Political Claims and the So Called ‘Refugee Crisis’ in the Greek Public Sphere, 2015–16

Abstract

This chapter examines the political contestation on the 2015–16 refugee inflow as it was presented in the Greek press, in a period of heated debate. Using political claims analysis carried out within the context of the TransSOL project, we studied the main attributes of the public discourse as reflected in the political claims of actors located in three national newspapers from August 2015 to April 2016, on refugees and their arrival to Europe. In particular, we examined the protagonists of public debates –both claimants and addressees of public claims– the issues which were discussed, the form in which the claims were raised as an indication of the contentiousness of this field, the positioning –positive or negative– of claims towards refugees, as well as the chronicle of the debate. Two media attention cycles are identified, based on the intensification of claims-making on refugees. This study envisages to contribute to a better understanding of the interplay of different political, social and context-specific influences in the discursive construction of the so called ‘refugee crisis.’

1 Introduction

Beyond an array of tragic events of human transport and suffering, the mass arrival of migrants and refugees¹ to European shores in 2015, subsequently framed as the ‘refugee crisis’ (Chouliaraki et al., 2017), involved a process of political contestation in the public sphere (Cinalli et al., 2020). The mediated political discourse on refugees reflects the interests and demands of various actors who gained visibility in the public sphere through the expression of political claims. These public claims connected the lived experiences of the refugee population to the social reality of the place of their permanent or temporary destination. Filtered and widely circulated by the mass media, which constitute ‘a forum of critique and of normative debate about the interpretation of […significant] events and their relevance for our moral self-understanding’ (Silverstone 2006, as cited in Cinalli et al., 2020, p. 122), these have influenced public opinion and shaped policy making agendas across Europe. This chapter focuses on the media discourse on refugees and its evolution in Greece, aiming at a better understanding of the public sphere dynamics in the August 2015–April 2016 period, when the increased refugee inflow was at the epicentre of public attention.

Our understanding of the so called ‘refugee crisis’ refers to the mass displacement of refugees/migrants and their transport to Europe, but mostly to the political and social responses on this humanitarian and governance emergency. Thus, we defined this as a crisis mainly in terms of the political governance inefficiency in dealing with the circumstance of a massive and unprecedented in recent times, human inflow and its urgencies. This condition was acknowledged to provide a solid and rich ground of public debate which allowed the identification of the components related to political management, prioritising policy action and political accountability. Above all, this condition feeds back to the process of ascribing meaning and significance in the public sphere as to why this constitutes a crisis. Indeed, the imperatives of this crisis prompted the intensification of claims-making and the escalation of the debate in the studied period all over Europe (Cinalli et al., 2020). In the remainder of the chapter we have used the phrases the ‘so-called “refugee crisis”’ or, ‘what was labeled/referred to as a “refugee crisis”’ interchangeably.

Scholarly interest in the politicisation and mediatisation of the so called ‘refugee crisis’ is not scarce, as evidenced in the works included in two recent special issues, in the Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies (Krzyzanowski et al., 2018) and Social Inclusion (Vandevoordt & Verschraegen, 2019). Empirical studies on news coverage in specific national contexts have also been produced, each focusing on particular traits of mediated discourses, such as the framing patterns of tabloid and quality media in Austrian newspapers (Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017), partisan journalism in German and Irish newspapers (Wallaschek, 2019) and refugee voices in news articles across eight European countries (Chouliaraki & Zaborowski, 2017).

While the 2015–16 migratory and refugee flow had an impact all over Europe, its effect was more immediate and unexpected in frontline countries and more specifically in Italy and Greece, the main gateways in the passage from Middle East and North Africa to Europe. The Greek case is particularly interesting given the unprecedented magnitude of the migrant inflow. In 2015, a year marked by a sharp increase in the number of refugees due to the Syrian war, Greece recorded about 880,000 arrivals.² Being most affected in comparison to other European countries, Greece also experienced a high level of solidarity contestation (Cinalli et al., 2018), which was mainly related to the political management of the mass human inflow. There are several reasons which can explain why the political management of the refugee inflow was deadlocked in the Greek context. As an entry point, and considering its size, Greece had to welcome disproportionately large populations compared to other countries (Dullien, 2016). Given that Greece does not traditionally qualify as the final destination of migrants, a solid plan for their gradual and long-term societal integration was missing (Chap. 13 in Tramountanis, this volume). Governing these large flows was challenging (Chap. 10 in Mantanika & Arapoglou, this volume; Chap. 12 in Parsanoglou, this volume; Chap. 14 in Stratigaki, this volume) especially in a period of indebtedness and austerity. Moreover, since 2010, a generalised crisis –economic, social, institutional and of public trust– influenced public attitudes towards migrants and ethnic minorities, which varied between solidarity and hostility (Galariotis et al., 2017; Kaitatzi-Whitlock & Kenterelidou, 2017; Chap. 5 in Kalogeraki, this volume). Together with long existing political controversies on migration issues, this polarisation made it harder for the SYRIZA (Sinaspismos Rizospastikis Aristeras [Coalition of the Radical Left]) and ANEL (Anexartiti Elines [Independent Greeks]) coalition government at that time to deal with migration-related challenges (Kaitatzi-Whitlock & Kenterelidou, 2017, p. 133), given also the different ideological orientations of the two political parties. Added to this, the low standards in asylum procedures and legal protection of refugees in Greece further complicated the management of the sharply increasing migrant flow (ibid, p. 5).

