The media campaign of the Greek Referendum of July 5th: Was it really a biased campaign?

Greece, the country facing the longest and most discussed economic, and socio-political turmoil in Europe, was found again at the centre of worldwide interest by the decision made by the coalition government led by left-wing SYRIZA to hold the July 5th referendum calling for citizens to decide whether the EU-proposed economic plan should be adopted or not. In a country where the referendum device is rather uncommon, the decision triggered multiple competing narratives regarding the motives behind the referendum and severe criticisms of its organisation. Part of the criticisms were grounded on the extremely short referendum campaign in which the established media, key players in a campaign, needed to maintain a rather balanced, if not unbiased framing. While it is not uncommon for established media during election or referendum campaigns, to adopt directly or indirectly positions vis a vis a voting preference, in the case of the Greek referendum a hypothesis has been formulated regarding the extreme promotion, if not a propaganda, for the ‘Yes’ vote. The paper attempts to test this hypothesis through a systematic content analysis of collected news articles from ten media sources. The analytical aim is to examine the frequency and the ways the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ vote choices to the referendum were constructed in the selected news articles during the overall campaign of nine days. The Greek case is discussed in the broader framework of the role of media as promoting hegemonic discourses from a political communication perspective, particularly within an overall context of crisis, where distrust towards media and politics is preeminent.