The Greek Indignants through the domestic TV news bulletins

Transcription

1 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou Technologcal Educatonal Insttuton of Ionan Islands, Unversty of Athens, Natonal Techncal Unversty of Athens, Greece E-mal: Abstract The Greek fscal crss kcked off many structural changes wthn the Greek socety. Among these the uprsng of a new form of protest, the movement of ndgnados (Spansh word meanng ndgnants n Englsh, aganaktsmen n Greek). The paper surveys the ways n whch the specfc movement was presented to the publc by the domestc TV news bulletns. The proposed research reles theoretcally on the framng analyss approach, amng to elaborate on the Meda pont of vew regardng the specfc socal movement. The research method s meda montorng and analyss (stemmng from the research ratonale of content analyss). Palavras-chave: socal movements, framng, Meda montorng, news bulletns Socal movements can be vewed as collectve enterprses to establsh a new order of lfe. They have ther ncepton n the condton of unrest, and derve ther motve power on one hand from dssatsfacton wth the current form of lfe, and on the other hand, from wshes and hopes for a new scheme or system of lvng. Blumer, 1939: 199 SOCIOLOGICAL defntons of movements stress ther qualtes of collectve and nnovatve behavour, ther network character and mult-centralty, ther extra-nsttutonal actvty, the shftng and flud boundares of movement membershp, and the wllngness of members to dsrupt order a lttle or a lot (Gerlach and Hne, 1970). Socal movements are certanly perceved Estudos em Comuncação nº 12, Dezembro de 2012

2 108 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou as phenomena of modernty and the ndustralzed socety, because technologcal advancements, ndustralzaton, urbanzaton, and ongong democratzaton enhanced people to promote pressure for change collectvely (Hobsbawm, 1959; Tlly, 1986). The specfc research proposal ams to nvestgate the ways and modes the socal movement of Greek ndgnants was framed by the Greek TV news bulletns. By the begnnng of the 1990s, emphass among scholars of Amercan socal movements on the nteracton and the processes nvolved n makng socal movements was reganed. The specfc shft was partally nsemnated and developed by European new socal movement theorsts, who attempted to make sense of socal actvsm n the post-ndustral, ncreasngly prosperous socetes of Europe. Thus, cultural socology and socal movement theory were more engaged n dalogue than at any tme snce functonalst analyses of collectve behavour were fashonable. In the U.S., scholars began to take more socal constructonst vews of movement poltcs, seekng to understand how the avalablty of resources and opportuntes dovetaled wth the use of cultural meanngs by groups, and the creaton of new collectve denttes (Morrs and Mueller 1992: ). Most recently, some socologsts have argued for a much broader contenton model of movements, whch sees struggle as endemc to both nsttutonal and extra-nsttutonal settngs, and just as lkely to be about cultural ssues as about classcally poltcal or economc matters (McAdam, Tarrow and Tlly, 2001). Therefore, socal movements are better defned as collectve challenges, based on common purposes and socal soldartes, n sustaned nteracton wth eltes, opponents, and authortes rather than expressons of extremsm, volence, and deprvaton (Tarrow, 1994: 4). A socal movement s a form of collectve acton. As a collectvty a movement s a group wth ndefnte and shftng membershp and wth leadershp whose poston s determned more by nformal response of the members than by formal procedures for legtmatng authorty (Turner and Kllan, 1987: 223). Socal movements are «those organzed efforts, on the part of excluded groups, to promote or resst changes n the structure of socety that nvolve recourse to non-nsttutonal forms of poltcal partcpaton» (McAdam, 1982: 25). Although socal movements dffer n sze, they are all essentally collectve; they result from the more or less spontaneous comng together of people whose relatonshps are not defned by rules and procedures but who merely

