Javnost: The Public, 2015

Vol. 22, No. 1, 117, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2015.1017284

LEGITIMATION MECHANISMS IN THE

BAILOUT DISCOURSE

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Vaia Doudaki
This study examines how the discursive struggles over the constituents of the nancial crisis
in Greece are policed by mainstream domestic media, in favour of the hegemonic interpretations of the crisis. The study focuses in particular on the discursive mechanisms the Greek
press employed to legitimate the bailout agreements Greece signed with the troika. The
analysis points to the discursive mechanisms of naturalisation and objectivation that
empower the reconstruction of the hegemonic neoliberal rhetoric. The media studied actively
participate in the discursive struggle over the crisis, exercising political agency by legitimating
the 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 of
discourses over the meaning of the crisis and the ways to overcome it, with media
holding a key position in mediating the discursive struggles in which social and political
actors ght over the denitions of the crisis. The mainstream media, in particular, are criticised for favouring and supporting the hegemonic discourse over the crisis, by privileging
the political and economic elites in expressing their views and providing their framing and
interpretations while marginalising or excluding counter-hegemonic or other alternative
voices (Mylonas 2014; Titley 2012). In this respect, the mainstream media are not only
seen to mediate the public discussion but also to intervene as active agents in the discursive
struggles over the social construction of the crisis.
Within this context, this study examines how the domestic mainstream media in
Greece covered and represented the bailout-related news, over a two-year period (April
2010June 2012); that is, the news referring to the memoranda Greece signed with the
troika, which were considered vital for the economic salvation of the country. The study
focuses in particular on the discursive mechanisms the domestic press used to legitimate
the necessity of the bailouts, not only reproducing the hegemonic discourse of the crisis
but also contributing to its construction. The analysis is theoretically informed by the discussion on the role of media in the social construction of reality (Tuchman 1978a; Berger and
Luckmann 1967; Hall at al. 1978), combined with the concept of hegemony, and specically
the medias role in reiterating and legitimating hegemonic discourses over critical issues for
societies (Hall et al. 1978; Gramsci 1971; Gitlin 1980, 1986; Herman and Chomsky 1988). The
analysis is further informed by discourse theory (Laclau and Mouffe 1985), which sees
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VAIA DOUDAKI

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

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Hegemonic Discourses and (Re)Constructions of Reality

The concept of hegemony, departing from the seminal work of Gramsci on class
power, connects hegemony not only to the political and economic dominance of a class
but also to its cultural dominance (Bates 1975; Scott 2001, 89), and broadly seeks to
reveal 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 economic, political, cultural and ideological domains of a society (Fairclough 1992, 92) and is
related to the various means through which the dominant ideology in a culture is reproduced and largely accepted even by social groups whose interests are not supported by
it (Dow 1990, 262; Scott 2001, 89). Laclau and Mouffe, moving away from an exclusive
focus on class domination, see hegemony broadly as a form of politics (1985, 139). Deetz
explains that
The site of hegemony is the myriad of everyday institutional activities and experiences that
culminate in common sense, thus hiding the choices made and mystifying the interests
of dominant groups. Dominant group denitions of reality, norms, and standards appear
as normal rather than as political and contestable. (1977, 62).

