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The Social Construction of “Indebted Man”: Economic Crisis, Discursive Violence and the Role of Mass Media in Italy

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Social and Psychological Dimensions of Personal Debt and the Debt Industry

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Abstract

It is well known that since the fall of 2008, the world has entered into the deepest recession since the 1930s. The origin of this recession was a financial crisis that began in the USA in the summer of 2007, and which spread rapidly in Europe and across the rest of the world. The main cause was to be found in the collapse of the financial market as a result of colossal debts that were accumulated by major European and US banks, and the consequent institutionalised fraud and financial manipulation. In fact, the “bank bailouts” were implemented on the instruction and support of governments and the political class, which took place through the transfer by lending of the largest amount of money in recorded history, and at the same time created an insurmountable public debt (e.g. Chossudovsky and Marshall, 2010; Gallino, 2013).

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Authors
  1. Adriano Zamperini
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  2. Marialuisa Menegatto
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Doğuş University, Turkey

    Serdar M. Değirmencioğlu

  2. University of Brighton, UK

    Carl Walker

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© 2015 Adriano Zamperini and Marialuisa Menegatto

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Zamperini, A., Menegatto, M. (2015). The Social Construction of “Indebted Man”: Economic Crisis, Discursive Violence and the Role of Mass Media in Italy. In: Değirmencioğlu, S.M., Walker, C. (eds) Social and Psychological Dimensions of Personal Debt and the Debt Industry. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137407795_8

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