3 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 109 share a common outlook on socety. Roughly speakng, a socal movement s a loosely organzed but sustaned campagn n support of a socal goal, typcally ether the mplementaton or the preventon of a change n socety s structure or values. 1 Our concept about socal movement s rather Hegelan; t dentfes wth a macroscopc socal change fermented wth the consttuents of the modern socety. Hstory and socology complement one another as scholarly dscplnes because both are concerned wth socal structures and wth the nterpretaton of socal acton. Therefore, our perspectve on the case of Greek ndgnants combnes both dscplnes and apples poltcal communcaton assessment tools. These protests contan a great deal of poltcal, deologcal, ethcal and emotonal qualtes. The entre movement s not about a mere fscal crss, but an accumulated anger and fury aganst the offcal legslatve body,.e. the Greek Deputes of the Natonal Assembly, the Parlament. Major crses lead to changes of the poltcal systems; the functonal fralty of a system may be defned as crss. To start wth the chosen term/word ndgnants (to resent, to feel aggreved about somethng or aggreved at somebody) s produced by an emotonal reacton aganst a behavour or a status that one can no longer stand. Despte the Greek dosyncratc partculartes of rresponsblty and vcousness one can dentfy larger structural ssues. The stake now s not merely the fatal last fve years, nor the post-war culture developed n Greece. The stake refers to the fundamental and long socal arrangement emerged from the varous conflcts and clashes durng the 20th century and the rest s nothng but ther products and local adaptatons. It s rather dsorentng to nsst on a moralst or emotonal narraton that dstresses the publc speech snce the begnnng of the crss. Most analyses of socal change n Meda studes comes under three headngs: a) development communcaton, that focuses on underdevelopment ssues, b) cultural studes, focusng on fast-movng styles and cultural trends, and c) poltcal communcaton, that underlnes shfts n the formal poltcal arena (Downng, 2008: 44). 1.

4 110 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou Framng Theory and Socal Movements Framng can already be conceved as an mportant theoretcal and analytcal tool for understandng and studyng communcaton. Specfcally, as far as the Meda s concerned, framng ams to nvestgate ther nfluence n poltcs and the audences, by seekng to form dfferent patterns of presentaton of the news publshed by them. Lppmann, referrng to the Press, frst mentoned that the Press functons as the beam of a headlght movng around contnuously, brngng one ncdent after another from the darkness to the publc lght (Lppmann, (1998 [1922]). After a wde range of research, especally n the begnnng of 1970 s, Dearng and Rogers defned the agenda settng theory as the seres of ssues beng publshed, and are therefore consdered mportant wthn the publc sphere, whle at the same tme other ssues reman unpublshed and lack n publc attenton (Dearng & Rogers, 2005: 53). We wll show below that the functon of Meda framng s of a rather smlar ratonale. There s a rather wde range of approaches regardng the defnton of framng tself (Mchalopoulou, 2008: 5). In Archtecture and other scences, framng s beng used n a lteral way to sgnfy the frames used n constructons. The basc essence s the same n the metaphorcal use of framng, whch s the underlyng of certan aspects of lfe as opposed to others left asde (Mchalopoulou, 2008: 7). Accordng to the socologcal approach, frames stand as the mechansm for percevng complexty of the surroundng world n a smplfed way; thus, we are allowed to store the sgnfcant nformaton and put asde all unnecessary detals. Framng by ths approach sgnfes a natural process n man s de-codfcaton of the realty (Goffman, 1974: 24; Samaras, 2002: 71). Thus, the framng process s beng conducted under the varous subjectve nfluences and belefs of each human, so that dfferent people mght frame the same event n correspondng dfferent ways. As a socologcal process, framng s appled to the Meda too- the prevalng nsttutons of modern and late modern socetes (Pleos, 2011) - by sgnfyng at the same tme both the processes conducted by the Meda nsttutons on one hand, and the audence on the other (Scheufele, 1999: , Gtln 1980: 11). Accordng to the constructonst approach of Gamson and Modglan, Meda frames have been defned as a central organzng dea or story lne that provdes meanng to an unfoldng strp of events. The frame

5 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 111 suggests what the controversy s about, the essence of the ssue (Gamson & Modglan, 1989: 143). However, accordng to the crtcal paradgm (D Angelo, 2002: 876), framng unevtably encapsulates power relatons. It consstently presents a mode to descrbe the power of a communcatng text, by effcently nvolvng selecton and salence. To frame s to select some aspects of a perceved realty and make them more salent n a communcatng text, n such a way as to promote a partcular problem defnton, causal nterpretaton, moral evaluaton, and/or treatment recommendaton for the tem descrbed (Entman 1993: 53). 2 In other words, to somehow paraphrase Norrs, the essence of framng (at least for the current paper scopes) s the selectve prortzaton of some facts, mages, or developments over others and consequently promotng one or more partcular nterpretaton of events n specfc ways, ether conscously or unconscously (Norrs, Kern & Just, 2003: 10-11). 3 Gven the fact that news frames are partcular ways n whch journalsts compose and narrate a news story to optmze audence accessblty, research wthn ths doman nvestgates the prevalence of specfc frames n the news, how certan ssues are framed, and why these ssues are framed n certan ways (Valkenburg, Semetko & DeVreese 1999: 550). 4 Fundamental prncple of ths research tradton whch concdes wth the ams of the current research project s the fact that journalsts nescapably frame or structure ther representatons of poltcal events, by usng certan frames n order to smplfy and nsemnate them wth a specal meanng, to mantan audence nterest and to serve ther own nterests. Our research s enhanced by bblography concernng some general frames, frequently used by journalsts to present the news. Some of the most common typologes are the one by Iyengar, who underlnes the thematc and epsodc 2. The author defnes the word salence too as makng a pece of nformaton more notceable, meanngful, or memorable to audences. 3. Norrs exact defnton s the essence of framng s selecton to prortze some facts, mages, or developments over others, thereby unconscously promotng one partcular nterpretaton of events. 4. Ths part of the framng research wll be- rather shortly- dscussed nto the presentaton of our conclusons, based on the results that we wll have come up wth, n the end of the current paper.