Of course, diverging or counter-hegemonic opinions, views and versions of reality circulate in society. Actually, the openness of the social is the precondition of every hegemonic
practice (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 142). As Fairclough notes, hegemony is never achieved
more than partially and temporarily, as an unstable equilibrium (1995, 76). Given that
meaning and denitions of reality are never xed, but are constructed and re-negotiated
(Derrida [1976] 1998; Barthes 1976) in discursive (power) struggles, the acceptance and
maintenance of the hegemonic order depends largely on its legitimation. According to
Weber, [e]very system of authority attempts to establish and to cultivate the belief in its
legitimacy (1964, 325). Berger and Luckmann describe legitimation as a second-order
objectivation of meaning, as a process of explaining and justifying. Legitimation explains
the 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 his
map of power relations, Scott identies legitimation as one of the two main elements of
persuasive inuence (the second is signication), leading to commitment to or recognition
of ideas or values that are accepted as beyond question, as providing intrinsically appropriate reasons for acting [limiting the subalterns] willingness to consider action alternatives (2001, 1415). For van Dijk, legitimation is one of the main social functions of
ideologies (1998, 255), whereas [i]deologies are representations of aspects of the world
which can be shown to contribute to establishing, maintaining and changing social
relations of power, domination and exploitation (Fairclough 2003, 9). The power of ideologies 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 ideas
but 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 dening
social reality take place is the mainstream media. News, in particular, is considered one
of the main sources of knowledge and power in society (Entman 2004; Tuchman 1978a,

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LEGITIMATION MECHANISMS IN THE BAILOUT DISCOURSE

217). According to Tuchman, news does not mirror society. It helps to constitute it as a
shared social phenomenon, for in the process of describing an event, news denes and
shapes that event (1978a, 184). In this context, the media are considered major cultural
institutions in building common-sense and securing consent (Herman and Chomsky
1988) by favouring and echoing the denitions of the powerful over social reality, reproducing 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 contested and the discursive struggle over it among social and political agents is intense, the
role of organic intellectuals, such as journalists, is critical in certifying the limits within
which all competing denitions of reality will contend (Gitlin 1980, 254), privileging
those that echo the views of actors in power positions (Gitlin 1986). In cases where the
dominant social denitions of reality are threatened, the assignment of an inferior ontological status, and thereby a not-to-be-taken-seriously cognitive status, to all denitions
existing outside the symbolic universe (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 115) helps in protecting 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 voices
that fall outside the dominant elite circles. By perpetuating as commonsensical notions of
who ought to be treated as authoritative, these routines help the system maintain control
without sacricing legitimacy. (1990, 394).

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

Research Outline and Methodology

The bailouts Greece signed with the troika received extensive coverage, presented
largely as the only means for the countrys salvation. Therefore, the interest in this
study lies in investigating how the hegemonic discourse on the bailout agreements is legitimated by the Greek media, by identifying the main legitimation mechanisms that facilitate
the construction of the hegemonic articulation of the crisis.
The two daily newspapers with the highest circulation at the time of research, Ta
Nea (The News) and Kathimerini (Daily), were chosen for the study. Both are long-established 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 afliated
to the economic elite. Additionally to their wide reach in the Greek public, they are
also sound examples of the mainstream media system in Greece, which has traditionally
been 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 Papathanassopoulos 2002; Hallin and Mancini 2004). Most major Greek media organisations are part of
large company groups and have often been used as vehicles for the exchange of economic or political favours (Hallin and Papathanassopoulos 2002). Of course alternative
media do exist, addressing a different discourse over the crisis. However, their position
in the discursive struggles over the crisis is arguably rather frail, since, apart from their
smaller reach, they do not belong in the same cluster of elitestogether with the economic elite and the political eliteas the leading media in the country, and their power
as institutions addressing the major issues of the Greek society is thus signicantly
weaker.
For the purposes of the study, news texts were selected and analysed from three
time periods associated with signicant developments regarding the bailout agreements.
Each one of the research periods includes one week preceding and one week following
the core events. The rst period (16 April 201010 May 2010) was marked by the Greek
governments and the troikas (European Union, European Central Bank and International
Monetary Fund (IMF)) agreement for a rescue package of 110 billion to prevent Greece
from bankruptcy. During the second period (20 October 201119 February 2012), a
second bailout loan programme of 130 billion, accompanied by a 53.5 per cent
haircut1 of Greeces debt to the private sector, was agreed between the Greek government and the troika. During the third period (29 April 201224 June 2012), national elections were held twice, as the government of PASOK had previously resigned and a
steady government was needed to implement the bailouts. The result of the double
elections 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 research
period and newspaper (print edition) that had been previously selected for a study on
the news framing of the bailouts (Doudaki et al. forthcoming), 60 news texts were qualitatively analysed as most relevant to this studys purpose. The analysis focused on news
reports and did not include opinion articles, commentary or editorials, because the aim
was to look into the ways in which reality is discursively constructed in allegedly neutral
accounts 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 constituents. No preconceived categories were used in order to allow the categories to ow from
the data inductively (Kondracki and Wellman 2002). The analysis followed a series of iterative coding processes, moving from the detection of specic elements and their systematic
categorisation to the identication of general mechanisms of legitimation. Even though a
predetermined analytical framework was not followed but the categories were derived
from the material, the analysis does not introduce new concepts. Rather, pre-existing concepts from the theories of hegemony and social construction of reality instructed the analysis, along with discourse theory, and were put together to make up an analytical framework
of legitimation mechanisms (see Table 1).