The interplay of the aforementioned conditions fueled the political scene with tensions. The complexities of the sociopolitical landscape led to public controversies and to emotionally charged media coverage. Media scholars were attracted by the escalation of public debates which occurred in the aftermath of the recent migratory flow (Fotopoulos & Kaimaklioti, 2016), the portrayal of refugees in the Greek press (Serafis et al., 2019) and the ‘absurdity’ of public discourse (Boukala & Dimitrakopoulou, 2018). However, a systematic examination of the main features of the public discourse during the period of heated political debate in Greece is lacking in the literature and it is our intention to fill this gap.

This chapter offers an analysis of the political claims, i.e. the interventions related to the interests, needs or rights of refugees that appeared in the Greek press.³ Claims are raised by actors including individuals, civil society representatives, political representatives and institutions who compete for visibility in the public arena (Cinalli et al., 2020). Given that the public sphere of the mass media connects to the realm of shared understanding (Habermas, 1996), those who occupy a space in it justify their positions drawing on a shared toolkit of common sense, social relevance and moral commitment, thus their claims gain validity through ‘mediated’ discourses (Cinalli et al., 2020, p. 123). A political claim can be raised in different forms and can concern various themes and subthemes; its realisation can lead to an improvement or worsening of the position of its object, i.e. the refugees in our case. By validating the broad spectrum of public claims, ranging from those raised within the parliament to those voiced in the streets in the form of protest, we aimed to gain an insight into the multifaceted nature of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ related public discourse. From a perspective of political opportunity, the harsh impact of the recent economic crisis in Greece was expected to have encouraged collective action and political expression in contentious forms (Kriesi et al., 2020; Meyer, 2004). Given that claims-making develops in a strong relationship with political opportunities, our analysis aimed at providing deeper insights into the underlying connections between competing or allied social actors and their surrounding milieu (Lahusen et al., 2016; McAdam & Tarrow, 2018).

The chapter analyses the public contestation of what was labelled as the ‘refugee crisis,’ based on a study of 711 randomly selected political claims, found in three widely read Greek national newspapers (TransSOL, 2018). The period studied begins in August 2015, when the human transfer and arrival in Greece was first framed as a crisis and ends in April 2016, immediately after the EU-Turkey Statement which aimed to tackle irregular migration. Our research design of claims-making links actors’ positions to public justification, given that media claims are related both to agenda-setting of social actors (and thus to power relations) and to media logic of publicity (Cinalli et al., 2020). Our analysis revealed the protagonists of the debate, the main issues discussed, the positioning of the claims towards refugees, how claims were expressed and how these characteristics evolved over time. The undertaken analysis was primarily exploratory, aiming to offer a better understanding of the forces which shaped the public discourse. The identified trends are discussed in relation to scholarly works in this field as well as in relation to the sociopolitical context.

2 The Discursive Construction of the ‘Refugee Crisis’

This section discusses how the so called ‘refugee crisis’ was discursively constructed in the public sphere, through the intensification of political debates and the increased media attention on the migrant and refugee inflow, from the Summer of 2015 to the Spring of 2016 in Greece, in relation to its broadest European context. Following the related literature review, it aims to familiarise a broader readership with the dynamics of mediated political debates. It ultimately aims to foster an understanding of how political significance and meaning is ascribed to certain events and how competing interests interact in the public sphere to define what is at stake under specific circumstances.

