“Playing With Fire” in a Pre-Election Period: Newspaper Coverage of 2007 Wildfires in Greece

Abstract

Newspaper coverage of 2007 wildfires in Greece was examined within a pre-election period. Interpretative repertoires are presented that were employed by two newspapers, each aligned to one of the two leading parliamentary parties at that time. Media discourse was framed within the emergency character of the fire suppression paradigm, while fire was mistreated as unexpected and “unnatural,” namely, not integral to Mediterranean ecosystem dynamics. Depiction of the government focused on dealing with fire episodes and was marked by newspaper partisanship. This might have obscured the responsibility of political leadership to account for long-term rural socioeconomic trends, such as agricultural abandonment and rural depopulation, which might have added to fire hazard. Newspaper content was marked by the interpretative repertoire of “asymmetric threat,” launched by the government to shape wildfires as the result of a supposed conspiracy plan and, thereby, to overcome blame for its failures.