Greek TV Research Articles

Topaloudi’s Legacy: Greek TV Journalism and Gender-Based Violence in the #MeToo Era

Topaloudi’s Legacy: Greek TV Journalism and Gender-Based Violence in the #MeToo Era

LANGUAGE AND GENDER – MALE AND FEMALE LANGUAGE PATTERNS IN THE GREEK SERIES MHN APXIZEIΣ THN MOYPMOYPA

Television is a dominant medium that can influence one’s attitude and social ideologies formation since it reflects sociolinguistic reality and maintains language ideologies and existing social stereotypes. For that reason, we can mention so-called female and male language patterns and their main characteristics, which are to a great extent associated with social power, i.e. the role that an individual has in his social community or community of practice. This paper aims to examine whether the Greek media and more specifically, the Greek TV series promote so-called male and female language patterns, as well as social stereotypes directed towards women. In this paper, we analysed the linguistic behaviour of the protagonists of the Greek series Mην αρχίζεις την μουρμούρα. Qualitative non-experimental research based on the analysis of linguistic behaviour at the level of the characters‘ lexical choice, Vaso and Charis showed that their choice of language patterns is proportional to their social or professional status. In addition, we noticed the presence of certain social stereotypes, while it is evident that the use of stereotypical-female language patterns is associated with a hierarchically lower social position.

The Adventures of an Oral History Archive in the Greek Public Domain

In December 2021 a famous Greek TV and radio journalist and well-known anti-vaxxer, Yiorgos Tragkas, passed away due to Covid-19 complications. In the previous two decades, Tragkas had become a controversial figure, employing an anti-elite, pro-Russian and anti-Western narrative that fed into the country's underdog culture. His ethnocentric, populist, toxic tabloid journalism had been a popular genre in Greek political culture since the early 1980s. However, the debt and migration crises that shook Greece fuelled populist politics and a wave of misinformation.1 Tragkas jumped on the bandwagon of this new era by whitewashing the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party on national TV and by live appearances dressed up as a Second World War Nazi officer, with photos of Adolf Hitler and Angela Merkel on his desk.

Generation Z’s screen culture: Understanding younger users’ behaviour in the television streaming age – The case of post-crisis Greece

Post-crisis Greece is experiencing dynamic audiovisual market growth, faster than the EU average. As Greek TV responds to the challenges of the streaming era, new paths are forged by young viewers/users. This article, based on a survey of nearly 1,000 students, attempts to characterise the viewing patterns of young audiences, who are early adopters and heavy consumers of streaming television. We argue that whereas young Greek media users favour streaming platforms, they value the social character of traditional television, which plays a prominent role in post-crisis Greece. Young media users’ screen behaviour can be described as mobility-centred and algorithmically naïve.

Metapragmatic stereotypes and humour: interpreting and perceiving linguistic homogeneity in mass culture texts

The present study concentrates on the potential of mass culture texts to impose specific metapragmatic stereotypes (Agha 2007) through humour on the wider audience. Metapragmatic stereotypes constitute speakers’ internal models of how language should or should not be used; such models guide speakers’ own language use and enable them to make evaluations about their own language behaviour or that of others. In this context, I explore the dominant metapragmatic stereotypes for humorous mass culture texts’ interpretation and perception. To this end, I analyse a humorous Greek TV advertisement of a telecommunications company. Drawing upon Coupland’s (2007) conceptualization of style and the General Theory of Verbal Humour (Attardo 2001), I intend to show that humour reflects, sustains, and reproduces the dominant metapragmatic stereotypes of linguistic homogenization and monolingualism (Blommaert & Rampton 2011). Then, I explore how the audience perceives the representation of stylistic choices in mass culture texts and more specifically in the analysed advertisement. My informants were 96 students of the last two grades of elementary school. The recipients’ responses show that their metapragmatic stereotypes are aligned with the dominant ones: they approach stylistic choices as strictly-defined systems used in specific social contexts and they expect the alignment of TV fictional characters with linguistic homogeneity. My findings suggest that humour stigmatises specific styles as well as that the audience perceives the respective (and reinforced through humour) metapragmatic stereotypes as guidelines for “correct” stylistic use. Furthermore, it seems that through humour such stereotypes usually go unnoticed in mass culture texts and may even become naturalised, as they are framed in a “trivial” and “non-serious” manner.