LEGITIMATION MECHANISMS IN THE BAILOUT DISCOURSE

TABLE 1
Legitimation mechanisms in the news discourse over the Greek bailouts
Naturalisation
Symbolic annihilation (omission, trivialisation, condemnation)
Mystication
Simplication

Objectivation
Expertise
Institutional sourcing
Quantication
Reication

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Legitimising Mechanisms in the Discursive Struggles over the Crisis

The analysis revealed two main legitimation mechanisms, each articulated by specic
components. The rst mechanismnaturalisationis built around symbolic annihilation,
mystication and simplication. Objectivation, the second mechanism, is constructed by
expertise, institutional sourcing, quantication and reication (see Table 1). These mechanisms 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 the
hegemonic discourse over the crisis by creating a supportive structure where the bailout
agreements appear as natural and objective realities, while selectively marginalising, omitting or discrediting alternative voices and interpretations. The media work as vehicles of
legitimation, exercising political agency in a process through which a number of oating
signiers in the crisis discourse become nodal points, privileged discursive points that (temporarily and partially) x meaning in the discursive struggle over the crisis (Laclau and
Mouffe 1985, 112113).

Naturalisation
One of the most important general functions of ideology is the way in which it turns
uncertain and fragile cultural resolutions and outcomes into a pervasive naturalism (Willis
1977, 162). According to Fairclough, the naturalisation or automatisation of ideologies gives
them their common-sensical power (1992, 87). Naturalisation, one of the two main legitimation mechanisms identied throughout the analysis, broadly concerns the ways in which
the information, the opinions and the discussion on the nancial crisis and the bailout
agreements, as appearing in the news texts studied, become taken for granted and practically unquestioned, and are presented as the way to do things, as the way things are or
even as an objective historical given (Tuchman 1978a, 196). Through naturalisation and its
constituentssymbolic annihilation (omission, trivialisation, condemnation), mystication
and simplicationthe hegemonic discourse of the crisis is normalised and diverging
opinions and ideas within the discursive struggle over the crisis are neutralised.
Symbolic annihilation. Symbolic annihilation describes the under-representation or
misrepresentation 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 disempowerment and in which symbolic absence in the media can erase groups and individuals from
public consciousness (Means Coleman and Chivers Yochim 2008, 4922).