Media narratives of this period were linked to particular events which were directly or indirectly related with the arrival of refugees and its political management or with migration and migrants more generally. Among the landmark images of this period were: one of a young Syrian boy who washed up drowned on a Turkish shore in early September 2015; the fence built at the Hungarian-Serbian border mid-September; the welcoming German stance; the terrorist attacks in Paris in November and the Cologne incident of women’s assault by foreign-looking men on New Year’s Eve (Georgiou & Zaborowski, 2017; Triandafyllidou, 2017). While the watershed of the so called ‘refugee crisis’ in most European countries was therefore the second semester of 2015, in Greece, the first months of 2016 were those that marked the peak of public discourse. Critical points for the Greek context were the debate concerning the exclusion of Greece from Schengen in January 2016, the closure of the Balkan route (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and FYROM), the resulting refugees’ crowding at the Greek-FYROM crossing point of Idomeni in February 2016 and the EU-Turkey Statement for the regulation of migration from Turkey to the EU in March 2016 (Boukala & Dimitrakopoulou, 2018; Fotopoulos & Kaimaklioti, 2016; Kaitatzi-Whitlock & Kenterelidou, 2017). While there were national and temporal variations identified in media coverage and the framing of the crisis across Europe (Consterdine, 2018), political contestation over granting solidarity and media attention cycles followed a rather unified pattern across European countries, with their peak being recorded in Autumn 2015 (Cinalli et al., 2018, 2020). Greece, however, was found to depart from this ubiquitous trend, with the public debate having escalated in early 2016 (ibid).

In addition, a pan-European discourse on what was labelled as the ‘refugee crisis’ emerged as a result of the widespread impact of the aforementioned significant events beyond the local or national scope, the need of cooperation across EU countries to find solutions to a common ‘problem’ as well as the wider cross-national discursive exchanges. The so-called ‘Europeanisation’ of the public sphere (Trenz, 2008) presumes its broadening beyond national borders, ‘driven by a new enlightened movement seeking to generate a normative debate about the trans-nationalisation of democracy’ (p. 274). In the refugee discourse, ‘Europeanisation’ was prompted by the political necessity to abide to a common EU strategy and the interaction of actors across borders, or by the transnational influence of powerful actors who defined a shared space in the mediated discourse across Europe. This suggests that national actors were not expected to have monopolised the media discourse, while political conflicts were not restricted at the national level. The discursive transnationalisation of the debate is manifest in the appeal of Greek actors to European political leaders, in response to foreign accusations on the ineffective control of Greek borders. In this case, the Greek government’s plea for transnational support was at the same time a complaint about the unjust distribution of refugees (Boukala & Dimitrakopoulou, 2018, p. 9) and allowed national actors to abdicate or share the responsibility of their political decisions.

Another characteristic of the public discourse on the mass displacement of refugees and the respective political responses is its shift in focus, from seeking to manage the flows at the beginning of this period to its construction as an effective emergency at the end (Triandafyllidou, 2017, pp. 9–10). Hence, the discursive shift involved the reorientation of policy makers from the distribution of responsibility through quotas in the spring and fall of 2015 to a call for more drastic measures, such as the closure of national borders. A dynamic interaction between policy developments related to the aforementioned critical events and media and civil society mobilisations (ibid) took place, activating the emergence of positive and negative representations in the media discourse. Thus, a sympathetic outlook which was linked to a humanitarian media framing at the beginning of the summer of 2015 was gradually replaced by hostile attitudes and a suspicious media framing (Chouliaraki et al., 2017; Consterdine, 2018; Ferreira, 2019; Georgiou & Zaborowski, 2017; Vollmer & Karakayali, 2018).

These shifting media narratives emerged in line with the values and the imperatives of the dominant actors in the public sphere, who were local, national and transnational and were propagating competing views on the managerial priorities of what was referred to as a ‘refugee crisis.’ Thus, whereas governments and policy makers were trying to control the human flow, civil society actors focused on the conditions of their transfer and the processes of their integration, while local communities were interested in the price they would have to pay for the reception of large numbers of migrants. Each of them, respectively, was defending their own position in the traditional and social media, thus participating in the ‘mediatisation’ of the refugee flows (Krzyzanowski et al., 2018). Humanitarianism which was reflected in the rhetoric of the political leaders and constituted the underlying value in the pan-European public discourse on the migratory flow abided with the humanitarian tradition of Europe upon which a shared European identity and vision was built (Triandafyllidou, 2017, p. 14). Solidarity values which were prominent in the discourse of civil society aimed to promote a political project revolving around ideas of autonomy, emancipation, equality and justice (Siapera, 2019) as well as humanitarian value frames such as altruism (Kousis et al., 2021). In contrast, the portrayal of refugees as threats abided to a nationalistic representation of others as ‘aliens,’ which relates to the mechanism of collective identity formation through the demonisation of the outsiders (Eberl et al., 2018; Triandafyllidou, 2000).

