideology in a culture is repro-duced and largely accepted even by social groups whose interests are not supported byit (Dow 1990, 262; Scott 2001, 89). Laclau and Mouffe, moving away from an exclusivefocus on class domination, see hegemony broadly as a form of politics (1985, 139). Deetzexplains that

The site of hegemony is the myriad of everyday institutional activities and experiences thatculminate in common sense, thus hiding the choices made and mystifying the interestsof dominant groups. Dominant group denitions of reality, norms, and standards appearas normal rather than as political and contestable. (1977, 62).

Of course, diverging or counter-hegemonic opinions, views and versions of reality cir-culate in society. Actually, the openness of the social is the precondition of every hegemonicpractice (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 142). As Fairclough notes, hegemony is never achievedmore than partially and temporarily, as an unstable equilibrium (1995, 76). Given thatmeaning and denitions of reality are never xed, but are constructed and re-negotiated(Derrida [1976] 1998; Barthes 1976) in discursive (power) struggles, the acceptance andmaintenance of the hegemonic order depends largely on its legitimation. According toWeber, [e]very system of authority attempts to establish and to cultivate the belief in itslegitimacy (1964, 325). Berger and Luckmann describe legitimation as a second-orderobjectivation of meaning, as a process of explaining and justifying. Legitimation explainsthe institutional order by ascribing cognitive validity to its objectivated meanings [and]justies [it] by giving a normative dignity to its practical imperatives (1967, 93). In hismap of power relations, Scott identies legitimation as one of the two main elements ofpersuasive inuence (the second is signication), leading to commitment to or recognitionof ideas or values that are accepted as beyond question, as providing intrinsically appropri-ate reasons for acting [limiting the subalterns]willingness to consider action alterna-tives (2001, 1415). For van Dijk, legitimation is one of the main social functions ofideologies (1998, 255), whereas [i]deologies are representations of aspects of the worldwhich can be shown to contribute to establishing, maintaining and changing socialrelations of power, domination and exploitation (Fairclough 2003, 9). The power of ideol-ogies lies in their capacity to discursively facilitate the articulation of hegemonic practices,while maintaining a material character, in as much as they are not simple systems of ideasbut are embodied in institutions, rituals and so forth (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 109).

One of the main elds where these discursive struggles of describing and deningsocial reality take place is the mainstream media. News, in particular, is considered oneof the main sources of knowledge and power in society (Entman 2004; Tuchman 1978a,

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217). According to Tuchman, news does not mirror society. It helps to constitute it as ashared social phenomenon, for in the process of describing an event, news denes andshapes that event (1978a, 184). In this context, the media are considered major culturalinstitutions in building common-sense and securing consent (Herman and Chomsky1988) by favouring and echoing the denitions of the powerful over social reality, repro-ducing thus symbolically the existing structure of power in societys institutional order(Hall et al. 1978, 57 and 58).

Especially in issues of high controversy or in crises, when meaning can be highly con-tested and the discursive struggle over it among social and political agents is intense, therole of organic intellectuals, such as journalists, is critical in certifying the limits withinwhich all competing denitions of reality will contend (Gitlin 1980, 254), privilegingthose that echo the views of actors in power positions (Gitlin 1986). In cases where thedominant social denitions of reality are threatened, the assignment of an inferior onto-logical status, and thereby a not-to-be-taken-seriously cognitive status, to all denitionsexisting outside the symbolic universe (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 115) helps in protect-ing the prevailing articulations. This is offered mainly by elite agents and ofcial sources,and, in the name of objectivity, is assigned readily by journalists and media, in the news.As Reese notes, media professionals largely

accept the frames imposed on events by ofcials and marginalize the delegitimate voicesthat fall outside the dominant elite circles. By perpetuating as commonsensical notions ofwho ought to be treated as authoritative, these routines help the system maintain controlwithout sacricing legitimacy. (1990, 394).

In this vein, the dominant media not only are the channels through which hege-monic discourses circulate, but they become active agents in their articulation by poli-cing the counter-hegemonic voices in the discursive struggles over critical issues forsocieties. Of course, in these discursive struggles a multitude of alternative voices anddenitions do circulate, nding their expressionmostly, but not exclusivelyin non-dominant or alternative media. However, the dominant mainstream media are privilegedspaces where the main discourses of society are reconstructed, most often by hegemo-nic actors offering their interpretations on social reality and their views on both thedominant and alternative versions of reality. Their privileged status derives not onlyfrom their wide audience reach but also from their legitimation as one of the main cul-tural institutions, together with other elite institutionsmainly from the political andeconomic eldsto address the main issues of, and for, societies that alternativemedia lack.