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From a different starting point, Berger and Luckmann view what they call nihilation as
a kind of negative legitimation: Legitimation maintains the reality of the socially constructed universe; nihilation denies the reality of whatever phenomena or interpretations
of phenomena do not t into that universe (1967, 114).
In the following examples, a supportive structure for the symbolic annihilation of any
alternative to the neoliberal austerity policies, in the discursive struggle over the crisis, is
created by the journalists selective use of sources, data and interpretative frameworks.
Omission. As relevant research has recurrently shown, critical actors, main constituents of the nancial crisis, as well as alternative framing and interpretations of the crisis are
often absent from the related news discourse (Doudaki et al. forthcoming; Mylonas 2012;
Tracy 2012). The absence and marginalisation of vital information for the apprehension
of the crisis constituents and of alternative views and denitions adds to the establishment
of a powerful, constraining environment that appears entirely natural to social actors
(Abercrombie, Hill, and Turner 1980, 166). In this way, the ruling ideas regarding the
crisis are presented as the unquestioned and taken-for-granted reality (Scott 2001, 90) of
the 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 of
the mechanism of omission (but also of mystication, institutional sourcing, quantication
and reication), starts as follows:
A four-year program with the target to reduce the decit to zero was announced yesterday
evening in the Parliament by the Minister of Finance, George Papaconstantinou, following
Merkels2 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 is
estimated that from 2011 and in the next three years a decit reduction of up to 10 percentage points can be reached. This objective should be achieved, Mr. Papakonstantinou
said, 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 be
tackled, its nature and special characteristics are totally mystied. Vital information for
the comprehension of the issue is omitted. The reader never learns how big is the decit
or why it should be the rst priority of the government. Also, the information on the structures that nurtured its growth or the repercussions of its tackling for society is completely
missing. The reader does get informed on the ways that this can be accomplished: through
the reduction of expenses and the increase of revenue. However, one never learns how
these two will be achieved.
Instead, the governments main target is quantied (decit reduction by four per cent
in 2010 and by 10 per cent in the next three years), used as a means to legitimise the governmental policy; all other information related to the ultimate purpose does not need to be
added or, if included, to be justied. In addition, it is uniquely the ministers position that is
presented 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 level
often employ a neoliberal discourse according to which the state policies have failed and

LEGITIMATION MECHANISMS IN THE BAILOUT DISCOURSE

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the public sector is accused for the crisis, as opposed to the healthy private sector where
economy can function unobstructed in full capacity (Tracy 2012; Mylonas 2012). In addition,
protest and diverging opinions within the political system and society are condemned as
harmful for the economy and the countries future and prosperity (Titley 2012; Mylonas
2014; Doudaki et al. 2014).
An example of condemnation (also, of omission, mystication and institutional sourcing) 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 three
parties forming the interim coalition government, who did not follow the governmental
line 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 governments 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, so
that Greece secures the new loan, members of PASOK, New Democracy and LAOS
caused serious damage [to the government], choosing to vote against critical provisions
of the Finance Ministrys multi-bill. (Kathimerini, 25 January 2012).

The interpretation on their disobedience is offered in the last part of the story under
the inner title Hostages of Organised Interests: Sources of the government note that yesterdays image in the Parliament shows just how difcult it is to deal with the unions and
how strong their inuence is on the Members of Parliament (Kathimerini, 25 January
2012). The text does not leave any room for alternative interpretations: it is by no way
the disagreement of the MPs with the governmental policy, it is their connection with
specic interest groups. Still, the attachment to these special interests is mystied, since
one is not informed on which these interests are (even though they are implied, for the provisions that were not voted concerned the professional groups of pharmacists and lawyers).
The MPs disagreement is thus symbolically annihilated with them being condemned of
serving organised interests, which, however, are mystied. Furthermore, in reference to
institutional sourcing, the government is the only source in the text and is given the exclusive privilege of offering its interpretation on the issue, which is fully adopted by the journalist. Any other position, including the actors directly involved in the issue (the disobeying
MPs), is missing.
Trivialisation. Through their stereotypical reproduction and repetition, main issues in
the news tend to be trivialised. In the case of the Greek crisis, trivialising debt and decit as
main causes of the crisis (Doudaki et al. 2014) and homogenising their different elements
creates a spiral of its automated reproduction, leading to the creation of a common sense
about the sources of the crisis. Also, by developing a common-sensical discourse on the
harsh 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 frame
of an event can have a neutralising effect: the presentation, in the name of objectivity, of the
opposing positions and arguments within a conictual frame does not lead to consolidating
or agonistically considering the different positions; it can reversely lead to them being neutralised, and thus trivialised and weakened.
In a news report on the stance of the European governments towards Greece in view
of 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 condemnation and institutional sourcing) the distrusting position of the Europeans and to
support the fairness of their harsh policies. The news story headlined The Political Situation
Troubles Europe starts as follows:

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

In the next paragraph, reporting on the European partners discontent on the progress
Greece has made in the implementation of the rst memorandums agreed terms, the
country is presented through the words of European ofcials (even though we never
learn their names, they are quoted) as doing always too little, always too late, with the distressing attestation that with the picture that Greece presents today, the conditions that
would allow their [the EU countries] parliaments to ratify the new loan agreement of 130
billion euros, are not met.
The alarmed tone of the news report about Greece not making it for the new
loan, legitimates, through the condemnation and trivialisation of Greeces unreliability,
the Europeans harshness and suggests that there is no alternative for the country
than 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 which
are the concrete societal effects of the measures taken for the memorandas implementation are systematically concealed (see, also, Doudaki et al. forthcoming). Similarly, the
reasons behind the crisis are consistently mystied, not connected to the specicities of
the 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 specic
numbers, possessing a quantiable dimension that cannot be easily challenged, while
appearing disconnected from the specic reasons that caused them. In this way the
numbers acquire a quasi-mythical uncontested power (McKinley and Simonet 2003, 18),
legitimating the policies of harsh austerity. The mystication of the crisis, apart from supporting a blameless discourse, also braces fatalism, eschatologically strengthening the neoliberal discussion of the inescapable austerity: Greece is helpless, the powerful will save the
country, it is inevitable (Mylonas 2012, 2014).
In the following example of mystication (also, of omission, reication and institutional sourcing) entitled Three and a Half Hours of Pounding by the Inspectors (Ta
Nea, 22 April 2010), the position of the Greek side is presented only as a defensive reaction 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 the
private sector wages and immediate implementation of the [changes in the] social security system. Accountability is mystied in this text; the Greek government is not directly
blamed for the painful imminent measures and neither is the troika, since the measures

LEGITIMATION MECHANISMS IN THE BAILOUT DISCOURSE

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

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

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This evasiveness and positive signication on the description of the harsh measures
to be agreed with the troika results in the mystication of austerity, which seems to
entail vaguely structural changes, reforms, easing of restrictions, competitiveness
and growth, thus having no concrete repercussions on society. Hence, mystication
serves the articulation of the hegemonic discourse over austerity by obscuring its
constituents.
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 community
experiences; it provides credible answers to bafing questions, and ready explanations
of complex phenomena such as unemployment and ination (1997, 336).

News about the economy does provide regularly examples of simplistic or one-dimensional
accounts of composite issues and phenomena (Martenson 1998, 115). There is the assumption that complex processes of the economy need to be reduced to familiar and simplied
news narratives to be readily accessible to the broad audience (Huxford 2008, 13). As it is
difcult to adequately present all of their variations and nuances, their different constituents
tend to be homogenised into easily presented main categories, avoiding structural connections 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 salaries of the private sector, focuses exclusively on the prime ministers parliamentary
speech on the issue. In a text of 424 words, the oppositions standpoint is presented
in 37 words with one 11-word quote, while the prime ministers quoted speech adds
up 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 closed
businesses and more unemployed, Mr. Papademos emphasized, and maintained that
the nal governmental positions will be established with a view to enhancing competitiveness and protecting the most vulnerable sectors of society. The unemployed
have neither minimum nor 13th and 14th salary. We must care for them as well (Kathimerini, 14 January 2012).

In the most simplied manner (with the aid also of omission, mystication and institutional
sourcing), wage cuts are portrayed, through the words of the head of government, as a
measure to tackle unemployment. This is an argument that would readily appeal to the
public opinion given the alarming dimensions of the phenomenon of unemployment in
Greek 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 more
employees, should the wage reductions be implemented. The unquestioned adoption in
the text of the framing and preferred denition of the issue provided by the political
elite, which legitimates the measure of wage reductions, is actually a practice of political
agency on the part of the journalist, in the discursive struggle over unemployment.