6 112 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou ways of presentng the news (Pleos, 2011: 161), 5 and the one by Semetko and Valkenburg (1999: 551), who dstngush the conflct frame, the human nterest frame, the responsblty frame and the economc consequences frame. 6 Apart from the general frames mentoned above more specfc frames, referrng to socal movements, have been theoretcally and emprcally grounded. These specfc frames consttute the core of the current research attempt. In a Mass Medated socety, socal movements depend on the mass Meda n order to transmt ther messages to a wder publc. Accordng to Gamson and Wolfsfeld (1993) Meda can serve socal movements n three possble ways: a) moblzaton of poltcal support, b) legtmzaton (or valdaton) n the manstream dscourse, and c) to broaden the scope of conflcts. However, Meda coverage s not always easly acqured. Regular news bulletns do not focus on socal movements, unless these movements stage bg publc events. Moreover, the stuaton s gettng even more dffcult n cases that the socal movement s less well known and challenges the status quo and the establshed powers or system. Ths s clamed by many studes (Herman & Chomsky, 1988; Westergaard,et al. 1977: ; McChesney, 2008) accordng to whch manstream Meda tend to reflect the exstng power structure and consequently avod presentng opposng vews. As Barker argued: «Socal movements that are long lved and effectvely nsttutonalzed wthn socety, tend not to challenge the status quo drectly, and so consequently are less dependent on meda coverage for ther survval. However, meda coverage may be crucal for those less well known socal movements whose often transtonal and adversaral nature tends to weaken ther ablty to secure publc legtmacy» (Barker, 2008). 5. Thematc framng focusng on the wder socal, poltcal, and fnancal parameters, presents the event n a way so as to encourage a more profound overvew of ts causes and effects. On the contrary, epsodc framng presents the ssue as a standalone event, gvng prorty to the atomc factor and cuttng t off wder socal and nsttutonal procedures. The epsodc approach concdes wth the analyss of Bennett on the fragmentary, dramatzed, personalzed and normalzed character of the news. 6. Apart from the meda frames, there are specfc dentfed audences frames, whch are the ways n whch people receve and understand the meda content. We wll not analyze them, because t surpasses the ams of the current project. An audence-frames taxonomy can be found n Neuman Russell W, Maron R. Just & Ann N. Crgler (1992), Scheufele Detram A. (1999).

7 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 113 Nonetheless, the way typcal socal movements actons (st-ns, ralles, mass demonstratons) are reported n the Meda s crucally mportant. The mass communcaton lterature surveys studes whch focus on the «margnalzaton» or even «delegtmzaton» of many socal movements, especally the ones that challenge the status quo, by the mass Meda (Gtln, 1980; McLeod & Hertog, 1992; Shoemaker, 1984; McLeod & Detenber, 1999). Tradtonally, Meda tend to emphasze protesters volent actons, focus on ther appearance and usually downgrade the reasons of ther manfestaton. Ths type of Meda coverage s best descrbed n the Chan and Lee (1984: ) protest paradgm. Accordng to the «protest paradgm», meda generally support the status quo and margnalze groups that challenge t n any possble way (McLeod & Detenber, 1999: 5). The margnalzaton framng, when s adopted by the Meda, tend to present protesters as an solated mnorty characterzed by overt devant behavour. McLeod and Hertdog (1998: ), based on the «protest paradgm», dscerned the followng categores that characterze socal movements actvtes Meda coverage. The frst one s the narratve structure whch s n a way the scrpt for the news story. Tradtonally, these news stores focus on the volent ncdents and tend to emphasze protesters devant behavour (McLeod & Detenber, 1999: 5). Ths narraton creates a conflct story usually around the conflct between the protesters and the polce or any other chosen target. Accordng to Gamson (1989: ), sometmes, protesters delberately engage n a barter arrangement by provdng the Meda wth acton that serves Meda reasonng,.e. vdeos and stlls portrayng volence, n order to attract Meda attenton. However, ths argument s not applcable at all cases and needs further refnement. The second category s the use of offcal sources and offcal defntons. Ths s predomnantly made n order to enhance the prestge of the story as well as to gve the mpresson of neutralty and objectvty through journalstc research. The thrd category s the nvocaton to publc opnon. Accordng to the «protest paradgm», Meda unfolds the news story by usng varous technques, such as opnon polls, overt characterzatons, nvocaton of socal norms etc. (McLeod & Detenber, 1999: 6). Fnally, t s the tendency to delegtmze, margnalze and demonze the protesters. Several studes (Gtln, 1980; Martn, 2004) have demonstrated that Meda coverage of socal movements actvtes made them appear more