Research Outline and Methodology

The bailouts Greece signed with the troika received extensive coverage, presentedlargely as the only means for the countrys salvation. Therefore, the interest in thisstudy lies in investigating how the hegemonic discourse on the bailout agreements is legiti-mated by the Greek media, by identifying the main legitimation mechanisms that facilitatethe construction of the hegemonic articulation of the crisis.

The two daily newspapers with the highest circulation at the time of research, TaNea (The News) and Kathimerini (Daily), were chosen for the study. Both are long-estab-lished newspapers in Greece, the rst targeting a middle-class centre-left readership and

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the second targeting a more conservative right-wing readership, more closely afliatedto the economic elite. Additionally to their wide reach in the Greek public, they arealso sound examples of the mainstream media system in Greece, which has traditionallybeen characterised by strong state control, close ties between the state and the media,and a weak professional culture on the part of journalists (Hallin and Papathanassopou-los 2002; Hallin and Mancini 2004). Most major Greek media organisations are part oflarge company groups and have often been used as vehicles for the exchange of econ-omic or political favours (Hallin and Papathanassopoulos 2002). Of course alternativemedia do exist, addressing a different discourse over the crisis. However, their positionin the discursive struggles over the crisis is arguably rather frail, since, apart from theirsmaller reach, they do not belong in the same cluster of elitestogether with the econ-omic elite and the political eliteas the leading media in the country, and their poweras institutions addressing the major issues of the Greek society is thus signicantlyweaker.

For the purposes of the study, news texts were selected and analysed from threetime periods associated with signicant developments regarding the bailout agreements.Each one of the research periods includes one week preceding and one week followingthe core events. The rst period (16 April 201010 May 2010) was marked by the Greekgovernments and the troikas (European Union, European Central Bank and InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF)) agreement for a rescue package of 110 billion to prevent Greecefrom bankruptcy. During the second period (20 October 201119 February 2012), asecond bailout loan programme of 130 billion, accompanied by a 53.5 per centhaircut1 of Greeces debt to the private sector, was agreed between the Greek govern-ment and the troika. During the third period (29 April 201224 June 2012), national elec-tions were held twice, as the government of PASOK had previously resigned and asteady government was needed to implement the bailouts. The result of the doubleelections was a tri-party coalition government of New Democracy (right-wing party,main opposition previously), PASOK (the socialist party that was previously in power)and Democratic Left (a small left-wing party).

From a set of 576 bailout-related news texts equally distributed in each researchperiod and newspaper (print edition) that had been previously selected for a study onthe news framing of the bailouts (Doudaki et al. forthcoming), 60 news texts were qualitat-ively analysed as most relevant to this studys purpose. The analysis focused on newsreports and did not include opinion articles, commentary or editorials, because the aimwas to look into the ways in which reality is discursively constructed in allegedly neutralaccounts of events, as they are presented through conventional news reporting.

A text-centred qualitative content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon 2005; Titscher et al.2000) was employed to locate the discursive legitimation mechanisms and their constitu-ents. No preconceived categories were used in order to allow the categories to ow fromthe data inductively (Kondracki and Wellman 2002). The analysis followed a series of itera-tive coding processes, moving from the detection of specic elements and their systematiccategorisation to the identication of general mechanisms of legitimation. Even though apredetermined analytical framework was not followed but the categories were derivedfrom the material, the analysis does not introduce new concepts. Rather, pre-existing con-cepts from the theories of hegemony and social construction of reality instructed the analy-sis, along with discourse theory, and were put together to make up an analytical frameworkof legitimation mechanisms (see Table 1).

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Legitimising Mechanisms in the Discursive Struggles over the Crisis

The analysis revealed two main legitimation mechanisms, each articulated by speciccomponents. The rst mechanismnaturalisationis built around symbolic annihilation,mystication and simplication. Objectivation, the second mechanism, is constructed byexpertise, institutional sourcing, quantication and reication (see Table 1). These mechan-isms work most often in combination, creating a signication spiral (Hall et al. 1978, 223)that leads to the amplication of their symbolic power.

Both naturalisation and objectivation assist the promotion and legitimation of thehegemonic discourse over the crisis by creating a supportive structure where the bailoutagreements appear as natural and objective realities, while selectively marginalising, omit-ting or discrediting alternative voices and interpretations. The media work as vehicles oflegitimation, exercising political agency in a process through which a number of oatingsigniers in the crisis discourse become nodal points, privileged discursive points that (tem-porarily and partially) x meaning in the discursive struggle over the crisis (Laclau andMouffe 1985, 112113).