Fictionalization of Germanness in the times of Greek crisis: deconstructing the ‘two strangers’ frame in TV sketch comedies

ABSTRACTAs processes of identity construction are relational, the ways the Greeks view the Germans are intrinsically interrelated to how they see themselves, especially in a period of economic recession. Against this backdrop, in the present paper, I consider the ways Germanness (and thus, also Greekness) are constructed in a popular Greek TV stand-up comedy show. The analysis revealed that they were depicted as two distinct universes consisting of different language, music and culture, echoing (at first impression) rather well-held ideas about Northern Europeanness vs. Southern Europeanness, which circulate in the (Greek) public sphere. Nevertheless, through the strategy of fictionalization, such stereotypical representations were actually challenged by the TV sketches, since they were systematically exoticized through several indexes (e.g. the stylized language performance of German characters), with the aim to be deconstructed.

Studying the interactional construction of identities in Critical Discourse Studies: A proposed analytical framework

The field of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) needs to extend its analytical scope and cross-fertilize with interactional accounts of identity. One the one hand, there is a constant and reflexive re-crafting of identities in late modernity. On the other hand, interaction is considered to be the major lens through which such identities in flux are studied. To this aim, I propose an analytical framework based on a synthesis of well-established CDS analytical tools with interaction-oriented ones, which results in the formation of ‘discursive strategies of identity construction in interaction’. I put the proposed synthesis under a ‘multiperspectival’ research agenda, which involves the compilation of a ‘package’ based on different approaches, on the condition that the theoretical and epistemological assumptions of each approach are taken into account. By way of illustration, I briefly discuss fictional interactions from two Greek TV commercials for the representation of age identities. It is shown that fictional data, which involve represented identities in talk by institutional agents, could become one possible ‘meeting point’ of CDS with interaction-oriented discourse analytical strands.

Small stories transposition and social media: A micro-perspective on the ‘Greek crisis’

In this article, I employ small stories research as a micro-perspective for the scrutiny of any crisis-related positionings of ‘Greece’ and ‘the Greeks’ that accompany the circulation of news stories from Greece in social media. My claim is that such positionings cannot be fully understood without reference to what stories get circulated, where, by whom, for/with whom and how. To substantiate this, I draw on a particular incident involving the assault of two female MPs by a male MP on a Greek TV breakfast show (June 2012). My analysis will show that the ways in which the Greek crisis is invoked or disregarded and erased in the social media transpositions of the incident are intimately linked with two key-narrative processes, which I call narrative stancetaking and resemiotizations (i.e. video-based or text-based) that involve a rescripting of the initial incident. In both cases, I will show how processes of story making are important for what is signalled as relevant and for how the context of the Greek crisis is made sense of, critiqued and ultimately backgrounded or erased in favour of more personalized and localized interpretations, grounded in the original and the transposed tales and tellings.

Adopting a Critical Discourse Analytical Approach to the Mediation of Sociolinguistic Reality in Mass Culture: The Case of Youth Language in Advertising

The way sociolinguistic phenomena such as linguistic variation are mediated through mass cultural texts has not been a privileged area of research in early variationist sociolinguistics. On the other hand, despite being a social theory of language, critical discourse analysis has not much examined how particular linguistic variation phenomena (e.g., geographical or social dialects) are mediated, and the (language) ideologies knitted to this mediation. In the present study, I adopt a critical discourse analytical approach so that it serves as a complement to the existing stylistic-variationist tradition. In this way, I hope to address the ideological aspects implicated in the mediation of sociolinguistic reality in mass culture. To illustrate this approach, I draw upon empirical data from Greek TV commercials, which construct images of youth language.