8 114 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou radcal than they really were or n some other cases alenate the nature and publc support of the protest. Gtln (1980) suggested a comprehensve study of the press and televson coverage of a mass demonstraton held aganst the Vetnam War, n London (UK) on the 27 th of October Despte the overwhelmngly peaceful nature of the march, the Meda concentrated ther coverage on the ssue of volence, whle also usng quotaton marks around the term «peace march». In addton, crtcal coverage s sometmes complemented by another delegtmzng strategy, whch nvolves downplayng the sze of a protest (Barker, 2008). The Brtsh May Day protests n 1973 and n 2001 and the protests aganst the bombng of former Yugoslava serve as promnent examples of ths case. Another example of crtcal Meda coverage can be found at the protests opposng the US-led nvason of Iraq n In the study of Catherne Luther and Mark Mller (Barker, 2008) of eght US newspapers on the coverage of the protests aganst the US nvason n Iraq, t was evdent how journalsts used delegtmzng cues to refer to ant-war protesters and legtmaton cues for those supportng the nvason. Accordng to Barker (2008), actvtes of socal movements that challenge the governments foregn polces, are less lkely to gan meda coverage or more lkely to be heavly dengrated and delegtmzed. Yet, another example s that of the Orange Revoluton n Ukrane n 2005, whch the natonal televson delberately avod to cover and then downplayed (Dyczok, 2006: 224; Dyczok, 2005: 255-6). Though most of the Meda coverage of socal movements tends to be reluctant or even crtcal towards them, we should not omt the fact that n some cases Meda (manly referrng to ndependent meda, but not only) supported them (Barker, 2008; Sulkanshvl, 2003). Partcularly, the ndependent Meda n Serba (partcularly, Rado B 92) supported the street protest and facltated the regme change and Georga s ndependent Meda proved ther crucal contrbuton n challengng legtmacy of ther authortaran government led by Presdent Eduard Shevardnadze (Barker, 2008; Sulkanshvl, 2003: 2). In short, the framng of news stores concernng socal movements t s dual nature and mportance. News report structures (Meda frames) offer to ther audence aspects of perceved realty. Thus, specfc nterpretatons, attrbutons or evaluatons are suggested to recpents of the Meda messages. Therefore, Meda framng s mostly crucal n the formaton of publc opn-

9 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 115 on. In ths paper, we focus on the examnaton of the coverage of the Greek ndgnants by ther natonal Greek Meda. Research method, research outlne and hypotheses The man purpose of ths research-as has already been mentoned- s to nvestgate the ways and modes the Greek ndgnants movement was framed by the Greek TV news bulletns. Televson s chosen as the medum for examnaton due to ts soveregnty wthn the natonal Meda feld (Halln & Mancn, 2004). Furthermore, the news bulletns functon as the man nformaton source for publc opnon. Under ths ratonale, the proposed research reles theoretcally on the framng analyss approach, manly amng to elaborate on the Medas pont of vew regardng the specfc socal movement. Meda montorng can be consdered as part of the content analyss research methodology, especally under the scope used n the current research. Content analyss man am s to produce nferences from a specfc text (Weber, 1990). It s a research methodology that ams to examne words or phrases wthn a wde range of text, a research tool used to determne the presence of certan words or concepts wthn texts or sets of texts. Researchers quantfy and analyse the presence, meanngs and relatonshps of such words and concepts, then make nferences about the messages wthn the texts, the wrter(s), the audence, and even the culture and tme of whch these are a part (Berelson, 1971). Wthn the range of texts, that content analyss may examne, are ncluded books, essays, ntervews, dscussons, newspaper headlnes and artcles, hstorcal documents, speeches, conversatons, advertsng, theatre, or really any occurrence of communcatve language. The varety of texts on whch a content analyss can be appled shows ts useful character (Budd, Thorp et. al, 1967). Apart from the varety of texts on whch content analyss s applcable as a research method, there are also other advantages. Among others, content analyss offers the researcher the chance to conduct both quanttatve and qualtatve analyss of the texts under examnaton, beng an obtrusve means of analysng content. Meda montorng has been defned as the research method amng at the systematc collecton, analyss and use of nformaton concernng the Meda for a gven perod of tme (or contnuously) and wth a certan frequency