The political stress was particularly intense in Greece due to the strong asymmetry between the needs of the incoming migratory population and the availability of resources and political preparedness of the country, which continued facing the drastic impacts of the 2008 economic crisis (Paschou & Kousis, 2019). At times, refugees were viewed with pity due to their indisposition and at other times as dangerous intruders (Georgiou & Zaborowski, 2017; Matar, 2017). The ambivalence of the public sentiment (Chap. 5 in Kalogeraki, this volume) was reflected on the concurrence of xenophobic manifestations which were fueled by the hatred rhetoric of the extreme right (Galariotis et al., 2017; Sekeris & Vasilakis, 2016) on the one side and anti-racist, pro-refugee attitudes against the discriminating actions of the far-right political party Golden Dawn on the other. Empirical findings demonstrate that the Greek media were drawing on an institutional and generalist approach and using representational frames which reproduced stereotypes (Pelliccia, 2019).

Compared, however, to the West European countries, the press in Greece focused more on humanitarian actions than on military securitisation (Georgiou & Zaborowski, 2017, p. 10). Refugees in the Greek press were given more voice, they were described with more attention to their gender and age and their emotions were also reported more often compared to the European average (Georgiou & Zaborowski, 2017). Moreover, the Greek press paid particular attention to the humanitarian dimension, by reporting the poor living conditions in the refugee camps and refugees’ protests or the violent incidences in the hot spots (Fotopoulos & Kaimaklioti, 2016). Despite the aforementioned diverse public attitudes towards the incoming population, the pervasiveness of a humanitarian narrative prevailed in the Greek public sphere. This relates to an overwhelming public sensitivity which also raised volunteering and which can be justified in terms of the Greek ‘proximity to suffering’ due to the country’s attribute as a frontline country (Clarke, 2015, p. 79). The humanitarian narrative also relates to the so called ‘Greek paradigm of philoxenia-xenophilia’ (Kaitatzi-Whitlock & Kenterelidou, 2017), the emergent solidarity movement (Oikonomakis, 2018) and the awakening of a type of bottom-up hospitality in emic terms (Chap. 8 in Papataxiarchis, this volume).

This humanitarian narrative was overshadowed at times by certain occasions which prompted a reframing of the crisis in the public discourse, bringing to the fore managerial aspects, or relating it with its impact on the hosting communities and the Greek society at large, or with the political cost resulting from certain political decisions. In this context, very little is known on the political claims made by the different actors involved in the public sphere and the variable visibility of these actors over time, which documents the dynamic nature of the debate upon which the definition of the crisis is built.

Our study aims to fill this gap by shedding light at the traits of the public discourse on what has been labelled as the ‘refugee crisis’ in Greece. The selected methodological approach, as presented in the following section, allowed us to examine the degree to which different types of actors appeared in the public sphere to challenge other actors, to define what is at stake from their own perspective and to intervene through certain action repertoires. Our analysis provides a quantitative account of the attributes of public contention, aiming to contribute towards a better understanding of the forces which played the most decisive role in defining the significance of what has been termed as a crisis.

3 Method and Data

This section presents the method applied, i.e. Political Claims Analysis (PCA) (Koopmans & Statham, 1999), which was used to identify the main traits of the public discourse on refugees for the period from August 2015 to April 2016 in Greece. This method was acknowledged as most appropriate for the examination of the roles and positions of all actors formulating claims in the public sphere, as it allows retrieving interventions in the public domain on a given issue (in our case the so called ‘refugee crisis’), using national newspapers (Cinalli et al., 2020). The data were gathered in the context of the EU funded TransSOL project, and the Media Analysis of Work Package 5.

The adoption of this methodological approach involved the quantification of the attributes of public claims and in particular the examination of:

• political representation, by comparing the salience of different claimants in the public sphere

• attribution of responsibility, by examining the type of actors who were addressed in the public claims

• thematic salience, by an examination of the most frequently discussed issues

• the adoption of conventional vs. contentious politics by looking at the forms via which the claims were raised

• the chronicle of the debate, based on the intensification of claims-making activity and the fluctuation of the above-mentioned variables over time

• the fluctuation in the positionality of the claim towards refugees –positive, negative or neutral.