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Objectivation
The second main legitimation mechanism is that of objectivation. Berger and Luckmann perceive objectivation as the process by which the externalized products of
human activity attain the character of objectivity (1967, 60). Objectivation in this study
refers broadly to the presentation and (re)construction of information and ideas as real
and 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 structure
as objective phenomena (the normal, natural, taken-for granted facts of life), they are afrming the facticity of the world as given by the natural attitude (1978a, 196). The news plays a
central role in objectifying public issues by bestowing them an objective status as real
issues 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 discourse on the necessity and superiority of the neoliberal bailout policy over any other policy
against the crisis.
Institutional sourcing. The dependence of media and journalists on accredited
sources within the professional logics of impartiality and objectivity produces a systematically structured over-accessing to the media of those in powerful and privileged institutional positions (Hall et al. 1978, 58). Media researchers and theorists agree that
journalistic frames are largely shaped by social actors who possess signicant economic
and cultural assets, and the sources in this process act as the sponsor[s] of the frames (Carragee and Roefs 2004, 219) or as their primary deners (Hall et al. 1978, 58). The medias
heavy preference for institutionalised sources creates an institutional bias (Tuchman
1978a) on the social, since together with the information the worldview of these elites is
also 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 exclusive
sources the no-alternative frame, totally adopted by the journalist. Greece is warned on
the imminent disaster should the next Greek government reject the memorandum or
does not fully comply: The head of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament,
Hannes Swoboda, assessed that the denouncement of the Memorandum would amount
to a disaster for Greece.
The European political actors get also the privilege to offer their position on the diverging standpoint of the oppositional Greek political forces. Through the voice of Mr
Swoboda, the left party SYRIZAthat keeps an anti-memorandum stance and in the preelection period announced that it would denounce the memorandum should it ever be
in poweris warned that it will fail if it tries to blackmail Europe. After the opposing
stance is annihilated (with the help also of omission and simplication), the possibility of

LEGITIMATION MECHANISMS IN THE BAILOUT DISCOURSE

Greece not complying is also abolished; it is emphatically stressed, via the quoted speech of
the leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, that there is no
way out since:
even a left government has to negotiate: Even if we say that we do not negotiate and
throw the Memorandum in the trash, they should nd money somewhere. Europe will
cut the instalments. How will they pay the pensioners and employees and how will they
meet their needs? Even a leftist government will be forced to negotiate. (Kathimerini,
13 June 2012).

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Through the very selection of the topic for coverage and the absence of any other
voice in the text, the journalist and the newspaper adopt in practice the frame offered
by the European politicians, acting as one of the agents that promote the European
policy. Since any competing alternative is rejected through the most ofcial sources, the
European policy is objectied as the only way to Greeces salvation and gains unquestioned legitimacy.

Expertise. According to Scott, expertise is a type of power activated when cognitive

