Public Service Austerity Broadcasts: Framing the Euro Debt Crisis

Abstract

The reassertion of neoliberal public policy in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis was achieved in part through its sufficient recuperation as a hegemonic political and economic “imaginary." Focusing on a series of episodes of political and economic upheaval in the Eurozone periphery between 2011 and 2013, this article examines the extent to which mediated constructions of crisis in the context of public service broadcasting in the Republic of Ireland reflected and contributed to such a recuperation. An analysis of journalistic crisis framings reveals patterns of crisis definition, judgments of actors and their behaviors, and evaluations of political and economic developments that are strongly congruent with neoliberal crisis and recovery imaginaries. The legitimation of the coercive imposition of disciplinary neoliberalism in Europe’s periphery and the elision of associated negative social and democratic externalities raise questions about public service broadcast journalism’s critical capacities and democratic commitments.