Publications

Papathanasspoulos and Iliana Giannouli (2019). «Media Coverage of Greece’s September 2015 Election Campaign: Framing and Interpreting the Issues at Stake», pp. 23-50. In S. Salgado (ed.), Mediated Campaigns and Populism in Europe, Political Campaigning and Communication. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

The unique context of the September 2015 election provided an opportunity to examine how the Greek media covered the campaign, using analytical tools from agenda-setting and media-framing theory. We investigated nine media outlets’ coverage of the September 2015 election campaign in Greece. Our sample included three newspapers (two politically affiliated and one tabloid), three TV stations (two privately owned and the Greek public broadcaster (ERT), as well as three online newspapers. Through content analysis of 1668 election news stories, we looked into news frame use among different types of media and within them. The results showed that strategic framing often still prevails in the press, but not in television and online newspapers. This strategy was also correlated with the interpretative function of journalism in the press (for further information on the links between strategic news framing and interpretive journalism. Populism and “attack politics” also emerged as dominant rhetoric of this election campaign, captivating the media’s attention.