Naturalisation

One of the most important general functions of ideology is the way in which it turnsuncertain and fragile cultural resolutions and outcomes into a pervasive naturalism (Willis1977, 162). According to Fairclough, the naturalisation or automatisation of ideologies givesthem their common-sensical power (1992, 87). Naturalisation, one of the two main legitima-tion mechanisms identied throughout the analysis, broadly concerns the ways in whichthe information, the opinions and the discussion on the nancial crisis and the bailoutagreements, as appearing in the news texts studied, become taken for granted and practi-cally unquestioned, and are presented as the way to do things, as the way things are oreven as an objective historical given (Tuchman 1978a, 196). Through naturalisation and itsconstituentssymbolic annihilation (omission, trivialisation, condemnation), mysticationand simplicationthe hegemonic discourse of the crisis is normalised and divergingopinions and ideas within the discursive struggle over the crisis are neutralised.

Symbolic annihilation. Symbolic annihilation describes the under-representation ormisrepresentation of particular (social) groups in the media (Gerbner and Gross 1976, 182)through the mechanisms of omission, condemnation or trivialisation (Tuchman 1978b, 17).It points to the ways in which poor media treatment can contribute to social disempower-ment and in which symbolic absence in the media can erase groups and individuals frompublic consciousness (Means Coleman and Chivers Yochim 2008, 4922).

TABLE 1Legitimation mechanisms in the news discourse over the Greek bailouts

Naturalisation Objectivation

Symbolic annihilation (omission, trivialisation, condemnation) ExpertiseMystication Institutional sourcingSimplication Quantication

Reication

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From a different starting point, Berger and Luckmann view what they call nihilation asa kind of negative legitimation: Legitimation maintains the reality of the socially con-structed universe; nihilation denies the reality of whatever phenomena or interpretationsof phenomena do not t into that universe (1967, 114).

In the following examples, a supportive structure for the symbolic annihilation of anyalternative to the neoliberal austerity policies, in the discursive struggle over the crisis, iscreated by the journalists selective use of sources, data and interpretative frameworks.

Omission. As relevant research has recurrently shown, critical actors, main constitu-ents of the nancial crisis, as well as alternative framing and interpretations of the crisis areoften absent from the related news discourse (Doudaki et al. forthcoming; Mylonas 2012;Tracy 2012). The absence and marginalisation of vital information for the apprehensionof the crisis constituents and of alternative views and denitions adds to the establishmentof a powerful, constraining environment that appears entirely natural to social actors(Abercrombie, Hill, and Turner 1980, 166). In this way, the ruling ideas regarding thecrisis are presented as the unquestioned and taken-for-granted reality (Scott 2001, 90) ofthe crisis.

A news report on the Greek governments goals regarding the reduction of the decit,headlined Four-year Program for Zero Decit (Ta Nea, 27 April 2010), representative ofthe mechanism of omission (but also of mystication, institutional sourcing, quanticationand reication), starts as follows:

A four-year program with the target to reduce the decit to zero was announced yesterdayevening in the Parliament by the Minister of Finance, George Papaconstantinou, followingMerkels2 statements for the need of new tough measures by Greece.

The Minister said that apart from the goal to reduce the decit by 4% in 2010, it isestimated that from 2011 and in the next three years a decit reduction of up to 10 per-centage points can be reached. This objective should be achieved, Mr. Papakonstantinousaid, primarily by reducing costs, but also increasing revenues. (Ta Nea, 27 April 2010).

Even though it is unquestionably the reied force of the decit that needs to betackled, its nature and special characteristics are totally mystied. Vital information forthe comprehension of the issue is omitted. The reader never learns how big is the decitor why it should be the rst priority of the government. Also, the information on the struc-tures that nurtured its growth or the repercussions of its tackling for society is completelymissing. The reader does get informed on the ways that this can be accomplished: throughthe reduction of expenses and the increase of revenue. However, one never learns howthese two will be achieved.

Instead, the governments main target is quantied (decit reduction by four per centin 2010 and by 10 per cent in the next three years), used as a means to legitimise the gov-ernmental policy; all other information related to the ultimate purpose does not need to beadded or, if included, to be justied. In addition, it is uniquely the ministers position that ispresented in this text, while the reaction of the opposition is restricted in the last paragraph,creating discursively a power imbalance between the two sides.

Condemnation. The media covering the economic crisis at the international leveloften employ a neoliberal discourse according to which the state policies have failed and

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the public sector is accused for the crisis, as opposed to the healthy private sector whereeconomy can function unobstructed in full capacity (Tracy 2012; Mylonas 2012). In addition,protest and diverging opinions within the political system and society are condemned asharmful for the economy and the countries future and prosperity (Titley 2012; Mylonas2014; Doudaki et al. 2014).