The unit of analysis was the political claim, defined as a public (verbal or nonverbal) intervention made by any actor that bears on the interests, needs or rights of refugees (Cinalli et al., 2020). Print media were selected for empirical investigation, with the selection of newspapers being based on the criteria of representativeness and diversity (ibid). We therefore selected newspapers which are widely read nationwide –based on their circulation rates– and which cover a diverse readership, based on their profile and ideological orientation. The newspapers selected are Kathimerini, a quality centre-right newspaper, Ta Nea, a quality centre/centre-left newspaper and Proto Thema, a popular tabloid outlet. Relevant articles were selected via keyword searches in the electronic archives of the newspapers. Following consortium decisions on the procedures used across all eight countries, our random selection within each newspaper assured that the data reflected the different claims presented in the public sphere. As Table 7.1 shows, we retrieved more than 16,000 articles in order to code a systematic random sample of 402 articles. In detail, we first extracted 100 articles from our sample in order to identify the average number of claims per article. Second, we divided the total number of articles from our database by 100, giving us a rank X. Third, we sorted all articles in a chronological order and coded every Xth article. Fourth, we repeated the procedure on the basis of the average of claims coded in the first round until we reached the required number of claims. At the end of the coding procedure, we obtained a dataset of 711 public claims. A codebook was used in the analysis, with a structure similar to that of a closed questionnaire, thus allowing us to typify and quantify the information obtained from the claims (TransSOL, 2021).

Table 7.1 Articles/Claims retrieved, selected and coded by newspaper

The first part of the analysis offered descriptive statistics on the types of actors (claimants), addressees, issues and form of claims. The second part involved the search of temporal trends through the study of media attention cycles. For this reason, we used time series analysis on the overall claims-making activity. Finally, we examined how the above-mentioned variables as well as the positioning of claims towards refugees vary over time.

4 The General Traits of Public Discourse on the So Called ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Greece: Actors, Addressees, Issues and Forms of Political Claims

This section presents the main elements of political claims on refugees in the Greek press for the August 2015–April 2016 period. By answering the question of who said what, to whom and in what form the aim is to shed light on the quantitative attributes of the mediated political discourse on what has been termed as the ‘refugee crisis.’ In what follows we present the findings of our study as to the most prevalent actors –claimants and addressees– issues and forms of political claims which brought the ‘refugee crisis’ at the top of the political agenda.

The distribution of different actor types is an indication of political representation and demonstrates if the so called ‘refugee crisis’ opened up spaces for the intervention of actors who challenge established policies in the public domain. Our findings (Fig. 7.1) demonstrate that state actors were leading the public discourse, representing more than half (56%) of the total claims-making in our sample. The other half involves claims raised by other actors, with supranational actors and migrants/refugees and their supporting groups exhibiting about 11% each.

Fig. 7.1

Actor types (%), N = 711 claims

The comparison between actor types highlights some interesting findings. First, despite the preponderance of government actors, the political party representatives were not very visible in the public sphere. Second, supranational actors occupied the second position in terms of public visibility. Third, summing up the claims raised by the different representatives of organised civil society actors (third sector, unions and grassroots groups) showed that they altogether occupied about 20% of the total claims. While the dominance of state actors is an omnipresent feature of the public sphere as demonstrated by other studies on public claims-making (Koopmans, 2007; Van Dalen, 2012), the visibility of other actors provides evidence for the plurality of the debate on the ‘refugee crisis.’ In particular, the appearance of supranational actors in national media relates to the transnationalisation of the public sphere, whereas the high levels of visibility of civil society can be seen in relation to the strengthening of solidarity activism following the 2008 global financial economic crisis in Greece.

Next, we examined the actors who were addressed in the claims. Our findings (Fig. 7.2) demonstrate an absence of addressees for about 60% of claims, while for the remaining share of claims the distribution of addressees was similar to that of claimants, with the most frequent addressees being state actors, followed by supranational actors and refugees or migrants and their supporting groups. Given that the addressees of the claims are those who are held accountable to act in response to the claim, their infrequent appearance in the public discourse suggests low levels of responsibility attribution. This provides further confirmation for the political urgency experienced during this period, with the facts themselves imposing the overwhelming force in the public sphere.

