Economic Crisis, Greek crisis discourse, Discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, Discourse Analysis, media discourse
The 2008 economic crisis signalled a new era for European and global politics
and introduced a new ‘economic crisis discourse’, which has emerged as an attempt to explain, justify, criticise and interpret economic crisis. It has introduced
new terms and constructed new meanings to political life. Media economic crisis
discourse has been a decisive factor in peoples’ understanding of economic crisis.
The paper studies the construction and media narratives of economic crisis
discourse through an analysis of articles published by The Economist during the
‘peak years’ of the early Greek economic crisis (2009–2011). The analysis follows
Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) discourse theory and reveals the ‘nodal points’ of
Greek crisis discourse as they are presented in the articles of The Economist. The paper underlines the importance of media discourse during crisis periods, in
which information dissemination and news framing may crucially affect citizens,
policies and societies in general.