The ‘Greek crisis’ as a middle-class morality tale: frames of ridicule, pity and resentment in the German and the Danish press

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe hegemonic framing of the ‘Greek crisis’, launched by leading liberal and conservative politicians in the European Union (EU) and elsewhere and followed by mass media, reflected deep Western racial prejudices towards the periphery, and stressed typical bourgeois values affirming hard work, while publicly asserting regimes of entitlement to citizenship, welfare and consumption. The article presents a class-oriented analysis of the ‘Greek crisis’ discursive construction in North-Western European media, by studying articles published between 2010 and 2015 in four newspapers from Germany and Denmark. The analysis shows that, along with cultural ones, upper/middle-class biases are publicly expressed through articulations of ridicule, contempt and resentment, three interrelated ‘affective modalities’ connected to essentialist binary constructions of the (Western/European) self and the (non-Western/European) Other. Thus, the bourgeois ideology is crucial in reproducing depoliticized frames of economic crisis, to pursue neoliberal crisis-reforms (such as various regimes of austerity and labour deregulation). The production and affirmation of middle-class subjectivities, is crucial for the organic advance of neoliberal reforms in society, while denying the advancing of working – class identifications and solidarities in the highly uncertain times of today.