Fig. 7.2

Type of addressee (%), N = 711 claims

The examination of the issues which gained media attention (Fig. 7.3) showed that the policies related to the political management of migration was the most frequently discussed issue, occupying about 65% of claims. This broad category was represented by several subcategories in our codebook which were merged for the analysis. The subcategories appearing most frequently in our studied claims were border management and asylum policies (23% and 11% respectively). The background of migration as a broad theme came second in frequency (11.4%), with its most frequent subcategories being the journey of refugees and the inhumane conditions in the refugee camps as well as the refugee routes. The subcategories which refer to the reasons of the human transfer and the living conditions of refugees in their home countries exhibited very low appearance in our sample (less than 1% each). Third in frequency were the social consequences and problems associated with the arrival of refugees (10.8%). Most frequent in this category was the problem of internal security (mainly in the refugee camps and the localities where the refugees were accommodated), followed by civic activities (8% of claims), that mainly referred to volunteering and meeting basic needs. Very few claims were raised, finally, on the integration of refugees (3.1%), reflecting the actors’ prevailing concern that Greece, as a transit –not a destination– country should not prioritise long term policies. Thus, the low number of claims on the policies that ensure equal access to health care, education and the labour market relates to the unresponsiveness of a nevertheless weak welfare state, but also to the expectation that migrant populations would not stay in the country.

Fig. 7.3

The issues of claims (%), N = 711 claims

As evidenced by these findings, the public agenda of the studied period was shaped by concerns of the ‘here and now’ which succinctly captures the generalised sociopolitical anxiety given the low levels of political efficacy and preparedness magnified by pervasive financial crisis and austerity.

The cross-tabulation of actor types with the issue of their claims (Table 7.2) brought to surface differences between actors in respect to their concerns and it therefore contributed to a better understanding of the forces which shaped the public agenda. Based on the findings, the preponderance of the political management of migration was much greater in the discourses of the political elites who acted at the national and transnational level (state actors, political parties and supranational actors) than in the discourses of civil society. The later exhibited a more balanced distribution across the different issues of public concern. However, whereas organised civil society recorded considerably high levels of interest in the background of refugees, individual citizens –mostly at the local level– were particularly interested in the social consequences of the refugee inflows but also in civic activities –though in lower frequency. This finding feeds back to the tension identified in the literature between intolerant/xenophobic attitudes and humanitarian/solidarity manifestations.

Table 7.2 Issues of claims by actor type

As political claims in the public sphere are expressed in various forms, we also examined the central tendency of the form of claims and their relation with actor types. Figure 7.4 shows that more than half of the claims were expressed as verbal statements – usually as media declarations. Less frequent were claims expressed through protest (13.2%) and political decisions (12.5%). Even lower were claims of solidarity actions and humanitarian aid (8.6%) and repressive measures (2.3%). Interestingly, the relatively high share of protest actions demonstrated the contentiousness of the field, while its combination with direct solidarity actions was an indication of the strong societal impact of the refugee inflow in that period.

Fig. 7.4

The form of claims, N = 711 claims

The cross-tabulation of the form of action with actor types (Table 7.3) demonstrated that most state and supranational actors raised their claims predominantly in the form of verbal statements with political decisions following. Civil society groups and individual citizens, on the contrary, were found not to have been visible through their speech acts, but through their involvement in protest.

Table 7.3 The form of claims by actor type

A closer investigation of the claims raised by the refugees themselves and their supporting groups showed a high concentration of claims in confrontational actions–illegal demonstrations and self-imposed constraints– such as hunger strikes, suicides and blockades. The examination of the issue variable of these claims showed that they all referred to the inhumane conditions and emergency situations experienced in the refugee camps.

5 The Chronicle of the Public Debate on the So Called ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Greece

Beyond the examination of the main traits of the public debate, we also aim to shed light on the distribution of claims over time, in order to achieve a better understanding of media attention cycles and the evolution of the public debate on the so called ‘refugee crisis.’

Based on the centralisation of claims over time, two periods were identified, the first one in the autumn of 2015 and the second one in January–April 2016. As seen in Fig. 7.5, claims making on refugees dramatically intensified during the second period, reaching a peak in March 2016. This finding mirrors the salience of the events which occurred from December 2015 to early 2016 in Greece, as discussed in the literature review.

Fig. 7.5

Total number of claims by month

The visibility of different actor types in the Greek public sphere over time is seen in Fig. 7.6 It illustrates that political elites, who were the dominant actors in the public discourse, increased their claims-making activity on refugees since December 2015. A similar pattern, but with lower frequencies throughout the whole period was observed also for supranational actors. Regarding the visibility of civil society actors, it was limited in the first period, but gradually increased since January 2016 while it climaxed in the spring of 2016. This finding suggests that the peak of crisis proliferated the opportunities for the less powerful actors to be voiced in the public sphere.