An example of condemnation (also, of omission, mystication and institutional sour-cing) is provided by a news story headlined Games in the Parliament in Critical Times(Kathimerini, 25 January 2012). In this text, Members of Parliament (MPs) of the threeparties forming the interim coalition government, who did not follow the governmentalline on the voting of a set of new measures related to the memorandums implementation,are directly condemned for playing political games in critical times, endangering the gov-ernments mission to save the country. The news reports lead sets the tone:

While the government is required to meet the tight timeframe set by the Eurogroup, sothat Greece secures the new loan, members of PASOK, New Democracy and LAOScaused serious damage [to the government], choosing to vote against critical provisionsof the Finance Ministrys multi-bill. (Kathimerini, 25 January 2012).

The interpretation on their disobedience is offered in the last part of the story underthe inner title Hostages of Organised Interests: Sources of the government note that yes-terdays image in the Parliament shows just how difcult it is to deal with the unions andhow strong their inuence is on the Members of Parliament (Kathimerini, 25 January2012). The text does not leave any room for alternative interpretations: it is by no waythe disagreement of the MPs with the governmental policy, it is their connection withspecic interest groups. Still, the attachment to these special interests is mystied, sinceone is not informed on which these interests are (even though they are implied, for the pro-visions that were not voted concerned the professional groups of pharmacists and lawyers).The MPs disagreement is thus symbolically annihilated with them being condemned ofserving organised interests, which, however, are mystied. Furthermore, in reference toinstitutional sourcing, the government is the only source in the text and is given the exclu-sive privilege of offering its interpretation on the issue, which is fully adopted by the journal-ist. Any other position, including the actors directly involved in the issue (the disobeyingMPs), is missing.

Trivialisation. Through their stereotypical reproduction and repetition, main issues inthe news tend to be trivialised. In the case of the Greek crisis, trivialising debt and decit asmain causes of the crisis (Doudaki et al. 2014) and homogenising their different elementscreates a spiral of its automated reproduction, leading to the creation of a common senseabout the sources of the crisis. Also, by developing a common-sensical discourse on theharsh measures implemented, severe austerity is naturalised as the orthodox path to recovery(Mylonas 2014).

Trivialisation can also be connected to neutralisation. A conictual or polarised frameof an event can have a neutralising effect: the presentation, in the name of objectivity, of theopposing positions and arguments within a conictual frame does not lead to consolidatingor agonistically considering the different positions; it can reversely lead to them being neu-tralised, and thus trivialised and weakened.

In a news report on the stance of the European governments towards Greece in viewof the imminent elections and the ratication of the second bailout agreement, the

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stereotypical image of untrustworthy Greece is trivialised to legitimate (also, through con-demnation and institutional sourcing) the distrusting position of the Europeans and tosupport the fairness of their harsh policies. The news story headlined The Political SituationTroubles Europe starts as follows:

The concern of Europeans about what will happen to Greece after the elections and inparticular whether the post-election political balances will ensure compliance with theagreements that the Papademos3 government has to validate, has become obvious.At the highest ranks of most governments of the euro-countries there is the impressionthat the Greek political forces as a whole are untrustworthy and that the chances forcomplications in the repayment of loans after the elections, are high. (Ta Nea, 11 Febru-ary 2012).

In the next paragraph, reporting on the European partners discontent on the progressGreece has made in the implementation of the rst memorandums agreed terms, thecountry is presented through the words of European ofcials (even though we neverlearn their names, they are quoted) as doing always too little, always too late, with the dis-tressing attestation that with the picture that Greece presents today, the conditions thatwould allow their [the EU countries] parliaments to ratify the new loan agreement of 130billion euros, are not met.

The alarmed tone of the news report about Greece not making it for the newloan, legitimates, through the condemnation and trivialisation of Greeces unreliability,the Europeans harshness and suggests that there is no alternative for the countrythan to follow the agreed terms, with a reliable, according to European standards,government.

Mystication. In the news texts studied, who is responsible for the crisis and whichare the concrete societal effects of the measures taken for the memorandas implemen-tation are systematically concealed (see, also, Doudaki et al. forthcoming). Similarly, thereasons behind the crisis are consistently mystied, not connected to the specicities ofthe economic and political system; they are abstract, even though frequently quantied.Debt and decit, which are presented as the main causes of the crisis, are specicnumbers, possessing a quantiable dimension that cannot be easily challenged, whileappearing disconnected from the specic reasons that caused them. In this way thenumbers acquire a quasi-mythical uncontested power (McKinley and Simonet 2003, 18),legitimating the policies of harsh austerity. The mystication of the crisis, apart from sup-porting a blameless discourse, also braces fatalism, eschatologically strengthening the neo-liberal discussion of the inescapable austerity: Greece is helpless, the powerful will save thecountry, it is inevitable (Mylonas 2012, 2014).

