Financial Crisis and Representation: Media and Media Studies (original) (raw)
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Narration of Financial Crisis in Turkish Media
2019
Abstract Turkey has been struggling with a serious financial crisis which led the Turkish currency, the lira, losing about 30% of its value against the US dollar, rising of inflation and borrowing costs since the first quarter of 2018. The current account deficit has been growing steadily, and various firms with large debts have started to request debt restructuring at the beginning of 2018. Crisis has become concrete in society especially when the lira fell around to 7.2 lira aganist the dollar in August of 2018. Combined with the shock interest rate hike in September in order to control the free fall in TL, both the currency and interest rate shock have been given to the economy. As a result of these latest events, the unemployement rates rised, cost of living rised, growth rate of the country began to decrease and many companies requested arrangement of bankruptcy. The public understanding of these developments concerning a large number of people, apart from the terms of economics, comes from a variety of narratives that involve simple cause-effect relationships. These narratives are mostly constructed and made available to public from the mass media platforms. Even people are discussing or criticizing them in social media, a few dominant narrative comes to the forefront and becomes the part of the public agenda. The reason for that is the high concentration of ownership in Turkish Media and their intertwined relationships with the government. The foreign currency crisis and economic stagnation have emerged as a big threat to the ruler party of Turkish Government, AK (Justice and Development) Party and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as two important election periods were approaching: presidential elections of 24th June in 2018 and municipality elections of 31th March in 2019. During these election processes, they have used various frames in their narration of financial crisis for the media and citizens, especially seeing the crisis as a war, a game conducted by foreign countries and an attack from foreign markets to weaken the country’s power. As mass media always selects and emphasizes some narratives upon the others, it is important to determine the selected narratives which end up making the public agenda. Because citizens learns the details of the financial crisis, its future consequences and its reflection to their daily life through media channels and, mostly from mainstream and right-wing press in Turkey. In the scope of these problems, this paper aims to evaluate and reveal the dominant media narratives about the financial crisis of 2018 in Turkey. For this purpose, content analysis and discourse analysis will be used and applied to the sample newspapers which will be selected from circulation statistics.
Covering the crisis: Media coverage of the economic crisis and citizens’ economic expectations
Acta Politica, 2011
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How the Greek Press Constructed the Greek Economic Crisis
Since 2008, there has been a surge of interest in and research on the relationship between news media and economic reporting, particularly as it concerns financial crises. The 2008 U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, quickly followed by the economic crisis that began to unfold in Greece in 2009, spurred researchers to examine how newspapers around the world report on the complex, globalized economy. In the pursuit of understanding transnational economic processes, publics rely on news media to provide information about the meaning of economic events, especially crises. As such, newspapers are key players in constructing the narratives of crises. This study explores how the “Greek economic crisis” was framed in Greek newspapers, as opposed to foreign, non-Greek newspapers. The dialectical process through which knowledge about the financial crisis is constructed is examined. Previous research has identified common journalistic frames in the coverage the Greek economic crisis by national newspapers from Western Europe, the Americas, and Asia. These frames emphasize cultural and social explanations for the crisis yet do little to analyze the underlying economic and political causes. Furthermore, these researchers did not examine Greek newspaper coverage of the crisis. The impact on knowledge construction that results from the tendency of researchers and the media to emphasize the press of politically powerful nations, rather than less powerful states, like Greece, is discussed. Using critical theory and frame analysis, the study examines how two Greek newspapers, Eleftherotypia and Kathimerini, described and framed the crisis in ways both similar and different from each other, and, yet, quite different from the ways in which foreign newspapers framed the “Greek economic crisis.” Key Words: Framing, Crisis, Greece, Economic Crisis, International Media, Social Constructionism, Greek Economic Crisis, Euro-Zone Crisis, Euro-Crisis, Newspapers
Footprint of Financial Crisis in the Media: Latvia Country Report
2010
This Open Society study explores the impact of the financial crisis on media and news delivery to citizens in 18 countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The global economic downturn has affected countless businesses across the region, forcing them to slash costs, lay off employees, and reduce output. Media businesses are no exception. However, when media businesses are hit, it is not just their turnover that suffers: their primary function, the delivery of news to citizens, feels the impact too. To explore the impact of the crisis on independent media and accountability journalism, the Open Society Foundations carried out a study in 18 post-socialist countries heavily hit by the crisis: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. The study looks at media performance in 2009 compared with the previous three years, explores the cost-saving measures taken by significant news carriers, and the effects of these measures on output, breadth and depth of coverage, scope of investigative reporting, and opportunities for open public debate. Key Findings Media across the region have lost 30 to 60 percent of their income. Media were forced to adopt cost-saving measures, including reduced volume, staff layoffs, reduced investigative reporting, and cuts in international and provincial coverage. Several media markets have experienced a flight of foreign investors and bankruptcies of independent outlets. The crisis-related constraints and ownership changes have caused an overall drop in the quality of news delivery to citizens. Media content has become shallower, more entertainment-centered, increasingly isolationist, more prone to political and business influences, and lacking in investigative bite.