Fig. 7.6

Claims by type of Actor and month

The examination of the appearance of different actor types as addressees of the claims over time (Fig. 7.7) showed that supranational actors and civil society were more frequently addressed during the first period compared to state actors, unlike the second period, when the latter prevailed. This tendency to delay addressing the state can be seen as an indication of the perceived unresponsiveness or inability of the Greek state to deal with the human inflow in the outburst of what was labelled as the ‘refugee crisis.’

Fig. 7.7

Claims by type of Addressee and month

Concerning the temporal particularities of the public discourse with respect to the issues discussed (Fig. 7.8), our analysis suggests that the second period exhibited a much richer agenda. It was a period in which actors brought to the fore issues other than the political management of migration, which monopolised the public discourse in the first period. Whereas the social consequences of migration gained media attention mainly in January 2016, media reporting on civic activities and the background of the refugee population intensified in March 2016.

Fig. 7.8

Issues of claims by month

The examination of the temporal trends with respect to the forms of political intervention (Fig. 7.9) demonstrated that the claims during the second period were more diverse in terms of their form. Specifically, while during the first period the Greek media reported only verbal statements and very few claims of other forms, the second period involved more claims which were raised in the form of political decisions (particularly in February 2016) as well as claims of direct action and in particular protest and solidarity action (in March 2016). This, once more, attests to the opening up of political opportunities during the peak of public contestation when the less powerful actors who expressed themselves through direct action gained increased visibility.

Fig. 7.9

Forms of claims by month

We finally examined the evolution of the positioning of the claims over time, which indicated the positive, negative or neutral disposition of each claim towards refugees, with scores ranging from −1 to +1. Figure 7.10, which illustrates the mean scores of claims per month, shows that the trend of claims was constantly changing throughout the studied period, something that reflects the ambivalence of the public discourse. Whereas in the beginning of our studied period, August 2015, the trend was overall negative, given the political stress caused by an increasing, continuous and uncontrollable wave of refugees and upcoming national elections, in September 2015 the positive positioning of claims outweighed the negative ones. This was a reflection of a widespread sentimental media narrative which encouraged humanitarian activism. After two months of instability, the following couple of months, December 2015 and January 2016, scored highest in terms of negative positionality, indicating the influence of a discourse of intolerance and xenophobia also related to the threat of expulsion from the Schengen zone. Since February 2016, the claims in support of refugees’ rights and interest gained ground, responding to the strengthening of a solidarity discourse.

Fig. 7.10

Evolution of the positioning of claims by month

6 Discussion and Conclusions

This chapter is based on an exploratory, quantitative analysis of the political claims that were raised in Greek newspapers concerning the 2015–16 inflow of migrants and refugees. Our adopted methodological approach defined who have been the main actors in the public sphere –together with their considerations, their adopted forms of action and their varied visibility over time. It aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the political developments of that period in response to the inflow of refugees as well as to the refining of the constituents in its discursive construction as a crisis.

Our analysis revealed that beyond the humanitarian urgency and the political predicament, the ‘refugee crisis’ was the product of the discursive interaction of various actors with diverse agendas in the public sphere. In the Greek context particularly, the recent mass arrival of refugees was at the epicentre of public discourse. The country’s geographical location at the crossroads of East and West, its suffering of multiple crises, and contradictory public attitudes towards refugees posed difficulties to the political management of the crisis and fueled political debate.

Our findings therefore shed new light on the discursive construction of the crisis by illustrating the main traits of the public debate and its chronicle. Specifically, this study evidenced the variable visibility of different actors, the significance of particular issues and the prevalence of certain forms of public intervention in the public sphere. It also identified the successive occurrence of two media attention cycles, based on the intensification of claims-making on refugees. Each cycle exhibited distinctive features in terms of the actors (both claimants and addressees), issues and forms of claims. However, these characteristics and their evolution over time are meaningful under the interpretative light of the sociohistorical context and the political circumstances which brought them to the fore.

