In this article we focus on one important event related to the Greek dimensions of the so called refugee crisis in Europe. This event took place during late February and March 2020 and is known as the Evros events that occurred when Turkey decided to open its European borders to the refugees. Greece responded by closing its land borders with Turkey, and by halting the asylum application process. The area surrounding the Evros River in Greece became heavily policed by the Greek police and the EU’s Frontex border police, further aided by various citizen militias consisting of Greek and other EU nationals. This research analyzes the newsmedia coverage of the specific incident through a qualitative frame analysis on news articles written by five Greek newspapers that have different political affiliations. The analysis then answers a two-fold research question: how did the Greek press frame the Evros events, and how did these frames contribute to the public debate around migration in the country.
This study examines the contribution of media frames to democratic debate. Focusing on Greece, the article investigates how the press frames the Greek memoranda (2010-2015) and the contribution of these frames to the construction of democratic debate. Relying on an in-depth qualitative framing analysis of the coverage of the three memoranda and combining insights from framing theory and political economy, the major frames that shaped debates on the issue and the boundaries of discourse that they set are identified. The findings illustrate that, while the application of frames might differ across outlets, a rather uniform debate around the memoranda is promoted through the press. These results raise doubts about the performance of the media in the coverage of the most significant political issue in Greece’s recent history, and reveal the silencing of alternative voices that could have challenged the dominant frames of the debate.
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