symbols are structured into organized bodies of knowledge in terms of which some people
are regarded as experts and others defer to their superior knowledge and skills (2001, 22).
Expertise thus performs an exclusionary function, controlling who can speak authoritatively
about 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 seen
as combining the qualities of knowledge and independence. They are able to provide
expert or scientic knowledge, which journalists often lack, and are considered unattached
to specic interests. According to Albk (2011, 338), one of the reasons of their increased
use is that journalists need the compensatory legitimation of experts for the issues they
cover, to conrm the conclusions they have already reached and the news frames they
have adopted.
In a news report headlined The Pistol Became a Bazooka,5 complimented by the
sub-headline Experts Explain How the Europackage Shields Greece As Well (Ta Nea, 11
May 2010), three Greek market analysts give their expert opinion and knowledge on the
implications of the European Stability Mechanisms creation that had been decided the previous day by the European Union nance ministers. The readers are informed from the
introduction: Market analysts predict that it creates more favourable conditions for
Greece, for exit from the crisis. While the experts verify that the support mechanism will
have positive implications for Greece, they hurry to stress the necessity that Greece
abides by the agreed terms with the troika:
Provided that the euro is stabilized, they note, Greece will no longer be used by the
markets as an attack vehicle The pressures are expected to ease and bankruptcy scenarios to subside.
They rush at the same time to add that this ease should in no way detract from the
effort to implement the programme that Greece has agreed with the European Union and
the IMF. That would be disastrous, because the spreads would immediately surge and
Greece could no longer borrow either from the markets or of course from the support
mechanism, 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 expertise, are also aided by the mechanisms of simplication, reication, omission and mystication): the policy decided is the right one; and Greece should stick to the agreement if it
wants to be saved. As there are no other sources in the text and as any arguments questioning the hegemonic discourse on the European Stability Mechanism policy are expelled
from the story, non-expert readers can hardly contradict the evaluations of experts that
are presented as objective, incontestable facts. The governmental and European policy
decisions are objectively legitimised in this neutral news report, through highly expert
voices.

Quantication. Data and economic gures are often used in the news more as
tools of persuasion than aids to comprehension (Goddard 1998, 87). In this context, the
ideological implications of quantication in legitimating the governmental policies and
the troikas decisions are considerable.
In an example of quantication (as well as of expertise, institutional sourcing and simplication), numbers, statistical data, analysts estimations, results of polls and even historical events are used to objectify the size of aid Greece has received, but also the height of risk
of 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 the
euro if the country says no to the austerity measures.
Mrs Merkel compared the programme of Greece with the Marshal plan, stressing that
the funds of the famous Marshal plan that Europe received after WWII reached 3% of the
European GDP and she added that the two support packages and one remission of debt
equal approximately 150% of the Greek GDP. (Kathimerini, 8 June 2012).

In the quoted speech of Merkel, a combination of incontestable data and undisputable historical facts strengthens her argument, which is given the privileged position of the headline and the rst two paragraphs. The comparison with the Marshal plan, in particular, is not
accidental, since it has high symbolic value for contributing to the reconstruction of the
destroyed 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 Economic
Cooperation, the polls results echoing German public opinion (without any information
on who conducted the poll and when) and the views of two bank experts, all sides
warning, through the use of data, for the danger and potential disaster of Greece leaving
the Eurozone.
The combined use of sources of different statusexperts, politicians and the pulse of
public opinioncreates a structure of objectivity and does not leave much room for contestation: it is not only the politicians that put pressure on Greece, it is also the experts
that testify for the necessity of implementing the agreed policies. Furthermore, the
Germannamely, the Europeanpublic opinion is presented as assenting with its leadership, or, better, its leadership as addressing the sentiment of the European public opinion.
However, in practice, the pollsconducted and analysed by survey expertsare one more
apparatus of expert knowledge, often critiqued as used by political actors, parties and interest groups, as instruments of inuencing public opinion (Hitchens 2009; Irwin and Van