As evidenced in our analysis the debate was characterised by a plurality of voices and was not monopolised by a single actor. Nevertheless, overall, state actors were the most visible claimants and addressees of claims, something which confirms the ‘structural bias’ of the mainstream press towards the representation of domestic government actors (Koopmans, 2007; Van Dalen, 2012; Wallaschek, 2019). Noticeably, the prevalence of state actors was not constant throughout the analysed period. The preponderance of supranational addressees in the first period, spanning from September 2015 to December of the same year, reflects the state’s appeal for transnational support. This period was very crucial in terms of transnational political deliberations, with several occasions, such as the UN’s September Plenary, the Bratislava Summit and the summit of the Southern European state leaders (Kaitatzi-Whitlock & Kenterelidou, 2017, pp. 314–5). Moreover, this period was characterised as a time of ‘ecstatic humanitarianism’ (Georgiou & Zaborowski, 2017, p.8), something which can be seen in relation to the high levels of civil society’s appearance as an addressee of the public claims. However, while during the first period civil society appeared relatively frequently as an addressee in the claims raised by other actors, it was not until March 2016 that it gained its visibility as a claimant in the public sphere. State actors also recorded a sharp increase in claims-making activity during this time, when political tensions and controversies escalated, leading to a ‘blame game’ between political leaders (Boukala & Dimitrakopoulou, 2018).

As participation broadened, the agenda and the forms of public intervention in the public discourse also expanded since 2016. The themes relating to the social consequences of migration and to civic activities were thus more frequently mentioned during this second phase. Notwithstanding, the analysis evidenced a dominant and persistent interest in the political management of the so-called crisis throughout the period studied, in agreement with previous research findings (Fotopoulos & Kaimaklioti, 2016). The broadening of public discourse since 2016 was also reflected in the selected forms of action in raising claims, with contentiousness and direct actions increasing since 2016, together with an increase in the number of claims raised in the form of political decisions.

Our interest in the examination of the chronicle of the debate drew on scholarly research which identified the temporal instability in media coverage and framing patterns on the incoming refugees (Chouliaraki et al., 2017; Consterdine, 2018; Ferreira, 2019; Georgiou & Zaborowski, 2017; Vollmer & Karakayali, 2018). Through the exploration of the temporal trends of the public discourse, we envisage to contribute to a broader understanding of the dynamics of the public sphere. Α critical reflection on our findings is prompted when acknowledging the particularities of the historical and sociopolitical context. Two crucial moments are discussed below, September 2015 and March 2016, aiming to illustrate the interrelation of the attributes of public claims and the political developments.

September 2015 witnessed high levels in the frequency of claims compared to the other months of the first period. However, contrary to other European countries, where this was the milestone of the whole period, claims-making in Greece did not peak during this month (Cinalli et al., 2018, 2020). These relatively low levels of media coverage should be seen in relation to the comparatively greater attention paid to the national elections by the Greek media in September 2015. Based on the findings of our study, during this month the discourse was rather unified in Greece, with national political actors being almost exclusively voiced by the media and supranational actors and civil society appearing most frequently as addressees of public claims. With the vast majority of claims being expressed as verbal statements and concerning the political management of migration, it was a time of low political activity, with the dominant narrative being fair burden-sharing and a plea for transnational and humanitarian support.

March 2016 is the time when claims-making on refugees reached its peak. In the aftermath of the threat of expulsion from the Schengen zone and under the pressures to respond to the closure of the Balkan route and the resulting overcrowding in the camp of Idomeni, the flow of refugees reduced due to the EU- Turkey Statement. Public discourse in this period became richer and diversified in terms of actors, issues and forms of action compared to that of the first period. The media narrative of this time was fragmented, evoking both solidarity and fear. A thorough examination of the claims of this period showed that the claims of the refugees themselves (Chap. 9 in Koukouzelis, this volume) together with civil society actors as well as local society actors, peaked in the public discourse. This was most likely due to the contentiousness of their reaction, manifested in their high rates of protest, a finding which provides further confirmation for the connection of grievances with contentious politics (Giugni & Grasso, 2016; Klandermans et al., 2008; Kriesi et al., 2020; Meyer, 2004; Rüdig & Karyotis, 2014). Moreover, the proliferation in the political representation of different actors suggests the opening up of a window of opportunity in the public sphere.

Finally, our findings on the positionality of public claims highlight the ambivalence and instability of the public discourse throughout the studied period, supporting what previous studies underlined (Georgiou & Zaborowski, 2017; Matar, 2017) and contrary to the generalised trend of negative representations of otherness (Eberl et al., 2018; Triandafyllidou, 2000).

Future work may centre more on the role of the different political actors, especially political parties, in terms of their relation to the protests of the refugees and to the formation of the public discourse on migrant issues, as reflected in their claims-making. Other future work could offer comparative analysis on the effects of the new online sources other than mainstream newspapers on political aspects of claims making. Such enriching of the sources may lead to more informed views on twenty-first century public discourse.