In the following example of mystication (also, of omission, reication and insti-tutional sourcing) entitled Three and a Half Hours of Pounding by the Inspectors (TaNea, 22 April 2010), the position of the Greek side is presented only as a defensive reac-tion towards troikas demands, restricted in two out of the eight paragraphs of the text,while the focus is on the harsh pressure from the troika. The story is introduced as follows:Hard bargain with the technocrats of the IMF and the EU. They require wild cuts in theprivate sector wages and immediate implementation of the [changes in the] social secur-ity system. Accountability is mystied in this text; the Greek government is not directlyblamed for the painful imminent measures and neither is the troika, since the measures

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will simply implement Econs decisions, which is presented as a reied inhumanstructure:

All these [measures, the minister of Finance] argued, will be based on decisions of theEcon of 16 February, which recommends to Greece, among other things, the reform ofthe pension and the health system, the abolition of collective labour contracts, theeasing of restrictions on layoffs, the opening-up of closed professions, etc. (Ta Nea, 22April 2010).

This evasiveness and positive signication on the description of the harsh measuresto be agreed with the troika results in the mystication of austerity, which seems toentail vaguely structural changes, reforms, easing of restrictions, competitivenessand growth, thus having no concrete repercussions on society. Hence, mysticationserves the articulation of the hegemonic discourse over austerity by obscuring itsconstituents.

Simplication. According to Bird and Dardenne, news:

is a way in which people create order out of disorder, transforming knowing into telling.News offers more than factit offers reassurance and familiarity in shared communityexperiences; it provides credible answers to bafing questions, and ready explanationsof complex phenomena such as unemployment and ination (1997, 336).

News about the economy does provide regularly examples of simplistic or one-dimensionalaccounts of composite issues and phenomena (Martenson 1998, 115). There is the assump-tion that complex processes of the economy need to be reduced to familiar and simpliednews narratives to be readily accessible to the broad audience (Huxford 2008, 13). As it isdifcult to adequately present all of their variations and nuances, their different constituentstend to be homogenised into easily presented main categories, avoiding structural connec-tions between them (Tuchman 1978a, 180).

A news story entitled A Matter of Time the Decisions in the Labour (Kathimerini,14 January 2012), reporting on the governments decision to implement cuts in the sal-aries of the private sector, focuses exclusively on the prime ministers parliamentaryspeech on the issue. In a text of 424 words, the oppositions standpoint is presentedin 37 words with one 11-word quote, while the prime ministers quoted speech addsup to 215 words.

In the second paragraph the prime ministers rhetoric is deployed:

It is preferable to have open businesses with slightly lower wages instead of closedbusinesses and more unemployed, Mr. Papademos emphasized, and maintained thatthe nal governmental positions will be established with a view to enhancing competi-tiveness and protecting the most vulnerable sectors of society. The unemployedhave neither minimum nor 13th and 14th salary. We must care for them as well (Kathi-merini, 14 January 2012).

In the most simplied manner (with the aid also of omission, mystication and institutionalsourcing), wage cuts are portrayed, through the words of the head of government, as ameasure to tackle unemployment. This is an argument that would readily appeal to thepublic opinion given the alarming dimensions of the phenomenon of unemployment inGreek society.4 However, no other relevant information is provided for example, on

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whether there will be any guarantees that the companies will be obliged to hire moreemployees, should the wage reductions be implemented. The unquestioned adoption inthe text of the framing and preferred denition of the issue provided by the politicalelite, which legitimates the measure of wage reductions, is actually a practice of politicalagency on the part of the journalist, in the discursive struggle over unemployment.

Objectivation

The second main legitimation mechanism is that of objectivation. Berger and Luck-mann perceive objectivation as the process by which the externalized products ofhuman activity attain the character of objectivity (1967, 60). Objectivation in this studyrefers broadly to the presentation and (re)construction of information and ideas as realand objective facts that cannot be contested, having a quasi-scientic ontological status.Tuchman notes that when members of a society identify aspects of culture and structureas objective phenomena (the normal, natural, taken-for granted facts of life), they are afrm-ing the facticity of the world as given by the natural attitude (1978a, 196). The news plays acentral role in objectifying public issues by bestowing them an objective status as realissues of high public concern (Hall et al. 1978, 62).

The analysis showed that the constituents of objectivationinstitutional sourcing,expertise, quantication and reicationare used in the news to fortify the hegemonic dis-course on the necessity and superiority of the neoliberal bailout policy over any other policyagainst the crisis.