LEGITIMATION MECHANISMS IN THE BAILOUT DISCOURSE

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Holsteyn 2000) to attain support in their policies and aims. Quantied data thus become
incontestable knowledge, creating an objective reality of the Greek crisis and legitimating
the European policy over it; within this hegemonic discourse, Greece should not only fully
comply with, but should also be grateful for, the austerity policy since it has been helped
more than any other country in Europe.
Reication. Berger and Luckmann see reication as an extreme step in the process
of objectication, whereby the objectivated world loses its comprehensibility as a human
enterprise 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 something else than human products-such as facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of divine will (1967, 89).
News concerning the economic activity or civil disorders, such as riots, is often presented as the product of forces outside human control [ ] as alien, reied forces, or
as natural phenomena (Tuchman 1978a, 213214). Their reication, according to
Tuchman, reafrms the status quo, as both the individuals and the governments are presented 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 any
human intervention and control (supported also by quantication, simplication and institutional sourcing), starts as follows:
The success of the program that the government has agreed with the European Union and
the 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 allocated
agency 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 attention from those institutions, ofcials and practices responsible for creating the prevailing
economic conditions (Huxford 2008, 15). Also, the creation of this mystied universe of
uncontrollable forces supports the intervention of a larger institution, such as the troika,
for Greeces salvation. The news story concludes by enumerating the measures that will
take Greece out of the crisis:
Acceleration of the NSRF [National Strategic Reference Framework], stimulation of private
investment, opening-up of markets and closed professions and privatizations are the main
weapons with which the government will ght the challenge of growth. However, the
market protests that at the same time that all these are announced, the government
undermines growth, especially green growth, freezing investments and promoting an
institutional 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 the
country from disaster are positively signied (acceleration, stimulation of private investments, opening-up of closed professions), what actually these measures will require and
which their implications will be, for society, are never mentioned. Instead, the market, as
one of these reied forces, expresses its discontent that the government does not do
enough for their implementation. Hence, the journalist serving as an active agent, the

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VAIA DOUDAKI

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

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Conclusion
This study examines how the discursive struggles over the constituents of the nancial crisis in Greece are moderated by mainstream domestic media to echo hegemonic
interpretations of the crisis. The study focuses in particular on the discursive mechanisms
the Greek press employed to legitimate the bailout agreements Greece signed with the
troika, as the single course of action for the nancial recovery of the country. A qualitative
contents analysis of news stories published in the two leading newspapers of the country
was 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 and
objectivation, each constructed by a set of specic components. Naturalisation, concerning
the ways in which the information, the opinions and the discussion on the nancial crisis
and the bailout agreements become taken for granted and practically unnoticed and
unquestioned, is discursively constructed through symbolic annihilation (and its components of omission, trivialisation, condemnation), mystication and simplication. Objectivation, referring mainly to the presentation of information and ideas as real and objective
facts 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 presented
through conventional news reporting, employ a hegemonic discourse, supporting the neoliberal policies of strict austerity the Greek governments and their partners have agreed
upon and implement, as the orthodox path to recovery. Since the economic phenomena
are 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 political
actors and the instrumentality of larger institutions, such as the troika, is advocated as divine
intervention. Throughout these strategies, the hegemonic discourse on the crisiswhat is
the crisis and how it should be tackledbecomes naturalised and objectied, growing into
hard-to-challenge institutional knowledge. Within this vein, the media studied actively participate in the discursive struggle over the crisis, exercising political agency by promoting
the bailouts legitimation as necessity and fate (Berger and Luckmann 1967, 91) for
Greeces salvation, while selectively omitting or discrediting alternative voices and
interpretations.
Of course, it is not argued that the eld of discursive struggles over the crisis is
restricted in these two newspapers. Diverging opinions and arguments regarding the
crisis are expressed both in alternative and mainstream media. Furthermore, even the
dominant views and ideas are not unchangeably xed but continuously negotiated and
rearticulated. However, these media organisations are in the privileged position, being
part of a cluster of elites, to address as validated institutions the major issues of the
Greek society, regulatingnot always fully or successfullythe conditions and boundaries of these issues discourses. Non-dominant and alternative media do not share this
power. Nonetheless, once in a while they manage to articulate a counter-hegemonic

LEGITIMATION MECHANISMS IN THE BAILOUT DISCOURSE

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

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.

NOTES

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1.
2.
3.

4.

5.

The Greek governmental bonds would lose 53.5 per cent of their face value.
The German Chancellor.
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 socialist government of Papandreou had resigned.
In the last trimester of 2011 the unemployment rate was 20.7 per cent, and one year later
it 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).
The title refers to the appeal of the Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, to the European leaders, in March 2010, to put the loaded gun on the table; namely, to proceed to
concrete 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 Studies
in the Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus. Email: vaia.doudaki@cut.ac.cy

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