The Crisis, the Media and the Representation of the Working Class: A Greek Perspective
Abstract
The main focus of this article is to map the field of the dominant discourses fabricated, promoted and cultivated in the field of Mass Media, in terms of the decade-long Greek crisis. What will be supported is that, during the whole period, the Mass Media have played a definitive role in comprehending and dealing with the crisis, in the implementation of economic, political and social policies, but also in the expression of opinions regarding its causes, consequences and management. The absence though, of critical and radical discourses, as will be supported, apart from not having contributed towards a deeper understanding, by remorselessly espousing the neoliberal dogma, they have also hindered the creation of the required objective terms for collective action and effective resistance. In that respect, I urge for the need of a critical approach of the crisis which, bypassing the politics of the mainstream media and bourgeois ideologisms, would kaleidoscopically conceptualise it, while placing central focus on the exploitation of labourers and the ongoing class struggle. In this direction, I also consider imperative the examination of how people engage with the media discourses of crisis and how these operate in the co-construction of their realities.
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