Institutional sourcing. The dependence of media and journalists on accreditedsources within the professional logics of impartiality and objectivity produces a systema-tically structured over-accessing to the media of those in powerful and privileged insti-tutional positions (Hall et al. 1978, 58). Media researchers and theorists agree thatjournalistic frames are largely shaped by social actors who possess signicant economicand cultural assets, and the sources in this process act as the sponsor[s] of the frames (Car-ragee and Roefs 2004, 219) or as their primary deners (Hall et al. 1978, 58). The mediasheavy preference for institutionalised sources creates an institutional bias (Tuchman1978a) on the social, since together with the information the worldview of these elites isalso adopted and presented as the orthodox perception over social reality.

In a news report headlined The EU Parliament is Warning (Kathimerini, 13 June 2012)and in view of the national elections in Greece, European politicians provide as exclusivesources the no-alternative frame, totally adopted by the journalist. Greece is warned onthe imminent disaster should the next Greek government reject the memorandum ordoes not fully comply: The head of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament,Hannes Swoboda, assessed that the denouncement of the Memorandum would amountto a disaster for Greece.

The European political actors get also the privilege to offer their position on the diver-ging standpoint of the oppositional Greek political forces. Through the voice of MrSwoboda, the left party SYRIZAthat keeps an anti-memorandum stance and in the pre-election period announced that it would denounce the memorandum should it ever bein poweris warned that it will fail if it tries to blackmail Europe. After the opposingstance is annihilated (with the help also of omission and simplication), the possibility of

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Greece not complying is also abolished; it is emphatically stressed, via the quoted speech ofthe leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, that there is noway out since:

even a left government has to negotiate: Even if we say that we do not negotiate andthrow the Memorandum in the trash, they should nd money somewhere. Europe willcut the instalments. How will they pay the pensioners and employees and how will theymeet their needs? Even a leftist government will be forced to negotiate. (Kathimerini,13 June 2012).

Through the very selection of the topic for coverage and the absence of any othervoice in the text, the journalist and the newspaper adopt in practice the frame offeredby the European politicians, acting as one of the agents that promote the Europeanpolicy. Since any competing alternative is rejected through the most ofcial sources, theEuropean policy is objectied as the only way to Greeces salvation and gains unques-tioned legitimacy.

Expertise. According to Scott, expertise is a type of power activated when cognitivesymbols are structured into organized bodies of knowledge in terms of which some peopleare regarded as experts and others defer to their superior knowledge and skills (2001, 22).Expertise thus performs an exclusionary function, controlling who can speak authoritativelyabout an issue (Seymour 2009, 4).

The presence of experts in the news has increased signicantly in the last decades.Experts are generally considered among the most credible sources, since they are seenas combining the qualities of knowledge and independence. They are able to provideexpert or scientic knowledge, which journalists often lack, and are considered unattachedto specic interests. According to Albk (2011, 338), one of the reasons of their increaseduse is that journalists need the compensatory legitimation of experts for the issues theycover, to conrm the conclusions they have already reached and the news frames theyhave adopted.

In a news report headlined The Pistol Became a Bazooka,5 complimented by thesub-headline Experts Explain How the Europackage Shields Greece As Well (Ta Nea, 11May 2010), three Greek market analysts give their expert opinion and knowledge on theimplications of the European Stability Mechanisms creation that had been decided the pre-vious day by the European Union nance ministers. The readers are informed from theintroduction: Market analysts predict that it creates more favourable conditions forGreece, for exit from the crisis. While the experts verify that the support mechanism willhave positive implications for Greece, they hurry to stress the necessity that Greeceabides by the agreed terms with the troika:

Provided that the euro is stabilized, they note, Greece will no longer be used by themarkets as an attack vehicle The pressures are expected to ease and bankruptcy scen-arios to subside.

They rush at the same time to add that this ease should in no way detract from theeffort to implement the programme that Greece has agreed with the European Union andthe IMF. That would be disastrous, because the spreads would immediately surge andGreece could no longer borrow either from the markets or of course from the supportmechanism, since it would have violated the terms of the latter. (Ta Nea, 11 May 2010).

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Two main ideas are communicated throughout this text (which, apart from exper-tise, are also aided by the mechanisms of simplication, reication, omission and mysti-cation): the policy decided is the right one; and Greece should stick to the agreement if itwants to be saved. As there are no other sources in the text and as any arguments ques-tioning the hegemonic discourse on the European Stability Mechanism policy are expelledfrom the story, non-expert readers can hardly contradict the evaluations of experts thatare presented as objective, incontestable facts. The governmental and European policydecisions are objectively legitimised in this neutral news report, through highly expertvoices.

