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Crisis and the Media: Narratives of crisis across cultural settings and media genres
Edited by Marianna Patrona
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 76] 2018
► pp. 107–126

Chapter 5
“All good people have debts”

Framing the Greek crisis in television fiction

Building on the notion of the Greek crisis as a discursive event and revisiting theories about the sociocultural role of television fiction, this chapter introduces the latter as a framing mechanism through which events of the social world are defined and assessed. By uncovering the dominant interpretative frames underlying the story, setting, characters and plot of the popular Greek television comedy Piso Sto Spiti (MEGA channel, 2011–2013), this analysis illustrates television fiction’s contribution to the construction of the root causes of the crisis as tied to the cultural traits of Greeks, the impossibility of change and the futility of an alternative, left-wing consideration of the crisis, as well as an attempt to morally assess the situation at hand.

Keywords: Greek crisis, television fiction, framing, ideology, Piso Sto Spiti
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The Greek crisis as a discursive event
  • Television fiction as a framing mechanism
  • The case of Greek television and television fiction
  • Piso Sto Spiti : The crisis, televised
  • The Greek home as the crisis’ focal point
  • The (im)possibility of change and the failure of the Left
  • “All good people have debts”: The moral vindication of the story
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 22 February 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.76.06ait
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