“Any news from Poland?” Representations of the Polish EU presidency in the Greek media

The purpose of the paper is to explore and analyze the news coverage of the first Polish presidency of the EU Council in the Greek media, as well as the role of the Greek media in the Greek citizens’ information process about issues regarding the Polish presidency and the promotion of European matters. Through a comparative quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the media, the paper aims to highlight the representations of the Polish EU presidency in the Greek media. In addition, the essay casts light on some crucial questions that arise: (1) How did the Polish EU presidency attract the Greek media’s attention? (2) What are the Greek media’s criteria for selection of EU-related events taking place in a foreign European country which are of great importance? (3) How many news items regarding the Polish EU presidency appeared on Greek TV, in newspapers and online media? (4) How frequently did representations of the term Poland, Polish EU presidency and Polish appear in Greek news items? (5) What was the Greek media’s attitude towards this foreign country? (6) How did the Greek media present the Polish EU presidency? As a host of numerous meetings and events or as an actor in charge, defining the major directions of the EU policy? (7) What was the attention given to Poland and to the Polish EU presidency in particular? (8) Within what spectrum did the Greek media comment on the role of the Polish EU presidency as chairman of the EU Council for 6 months?

Roles of the narrator, lexis, irony and visuals in the Greek TV series ?????? ???? (??) (‘Almost Never’)

In this paper, my focus is the ways the narrator, lexis, irony and the juxtaposition between visuals and lexis challenge ‘conservative’ gendered themes – defined as those that sustain unequal power relations between men and women – in the Greek fictional TV series ?????? ???? (??) (‘Almost Never’). I embark upon such an exploration in my broader analysis of how women are construed in terms of gender roles and sexual practices, and of how these construals are recontextualized by the audience (female focus groups). To this end, I employ an adapted Faircloughian CDA framework of analysis (mainly Fairclough 2001a, 2001b, 2003). I also argue that there can be alternative/multiple readings, as in some cases the challenge may be more obvious than in others, and may or may not be read as such. These alternative/multiple readings are inherent in fiction, and also in line with recent calls within CDA. Finally, such challenges to ‘conservative’ themes can be seen as indicative of the social change in terms of gender roles that it can be argued (urban) Greek society is going through.

When the Advertised Product Is Not the Target: Multimodal Metaphor in Greek TV Commercials

When the Advertised Product Is Not the Target: Multimodal Metaphor in Greek TV Commercials

Representations of youth (language) in Greek TV commercials

Drawing upon evidence from Greek TV commercials, we explore how youth language is mediated and what the ideological role of such depictions is regarding young people as a social group and the speech styles they employ. Given the fact that consumption is a major index of late modern (youth) identities, the way young people and their speech styles are represented in advertising has important implications for the identification process of young people and those who feel young. The analysis is made with the use of an analytical framework developed for the mediation of sociolinguistic reality in mass cultural texts (Stamou 2011). It consists of four components (a ‘linguistic’, a ‘sociolinguistic’, a ‘semiotic’, and an ‘ideological’ one) and is premised upon the framework by Coupland (2007) on ‘style’. In the TV commercials analyzed, one could easily detect the dominant constructions of youth as a homogeneous social and cultural experience, framed in contrast to adulthood. Consequently, although the particular TV commercials are supposed to be about and for young people, being produced by (adult) advertisers, they do not escape from perpetuating, albeit often implicitly, the dominant construction of youth as incomplete adulthood.

The Effects of Culture and Product Type on the Use of Humor in Greek TV Advertising: An Application of Speck's Humorous Message Taxonomy

The present study attempts to add to the growing literature regarding humorous advertising in high context environments such as Greece and the other Mediterranean countries. It content analyzes 447 Greek TV commercials in order to identify the relationship between humor and the nature of products. In this attempt, Speck's humorous message taxonomy (1991) and Rossiter & Percy's brand attitude grid provide the theoretical framework for the analysis. The various humor types and processes described by Speck's taxonomy are linked to consumer involvement and motivation. The study analyzes the use of humor and examines the applicability of the humorous message taxonomy in Greek TV advertising based on cross-cultural analysis between Greece and the USA as recorded in Speck's original study in 1991 (the only study that employs the same theoretical framework for the analysis of humorous TV advertising).

