From AAA to Junk

Abstract

Credit rating agencies, through close relationships with (elite) news-media, hold a strong position in the specialist mediated discourse of contemporary financial capitalism that circulates narrowly among governmental, regulatory and corporate actors. Additionally, by issuing ratings on countries’ creditworthiness, the agencies hold the discursive power to affect, positively or negatively, the economic well-being of states and their citizens. Such was the case during Ireland's economic crisis, 2008–2013, when the world's three main rating agencies—Moody's, Fitch, and Standard and Poor's—progressively downgraded the country's sovereign rating. This study, through the lens of the watchdog and informed-citizenry functions of the Irish print-media, examines how the agencies were positioned in Irish news-discourse during this period. It evaluates the print-media's routine level of critical reflection on the agencies’ role in global financial markets and their actual or potential influence on Ireland's economic condition. Further, it interrogates the degree to which news coverage of rating actions was constructed within a closed network of elite institutional discourse (financial, political and regulatory). The study suggests that, even in the midst of a national and global financial crisis, the Irish print-media tended to reproduce the perceived legitimacy, authority and relevance of the rating agencies as elite institutional actors, and unproblematically accept the structures, mechanisms and values of the wider “market” system.