10 116 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou (based mostly on the renewal frequency of the Meda content). It ncludes not only the nvestgaton of Meda content, but of Meda structures, Meda functon, Meda regulaton framework and the consumpton of Meda content as well, amng- fnally- at the comparatve presentaton of all these dfferent Meda perspectves. Moreover, Meda montorng should be based on a concrete theoretcal background, so as to provde understandng of the Meda and ther socal contexts (Pleos, 2011: 221). Even though Meda montorng can be expanded n dfferent Meda aspects, we mplement ts most well-known feature, the one of meda content research and analyss. Our examnaton covers the perod from 25 th of May (the day of the frst ndgnants protest) to the end of July, when ndgnants made ther last before-summer gatherng. As far as the TV channels are concerned, we choose three channels based on ther character (1 publc NET and 2 prvate ones MEGA, and ANT1) and ther spectatorshp at the tme of our research. The data gathered are to be processed usng SPSS 19 and the coders relablty wll be tested usng the North, Holst, Zannovch and Znnes coders relablty test (1969). 7 Lastly, our unt of analyss s the news tem, the part of the news bulletn between two ntroductons of the anchor(wo)man. Stemmng from our theoretcal background, our man research queston s formed as follows: How- n terms of framng- s the Greek ndgnants (from now on referred to as ndgnants ) movement presented by the Greek prme-tme TV news bulletns? The research queston can be analysed nto several research hypotheses, whch further defne the ways- n terms of framng of socal movements- of the presentaton of the ndgnants n the news bulletns: H 1. Accordng to our theory manstream meda tend to margnalze socal movements, n terms of presentng them as core of overt and devant behavour. We expect a smlar stance towards the ndgnants from the Greek TV news bulletns and especally from the publc channel (NET), whch manly reflects the governmental pont of vew on the ssues presented. H 2. In addton, the ndgnants are expected to be presented as delegtmzed and demonzed by the TV news bulletns. 7. R= 2(C1,C2)/C1+C2, wth 70% as mnmum level of credblty.

11 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 117 H 3. Due to beng a movement challengng the exstent poltcal status quo, the news bulletns are expected to downgrade the reasons of the ndgnants manfestaton H 4. The conflct frame s expected to have a protagonst role n the presentaton of the ndgnants, especally when combned to the presence of the polce n the places, where demonstratons are takng place. H 5. Addtonally, the news bulletns are expected to make use of offcal sources too (governmental sources, polce etc.), so as to descrbe and report the development of the ndgnants movement. H 6. As far as the sze of the protests, we expect- based on our theorythat the news bulletns wll downplay t, tryng to undermne the mportance of the movement. H 7. Fnally, we expect a rather rare coverage of the protests of the ndgnants (less than 1 news tem per day), even though demonstratons were takng place on a daly bass n the streets of Athens and other ctes among Greece. Results As far as our frst hypothess- the margnalzaton of socal movements by the manstream meda- s concerned, one can observe a lack of serous margnalzaton attempt of the ndgnants by the meda we examned. In respectvely hgh percentages (84.6%, 65% and 72.3%) all three channels of our research (NET, MEGA, ANT1), avod n general the negatve margnalzatonattrbuton of devant, accordng to prevalng moral and behavoral values, behavor- of the protesters. 8 On the contrary, there s- especally n the prvate channels, MEGA and ANT1- an attempt of postve margnalzaton of the ndgnants, by presentng them as somethng fresh and new, whch s not connected to the tradtonal party dvson of the ctzens and therefore to the corrupted and ncapable poltcal system (Fgure 1). The above descrbed result leads us to the rejecton of our frst research hypothess. Hence, 8. Our ch square statstc test s not vald for the current cross-tabulaton, because of the relatvely hgh percentage of values below 5 wthn the cross-tabulaton. Therefore we cannot clam that there exsts or not a statstcally sgnfcant relatonshp between of the channel and margnalzaton frame varables.

