Feeling the pulse of the Greek debt crisis: affect on the web of blame

Abstract

This article examines the affective content of Greek media representations of the debt crisis, from 2009 to 2012. We analyze the content of opinion pieces from journalists, experts and public intellectuals published in Greek newspapers, and identify their affective tone towards political actors and institutions. We focus on anger, fear and hope, and identify blame attribution frames, which underpin the public's trust and confidence in domestic and EU institutions. This article contributes to the systematic understanding of the impact of the debt crisis as a traumatic event on public opinion, and considers its implications for attitudes towards European integration.

Emotion, Sophistication and Political Behavior: Evidence From a Laboratory Experiment

“…The study examines responses of an undergraduate population to a specific political issue related to environmental protection. Although the analysis of emotional engagement with specific political topics is common (Brader & Valentino, ; Capelos & Exadaktylos, ; Huddy et al, ; Nai et al, ), the consideration of political behavior unrelated to voting is not. It is hence possible that the findings here do not necessarily hold for voting behavior or for aspects of political participation that are directly linked to electoral politics.…”

“…We investigate how emotions affect political behavior by gauging responses to a contemporary political issue. Moving beyond the examination of voting behavior and taking cues from studies focusing on particular political topics (Brader & Valentino, 2007;Capelos & Exadaktylos, 2017;Huddy, Feldman, Taber, & Lahav, 2005;Nai et al, 2017), we investigate how emotions affect responses to environmental disaster. In line with experimental advances in political science (Druckman, Green, Kuklinski, & Lupia, 2006) and in the extant literature on emotions (Brader, 2005;Gerber et al, 2008Gerber et al, , 2010Valentino et al, 2011), we designed a laboratory experiment to investigate how emotional responses to bird trapping and killing affect political behavior.…”

The Eurozone crisis and Euroscepticism in the European press

“…This also includes studies that look into national stereotypes and how certain European countries are depicted by media in other countries (e.g. Capelos and Exadaktylos 2017;Touri and Rogers 2013). Others revolve around the question whether news media coverage of EU affairs is predominantly negative or positive.…”

“…The latter was also seen through claims that featured both rational and emotional elements (cf. Capelos and Exadaktylos 2017). This is, for instance, illustrated in the passionate call upon the EU to finally act by the economics editor of Die Presse, Nikolaus Jilch (2012d): 'Tut endlich was!'…”

Analysing Crisis Parliamentary Discourse in Greece: Whom Should We Blame?

“…We will return to that later. Further relevant literature that has been developed is that of blame attribution by the media during the crisis (Capelos and Exadaktylos, ; Roose et al ., ; Von Scheve, Zink and Ismer, ). Although the focus of this research is sociological and is interested in the emotions of blame attribution, it also shows that, in the case of Greece, blame attribution in the media has been directed towards the domestic political system more than towards external actors.…”