Forecasting with cue information: A comparison of multiple regression with alternative forecasting approaches

Multiple linear regression (MLR) is a popular method for producing forecasts when data on relevant independent variables (or cues) is available. The accuracy of the technique in forecasting the impact on Greek TV audience shares of programmes showing sport events is compared with forecasts produced by: (1) a simple bivariate regression model, (2) three different types of artificial neural network, (3) three forms of nearest neighbour analysis and (4) human judgment. MLR was found to perform relatively poorly. The application of Theil’s bias decomposition and a Brunswik lens decomposition suggested that this was because of its inability to handle complex non-linearities in the relationship between the dependent variable and the cues and its tendency to overfit the in-sample data. Much higher accuracy was obtained from forecasts based on a simple bivariate regression model, a simple nearest neighbour procedure and from two of the types of artificial neural network.

“I can now apologize to you twice from the bottom of my heart”: Apologies in Greek reality TV

While the speech act of apology has been investigated in a number of languages and cultures, there has been little research into apologies in Greek. Apology studies have tended to identify apology strategies, without taking into account the effect of the wider cultural context on apologies motivation and strategies, and have also tended not to include apology responses in their analyses. Remedial work, however, involves both apologies and replies to them (Goffman 1971). Based on data from a recent Greek TV reality game show, this paper looks at apologies and apology responses (“remedial interchanges”, Goffman 1971), analyzing in detail the context in which they occurred and the relationship between interactants.

The Role of Image-Makers in the Greek Political Scene

The paper will address the role of image-makers (political consultants) in the Greek political scene. First, it is argued the growth of political consulting in Greece in the 1990s is intimately linked to the deregulation of the Greek TV scene. Second, the national elections of April 2000 will provide the context for documenting the crucial role that image-makers play in the development of image management strategy and techniques. The convergence of Greek campaigning with communication practices which have been developed and used in American elections renders support to the adaptation version of the “Americanization thesis.”

Changing television in Greece the commercialization of creek TV and the historical, legal, economic and social environment

It was just seven years ago when a commercial television station broadcast on the Greek airwaves for the first time. Today, 1997, the number of these stations has risen to 160. The formation of hundreds of commercial TV and radio stations resulted in Greece being one of the most dense media environments on the planet. Commercial television in Greece was born on 20 November 1989, when Mega Channel began broadcasting in the greater Athens area. By 1996 commercial television channels in Greece had captured approximately 90 per cent of the total viewing audience and 95 per cent of TV advertising revenue. This paper investigates the historical, legal, economic, political, and international phenomena which led to the birth of commercial television in Greece, the changes that television itself went through, the effects of these changes on Greek society, and the future prospects for Greek TV.

A false alarm based on electrical activity recorded at a VAN‐Station in northern Greece in December 1990

A VAN‐prediction was announced on January 6, 1991, through the French newspaper “Le Monde” and on January 8–10, 1991, through Greek newspapers and TV stations. We evaluate this prediction on the basis of a letter which was sent by Prof. Varotsos (without date) to the Greek Minister of Public Works, and by considering previous VAN‐publications as well as recent seismological data for the candidate regions. We conclude that what was observed at ASS station (northern Greece) on December 31, 1990, was not SES‐activity but another disturbance or noise.

: Voyage to Cythera . Theodore Angelopoulos, A Productions, Zdf, Channel 4, Greek Tv, Center of Greek Cinema.

: Voyage to Cythera . Theodore Angelopoulos, A Productions, Zdf, Channel 4, Greek Tv, Center of Greek Cinema.