Quantication. Data and economic gures are often used in the news more astools of persuasion than aids to comprehension (Goddard 1998, 87). In this context, theideological implications of quantication in legitimating the governmental policies andthe troikas decisions are considerable.

In an example of quantication (as well as of expertise, institutional sourcing and sim-plication), numbers, statistical data, analysts estimations, results of polls and even histori-cal events are used to objectify the size of aid Greece has received, but also the height of riskof exiting the Eurozone should the austerity measures not be implemented. The news story,entitled Merkel: Greece Received Help Equal to 150% of GDP, starts as follows:

Greece has received help equal to 150% of its GDP, the German Chancellor said yesterday,while a poll in Germany showed that 83% of the respondents want Greeces exit from theeuro if the country says no to the austerity measures.

Mrs Merkel compared the programme of Greece with the Marshal plan, stressing thatthe funds of the famous Marshal plan that Europe received after WWII reached 3% of theEuropean GDP and she added that the two support packages and one remission of debtequal approximately 150% of the Greek GDP. (Kathimerini, 8 June 2012).

In the quoted speech of Merkel, a combination of incontestable data and undisputable his-torical facts strengthens her argument, which is given the privileged position of the head-line and the rst two paragraphs. The comparison with the Marshal plan, in particular, is notaccidental, since it has high symbolic value for contributing to the reconstruction of thedestroyed Europe after World War II, and is widely known by European citizens.

The news story goes on to present the views of the German Minister of EconomicCooperation, the polls results echoing German public opinion (without any informationon who conducted the poll and when) and the views of two bank experts, all sideswarning, through the use of data, for the danger and potential disaster of Greece leavingthe Eurozone.

The combined use of sources of different statusexperts, politicians and the pulse ofpublic opinioncreates a structure of objectivity and does not leave much room for con-testation: it is not only the politicians that put pressure on Greece, it is also the expertsthat testify for the necessity of implementing the agreed policies. Furthermore, theGermannamely, the Europeanpublic opinion is presented as assenting with its leader-ship, or, better, its leadership as addressing the sentiment of the European public opinion.However, in practice, the pollsconducted and analysed by survey expertsare one moreapparatus of expert knowledge, often critiqued as used by political actors, parties and inter-est groups, as instruments of inuencing public opinion (Hitchens 2009; Irwin and Van

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Holsteyn 2000) to attain support in their policies and aims. Quantied data thus becomeincontestable knowledge, creating an objective reality of the Greek crisis and legitimatingthe European policy over it; within this hegemonic discourse, Greece should not only fullycomply with, but should also be grateful for, the austerity policy since it has been helpedmore than any other country in Europe.

Reication. Berger and Luckmann see reication as an extreme step in the processof objectication, whereby the objectivated world loses its comprehensibility as a humanenterprise and becomes xated as a non-human, non-humanizable inert facticity (1967,89). Within this vein, the products of human activity are perceived as if they were some-thing else than human products-such as facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifes-tations of divine will (1967, 89).

News concerning the economic activity or civil disorders, such as riots, is often pre-sented as the product of forces outside human control [ ] as alien, reied forces, oras natural phenomena (Tuchman 1978a, 213214). Their reication, according toTuchman, reafrms the status quo, as both the individuals and the governments are pre-sented as powerless to battle either the forces of nature or the forces of the economy(1978a, 214).

A news report entitled Professions and Markets Open Up to Bring Investments,where the economy and the markets are totally reied, presented as entities outside anyhuman intervention and control (supported also by quantication, simplication and insti-tutional sourcing), starts as follows:

The success of the program that the government has agreed with the European Union andthe IMF, to reduce the decit, against the loan of 110 billion euros, is hanging by a thread.This thread is called growth. Or, no great recession. (Ta Nea, 8 May 2010).

Growth, recession and decit repeatedly appear in the text as absolute truths, are allocatedagency as entities that possess magical powers and lead lives of their own (Jensen 1987,17). This fatalist perspective alleviates responsibility from political actors, shifting the atten-tion from those institutions, ofcials and practices responsible for creating the prevailingeconomic conditions (Huxford 2008, 15). Also, the creation of this mystied universe ofuncontrollable forces supports the intervention of a larger institution, such as the troika,for Greeces salvation. The news story concludes by enumerating the measures that willtake Greece out of the crisis:

Acceleration of the NSRF [National Strategic Reference Framework], stimulation of privateinvestment, opening-up of markets and closed professions and privatizations are the mainweapons with which the government will ght the challenge of growth. However, themarket protests that at the same time that all these are announced, the governmentundermines growth, especially green growth, freezing investments and promoting aninstitutional framework inspired by statism, as they say. (Ta Nea, 8 May 2010).