12 118 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou the channels of our research dd not try to margnalze n a negatve way the Greek ndgnants. Fgure 1. As far as our second hypothess, the delegtmzaton and demonzaton of the ndgnants, s concerned, we measured both the descrpton and projecton of the ndgnants as volent and llegal protesters, takng- at the same tmento consderaton both the journalstc dscourse and the vdeo footage. Begnnng wth the volent acts n dscourse, the ndgnants are beng characterzed as volent only n a small mnorty of the journalstc dscourse (15.4% n NET, 5% n MEGA, 6.4% n ANT1). On the contrary, n most cases- especally n the prvate channels (MEGA 53.8%, ANT1 60.6%)- the ndgnants are descrbed as a peaceful movement. The publc channel adopts a more moderate stance, compared to the prvate ones, though our statstc test does not reveal a statstcally sgnfcant relatonshp between the channels and the volent acts (p value > 0.05) (Fgure 2). Smlar, but wth statstcally sgnfcant dfference between the channels and the volence frame (ch square p value < 0.05), s the vdeo presentaton of the ndgnants, where the majorty of the mages shown by the channels ( NET 51.3%, MEGA 67.5%, ANT1 69.1%) enhance the peaceful character of the ralles. On one hand, ths peaceful character n the vdeos s

13 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 119 Fgure 2. underlned by the projecton of mages from wthn the protest and by ntervews of protesters takng part n the ralles, whereas, on the other hand, only a small mnorty of vdeo footage (15.4% n NET, 3.8% n MEGA and 14.9% n ANT1) shows volent actons related to the ndgnants protests. In the remanng percentage, where the volent acts frame smply does not exst (33.3% n NET, 28.8% n MEGA and 16% n ANT1), the footage shown from the protests was captured by cameras from a rather bg dstance from the gathered crowd, and wthout statements of people partcpatng n the protest. Therefore, one could not dscrmnate possble volent or non volent actons. Hence, the vdeo n these cases was coded as not showng volence (Fgure 3). Apart from the volence frame, delgtmzaton can be traced- accordng to our theory- by examnng possble attempts of stressng out the llegal character of the protests. In ths case too, our examnaton covers both the journalstc dscourse and the vdeo. Begnnng wth the dscourse, one can observe an almost total lack of characterzaton of the protests as llegal on behalf of the journalsts (NET 94.9%, MEGA 87.5%, ANT1 78.7%). Moreover, there s a sgnfcant percentage of cases- especally n ANT1, whose

14 120 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou Fgure 3. percentage reaches a 21.3%- when the protests are characterzed as legal, a rather supportve stance towards the ndgnants (Fgure 4). 9 Smlar s the depcton of the ndgnants, as far as the llegal character frame s concerned, n the vdeo too. Channels, n general, ether do not depct the protests as llegal (NET 94.9%, MEGA 85%, ANT1 85.1%), or underlne the legal character of the protests by showng n the vdeo footage ther demands and commentng on them n a postve way (NET 10.3%, MEGA 11.3%, ANT1 12.8%) 10 (Fgure 5). The results of Fgures 2-5 make us reject our second research hypothess, accordng to whch the ndgnants would be presented as delegtmzed and demonzed by the TV news bulletns. Our next research hypothess deals wth the downgradng of the reasons of the ndgnants movement by the news bulletns, due to the fact that meda tend 9. Our ch square statstc test s not vald for the current cross-tabulaton, because of the relatvely hgh percentage of values below 5 wthn the cross-tabulaton (33.3%). Therefore we cannot clam that there exsts or not a statstcally sgnfcant relatonshp between of the channel and llegal character of protest n dscourse frame varables. 10. Once more our ch square statstc test s not vald for the current cross-tabulaton, because of the relatvely hgh percentage of values below 5 wthn the cross-tabulaton (44.4%). Therefore we cannot clam that there exsts or not a statstcally sgnfcant relatonshp between of the channel and llegal character of protest n vdeo frame varables.

15 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 121 Fgure 4. Fgure 5. to support- especally n crss stuatons- the exstng status quo. Our results demonstrate that not only news bulletns do not downgrade the reasons of the movement, but- especally the prvate channels news bulletns- appear rather to support the ndgnants (MEGA and ANT1 reporters menton n a postve

16 122 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou way the causes and ams of the ndgnants protests n almost 30% of news tems), as shown n Fgure Fgure 6. Our next hypothess deals wth the presence of the conflct frame n the presentaton of the ndgnants. Followng the precedng ratonale, we dvded the conflct frame n dscourse and vdeo conflct. The conflct frame n dscourse conssts of journalsts presentng the ndgnants protests as a recton to austerty measures, government polces, poltcal actors etc. Wthn the journalstc dscourse, the conflct frame can be traced n more than 75% of the cases n all three channels we examned, provdng us at the same tme wth a ch square that shows a statstcally non sgnfcant relatonshp between the channels and the conflct frame n dscourse varables (p value > 0.05) (Fgure 7). Qute dfferent s the presence of the conflct frame n the vdeo footage of the channels. Prmarly the publc channel (NET) and secondarly MEGA do not frame- n the majorty of ther news tems- the vdeos of the ndgnants protests wth a conflct frame (ether by showng ther banners aganst 11. Our ch square statstc test does not show any sgnfcant dfference between the three channels of our research as far as the downgradng of the ndgnados s concerned (ch square p value = > 0.05)