2011
Mark Hayward and I co-chaired. The financial collapse of Fall 2008 had laid to bare what critical scholars of communications are always cognizant of-that capitalism, and particularly neoliberal capitalism, is an unsustainable system. No longer a fringe area of inquiry, understanding the relationships between media and economies is now becoming central to making sense of, and hopefully addressing, problems in our social and cultural environment. This work is not the exclusive domain of what traditionally has been called political economy. Bob McChesney (2007), who acted as a respondent at the pre-conference, argues that we are now in a "critical juncture." The proliferation of new technologies, the deterioration of journalism, and the persistence of advertising coincide with the financialization of our economy, the growth of unemployment and under employment, and the limited role for a democratic voice in governance. In this context, the underpinning principles upon our med...
The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 drew attention not just to the global financial system generally but also to the nature and quality of financial reporting which was generally held to have let the public down by failing to provide adequate warnings of approaching disaster. This paper compares the nature and quality of coverage in the US, the UK, and Australia in three mainstream broadsheet publications, the New York Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Guardian. The content analysis provides empirical evidence of the extent to which mainstream financial journalism aligned itself with business interests and reveals the ways in which it failed to address the information needs of the general public. Interviews with financial journalists reveal a practice whereby journalists are too close to their business and finance sources, and see their role as informing them, rather than informing and educating the public in a watchdog role.
European media views of the Greek crisis
This chapter aims to trace the reaction of the international press to the Greek and eurozone financial crisis. More precisely, it tries to record the financial crisis that Greece faced in 2010, as well as the impact on the eurozone, especially in the period from 23 March 2010 to 6 May 2010, when Greece applied for its international financial rescue under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the European Commission (EC). This analysis includes both the outlook of the international press with respect to the performance of the Greek and EU efforts to ‘save’ the Greek economy, and the press’s general evaluation of the country concerning its economy.
Financial journalism through financial crises: The reporting of three boom and bust periods
Knowles Sophie Financial Journalism Through Financial Crises the Reporting of Three Boom and Bust Periods Phd Thesis Murdoch University, 2013
This thesis describes a longitudinal study of mainstream financial reporting in the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and Australia during three financial crises from the 1980s to the present. It responds to criticisms generated in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) that financial journalism did not play enough of a watchdog role in forewarning the public of the troubles ahead. In the aftermath of the GFC it seemed there was a need to examine the coverage in the light of these criticisms, as well as investigate the modus operandi of the journalists themselves. This is not the first time finance journalism has attracted criticism and, given calls for more thorough, comprehensive, and empirical research into this genre, it seemed appropriate to undertake an investigation of the reportage in the context of the cultural and institutional developments of the past 30 years. vi Abbreviations AFR Australian Financial Review ASIC Australian Securities and Investments Commission