While the measures that need to be taken to meet the goal of growth and save thecountry from disaster are positively signied (acceleration, stimulation of private invest-ments, opening-up of closed professions), what actually these measures will require andwhich their implications will be, for society, are never mentioned. Instead, the market, asone of these reied forces, expresses its discontent that the government does not doenough for their implementation. Hence, the journalist serving as an active agent, the

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hegemonic narration over the crisis promotes the legitimation of the neoliberal policy ofausterity, not only as necessity and fate (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 91) but also asthe outcome of public demand.

Conclusion

This study examines how the discursive struggles over the constituents of the nan-cial crisis in Greece are moderated by mainstream domestic media to echo hegemonicinterpretations of the crisis. The study focuses in particular on the discursive mechanismsthe Greek press employed to legitimate the bailout agreements Greece signed with thetroika, as the single course of action for the nancial recovery of the country. A qualitativecontents analysis of news stories published in the two leading newspapers of the countrywas performed, instructed by the theories of hegemony and social construction of reality,and further assisted by discourse theory.

The analysis revealed two main legitimation mechanisms, those of naturalisation andobjectivation, each constructed by a set of specic components. Naturalisation, concerningthe ways in which the information, the opinions and the discussion on the nancial crisisand the bailout agreements become taken for granted and practically unnoticed andunquestioned, is discursively constructed through symbolic annihilation (and its com-ponents of omission, trivialisation, condemnation), mystication and simplication. Objec-tivation, referring mainly to the presentation of information and ideas as real and objectivefacts that cannot be challenged, is constructed through institutional sourcing, expertise,quantication and reication.

The analysis showed that the neutral accounts of events, as they are presentedthrough conventional news reporting, employ a hegemonic discourse, supporting the neo-liberal policies of strict austerity the Greek governments and their partners have agreedupon and implement, as the orthodox path to recovery. Since the economic phenomenaare reied, as entities of uncontrollable forces that lead lives of their own (Jensen 1987,17), responsibility for creating the prevailing economic conditions is alleviated from politicalactors and the instrumentality of larger institutions, such as the troika, is advocated as divineintervention. Throughout these strategies, the hegemonic discourse on the crisiswhat isthe crisis and how it should be tackledbecomes naturalised and objectied, growing intohard-to-challenge institutional knowledge. Within this vein, the media studied actively par-ticipate in the discursive struggle over the crisis, exercising political agency by promotingthe bailouts legitimation as necessity and fate (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 91) forGreeces salvation, while selectively omitting or discrediting alternative voices andinterpretations.

Of course, it is not argued that the eld of discursive struggles over the crisis isrestricted in these two newspapers. Diverging opinions and arguments regarding thecrisis are expressed both in alternative and mainstream media. Furthermore, even thedominant views and ideas are not unchangeably xed but continuously negotiated andrearticulated. However, these media organisations are in the privileged position, beingpart of a cluster of elites, to address as validated institutions the major issues of theGreek society, regulatingnot always fully or successfullythe conditions and bound-aries of these issues discourses. Non-dominant and alternative media do not share thispower. Nonetheless, once in a while they manage to articulate a counter-hegemonic

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discourse from within the ruptures of the discursive eld of the crisis that reaches broaderaudiences.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.

NOTES

1. The Greek governmental bonds would lose 53.5 per cent of their face value.2. The German Chancellor.3. Loukas Papademos, former vice-president of the European Central Bank, was appointed to

lead the country to elections, in head of an interim coalition government, after the social-ist government of Papandreou had resigned.

4. In the last trimester of 2011 the unemployment rate was 20.7 per cent, and one year laterit reached 26 per cent (National Statistical Service of Greece, 2012, 2013) http://www.mof.gov.cy/mof/cystat/statistics.nsf/labour_32main_en/labour_32main_en?OpenForm&sub=2&sel=2 (last accessed 2 April 2015).

5. The title refers to the appeal of the Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, to the Euro-pean leaders, in March 2010, to put the loaded gun on the table; namely, to proceed toconcrete actions to shield the Greek and European economy from speculators.

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Vaia Doudaki (corresponding author) is Assistant Professor of Media and Journalism Studiesin the Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Tech-nology, Limassol, Cyprus. Email: vaia.doudaki@cut.ac.cy

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AbstractIntroductionHegemonic Discourses and (Re)Constructions of RealityResearch Outline and MethodologyLegitimising Mechanisms in the Discursive Struggles over the CrisisNaturalisationSymbolic annihilationOmissionCondemnationTrivialisation

MystificationSimplification

ObjectivationInstitutional sourcingExpertiseQuantificationReification

ConclusionDISCLOSURE STATEMENTNOTESREFERENCES