17 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 123 Fgure 7. the government and the austerty measures, or by presentng statements of members of the ndgnants aganst the current stuaton n Greece). Qute the opposte happens n ANT1, where n the majorty of the vdeos (52.1%) the conflct frame s evdent. Ths dfference between the channels provdes us wth a statstcally sgnfcant ch square, whch mples that the presence of conflct frame n vdeos vares among the three dfferent channels we examned (p value < 0.05) (Fgure 8). Apart from the exstence- or not- of a conflct frame, one should comment on the objects of ths conflct, the nsttutons or persons aganst whch the ndognados are presented to demonstrate. Our next Fgure (9), shows us that the ndgnants are presented to demonstrate manly aganst the mposed austerty measures and the MoU, the- wdely consdered corrupted and ncapablepoltcal system, and more specfc aganst the government, ether as a whole, or one or more of ts members. Ths Fgure also depcts the dfferences of conflct frame depcton among the channels. The publc network (NET) appears to avod presentng the ndgnants n a conflct way, whereas ANT1 stresses out the conflct ratonale of the ndgnants more frequent than any

18 124 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou Fgure 8. ther channel. 12 These results lead us to the acceptance of our thrd hypothess regardng the prevalence of the conflct frame, as the last s more evdentand overwhelmngly prevalent- n the journalstc dscourse and less evdent n the vdeos. As far as the sources of the news are concerned, news bulletns are expected to make use of offcal sources to a rather sgnfcant extent (governmental sources, polce etc.), so as to descrbe and report the development of the ndgnants movement. Qute opposte from what we expected, the vast majorty of news tems concernng the ndgnants does not make use of offcal sources to report the movement. To become specfc, all three channels use offcal sources for less than 20% of the news tems concernng the ndgnants. Ths fact alone makes us reject our ffth workng hypothess (Fgure 10). Another mportant element n the presentaton of a protest s the estmaton on ts sze. Accordng to the crtcal theory concernng the meda presentaton of socal movements, we expect that the news bulletns wll downplay the sze 12. Though there are dfferences between the channels as far as the conflct s concerned, SPSS does not produce a ch square test for ths cross-tabulaton, because the conflct varable s a group varable.

19 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 125 Fgure 9. Fgure 10. of the protests, tryng to undermne the mportance of the movement. Once agan we had to reject our- theory based- workng hypothess. Not only s

20 126 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou there a lack of downgradng of the protests, but the news bulletns n a rather sgnfcant percentage (NET 38.5%, MEGA 41.3%, ANT1 48.9%) refer to the sze of the protests n a rather flutterng way, by underlnng the massve partcpaton n the movement (Fgure 11). 13 Fgure 11. Last but not least s our hypothess on the nfrequent presentaton of the ndgnants by the TV news bulletns. The rare coverage of protests stands as a way for the manstream meda to downgrade the mportance of such protests. Accordng to ths ratonale, we expect that the ndgnants wll appear n the news bulletns wth a frequency of less than one news tem per day for the perod of our examnaton, even though ther presence n the streets of Athens was on a daly bass. The next Fgure (12) shows us that the amount of news tems (213) for a total of 68 days of connuous presence n the streets, gves us an average of more than three news tems per day (3.13), a frequent presentaton of the ndgnants. What we should note n ths quanttatve analyss of the depcton of the ndgnants movement s that the publc channel (NET) 13. Our ch square statstc test s not vald for the current cross-tabulaton, because of the relatvely hgh percentage of values below 5 wthn the cross-tabulaton (33.3%). Therefore we cannot clam that there exsts or not a statstcally sgnfcant relatonshp between of the channel and downszng of the protest frame varables.

21 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 127 dedcates far less news tems to the ndgnants compared to the two prvate channels (39 compared to 80 of MEGA and 94 of ANT1). Fgure 12. In addton, even though NET presents the ndgnants news tems n a hgher rankng than both the prvate channels- the mean order of the news tem s 6.49 n NET, 9.86 n ANT1 and n MEGA-, 14 the duraton of these news tems appears to be slghtly- and not statstcally sgnfcant, accordng to our ANOVA test- 15 shorter than the average duraton of the news tems n MEGA and ANT1 (Fgures 13 & 14). The mage becomes a lttle bt dfferent f we dvde the overall presentaton of the ndgnants movement n dfferent perods. As Fgure 15 shows, the majorty of the news tems concernng the ndgnants appear wthn the frst two weeks from ther outburst (108 news tems), another 42% was ared untl the end of June, whereas July has an average of only 0.5 news tems per day. 14. The ANOVA test we conducted showed a sgnfcant dfference on the average order of the news tem between the three channels we examned n the 99% sgnfcance level (ANOVA p value= 0.000< 0.001) 15. ANOVA p value= > 0.05 (the average duratons of the news tems do not vary sgnfcantly n the 95% sgnfcance level.

22 128 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou Fgure 13. Fgure 14. The results depcted n Fgures lead us to the partal rejecton of our fourth hypothess on the downgraded presentaton of the ndgnants, due

23 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 129 Fgure 15. to the fact that the frequency of the presentaton of the ndgnants s not equally dvded ether n terms of the channel presentng them (NET has sgnfcantly less news tems than the prvate channels and an average of 0.57 news tems per day, wth the least mean duraton per news tem), or n terms of the tme perod of the ndgnants actvtes (more than 90% of the news tems untl the end of June and only 0.5 news tems per day durng July). Based on the varous frame categores we ncluded n our research accordng to our theory, and the use of these frames- ether n a negatve or a postve way- by the news bulletns, we came up wth a mean support rate, based on qualtatve characterstcs of the presentaton of the ndgnants, of each channel towards the ndgnants (Fgure 16). Wthn a range from one to 5, where 1 stand for totally aganst and 5 means totally supportve, ANT1 takes the frst place as the most supportve channel towards the ndognados (mean 4.14), followed by MEGA (3.89), and NET whch appears to adopt a rather neutral atttude wth a mean of The ANOVA statstc test we conducted showed us that the three means have a statstcally sgnfcant varance (p value < 0.05).

24 130 Anastasa Venet, Stamats Poulakdakos, Kostas Theologou Fgure 16. Concluson The results we came up wth demonstrate, most of our workng hypotheses (6 out of 7) have been rejected by our emprcal fndngs. The crtcal Meda framng theory was proven napt of predctng the atttude of Greek manstream Meda towards the ndgnants. It s certan that Greek manstream Meda dd not develop an altrusm and frendly atttude towards domestc socal movements unexpectedly. A frst reasonable account for ther rather postve standpont s that the ndgnants was a movement wth nternatonal mpact and powerful momentum already n another European country of the south, Span, whch offered the necessary boost and an ad hoc rason d être. Futhermore, the Greek ndgnants had some very attractve medawse characterstcs: they clamed to be non-partfed, but not n an apoltcal manner; they combned a sense of natonal dentty (channels are attracted to acts of patrotsm) wth ctzenshp qualtes; they seemed detached from the deologcal streams of modernty and aganst a corrupted and neffcent poltcal system, a rather wdely adopted vew. The Greek Meda are consdered as an ntegral part (and accessory) of ths corrupted system; they are at the same tme organzatons and busness enter-

25 The Greek Indgnants through the domestc TV news bulletns 131 prses dependng fnancally on ther vewers (through advertsement). Therefore, they have to ncoroporate a populst profle, especally n tmes of generally slow economcs and recesson, n order to mantan- or even enhancether audences, amng to secure the best possble percentage from a contnuously shrnkng advertsement market. Takng nto consderaton the mportance of new forms of socal protest for any poltcal system, ths paper could expand both domestcally, so as to nvestgate the atttude of more Greek TV channels towards the ndgnants, and nternatonally, n order to nvestgate smlar forms of socal protest as well as the atttudes of other countres Meda n reference to these forms of protest. The movement of ndgnants was further expanded, manly n countres wth dagnosed serous fnancal problems (apart from Greece, n Italy, and more recently n the UK, as well as the Occupy Wall Street movement n the USA); t dffers fundamentally from smlar prevous movements, because t consttutes an ad hoc and straght dspute to soveregn poltcal and socal nsttutonal structures. The am of a further research would be to produce comparatve results from dfferent countres. References Barker, C. (2008). Cultural Studes. Theory and Practce. London: Sage. Berelson, B. (1971). Content Analyss n Communcaton Research. New York: Hafner. Blumer, H. (1939). Collectve Behavor. Prncples of Socology, edted by Robert E. Park. New York Barnes & Noble, pp Budd, R.W., Thorp, R.K. & Donohue, L. (1967). Content analyss of communcatons, New York: The Macmllan Co. Chan, J. M. and Lee, C. C. (1984). The journalstc paradgm on cvl protests: A case study of Hong Kong. A. Arno and W. Dssanayake (eds.) The news meda n natonal and nternatonal conflct, Boulder: Westvew Press. pp D Angelo, P. (2002). "News framng as a mult-paradgmatc research program: A response to Entman." Journal of Communcaton 52 (4):

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