Media, politics and state broadcasting in Greece

This article focuses on governmental control over state broadcasting media in Greece and analyses whether Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation can be considered as public or state broadcaster. The first part explores the interrelationship between media, politics and the state in Greece, and the ways the latter has affected the development of Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. By doing so, it makes references to similar Southern European broadcasting models that are also characterised by clientist manners, ministerial censorship, a powerful state and a weak civil society. Furthermore, it looks at the devastating impact of haphazard deregulation and market liberalisation on Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation since the early 1990s, when the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation lost much of its formerly loyal audience and advertising income to a number of newly launched commercial television channels. Part 2 assesses the degree of political, editorial and financial independence of Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation under the current SYRIZA-led administration. Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation was re-launched by the left-wing SYRIZA government after a temporary 2-year closure, but it is struggling to maintain a competitive advantage and a politically neutral output

From Europeanisation to EU-ization: The Media Case

It is widely argued that the success of the European Union has delivered more than half a century of peace, stability, and prosperity in Europe, and that this is the outcome of the Europeanization process. In this paper we support the idea that although Europeanization is a fashionable concept, it is also a contested one. We consider, among others, that the main achievement of the European Union as harmonization of the regulatory frameworks among its 27 member states, is the outcome of an EU-ization process that has gradually developed in the 30 years at least. We use the case of media regulation initiated by the European Union to show that the case of EU-ization, at least in the communications landscape, seems to be the driver of the incremental engagement of the EU in the sector

Greek ERT: State or Public Service Broadcaster?

The chapter examines the state of public service broadcasting in Greece. While most Southern European public broadcasting systems are to some degree subject to political influence and dependence, in the case of Greece, public broadcaster ERT is, after four decades of deregulation and the break-up of its broadcasting monopoly, still considered by many as ‘state’ rather than a ‘public’ broadcaster. This wide public perception stems from ERT’s one-time role as a mouthpiece of government propaganda. As both radio and TV broadcasting were launched under dictatorships (the late 1930s Metaxas dictatorship and the mid-1960s Colonels rule respectively), they have been regarded as ‘arms of the state.’ Post-dictatorship politics and the restoration of Parliament in 1974 saw the Conservatives (New Democracy) and Socialists (PASOK) dominating the political scene, accusing each other of exercising too much government control over state broadcasting media. Today’s left-wing SYRIZA government also attempts to influence ERT’s output, which is at odds with the digital, deregulated electronic media landscape and consequent abundance of channels. This situation has arisen largely from the political tensions in Greek society since the Second World War. These tensions, combined with the absence of a strong civil society and the market, have made the state an autonomous and dominant factor in Greek society that has to take on additional politico-ideological function. The state plays an active role in the formation of the Greek economy and policy and it is relatively autonomous from society. This makes the system less self-regulatory than countries with developed capitalism, such as northern EU states, Britain or the US. Lack of self-regulation spurs the state to intervene in the politico-ideological sphere and thus diffuse its repressive mechanisms. It is in this context that the chapter explains the rise of power of the media, and the decline of power of journalists and, of course, of ERT itself

Forecasting local hospital bed demand for COVID-19 using on-request simulations

For hospitals, realistic forecasting of bed demand during impending epidemics of infectious diseases is essential to avoid being overwhelmed by a potential sudden increase in the number of admitted patients. Short-term forecasting can aid hospitals in adjusting their planning and freeing up beds in time. We created an easy-to-use online on-request tool based on local data to forecast COVID-19 bed demand for individual hospitals. The tool is flexible and adaptable to different settings. It is based on a stochastic compartmental model for estimating the epidemic dynamics and coupled with an exponential smoothing model for forecasting. The models are written in R and Julia and implemented as an R-shiny dashboard. The model is parameterized using COVID-19 incidence, vaccination, and bed occupancy data at customizable geographical resolutions, loaded from official online sources or uploaded manually. Users can select their hospital's catchment area and adjust the number of COVID-19 occupied beds at the start of the simulation. The tool provides short-term forecasts of disease incidence and past and forecasted estimation of the epidemic reproductive number at the chosen geographical level. These quantities are then used to estimate the bed occupancy in both general wards and intensive care unit beds. The platform has proven efficient, providing results within seconds while coping with many concurrent users. By providing ad-hoc, local data informed forecasts, this platform allows decision-makers to evaluate realistic scenarios for allocating scarce resources, such as ICU beds, at various geographic levels.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures. Code available at https://github.com/QUPI-IUK/Bed-demand-forecas

How did the British media represent European political parties during the European parliament elections, 2014: a Europeanized media agenda?

The European Parliament election of 2014 generated much interest on account of the rise of a whole array of populist ‘anti-EU’ parties. This was widely reported in the British media but did that coverage give British news consumers an insight into the character of these parties, where they stood in relation to one another and where they stood in relation to Britain’s own UKIP? This paper sets out to examine not only how much coverage there was in the British media about European political parties but also whether that coverage enabled citizens to get a sense of the political positioning of populist anti-EU parties. These questions touch on the extent to which British media reflect and comment on populist parties, European affairs and hence on the Europeanization of the news agenda

Event-, politics-, and audience-driven news: A comparison of populism in European media coverage in 2016 and 2017

This chapter focuses on trends in reporting over time. It examines the presence of populist key messages in European newspapers coverage of immigration and commentaries on current political events, at two points in time, spring 2016 and spring 2017. The chapter explores the similarities and differences in the populist content of newspapers between the two periods and identifies a set of extra-media and intra-media explanatory factors contributing to the understanding of the emerging differences in a year-to-year comparison. The findings show that the presence of populism in news and commentaries in some countries is loosely related to actual migration dynamics (see Germany and Greece), whereas in other countries it seems to follow more intensive political debates, although actual immigration is less dramatic (Bulgaria, Poland). There are fewer indications than expected that the populist tendencies in news and commentaries are a reaction to the intensity with which the population views immigration as an important national issue or is dissatisfied with decisions by political elites. Finally, there are strong indications of the great importance of intra-media factors in explaining populism in news and commentary

Event- , politics-, and audience-driven news: a comparison of populism in European media coverage in 2016 and 2017

This chapter focuses on trends in reporting over time. It examines the presence of populist key messages in “news coverage of immigration” and “commentaries on current political events” in European newspapers at two points in time, namely spring 2016 and spring 2017. The chapter has a twofold aim. First, it will explore similarities and differences in the populist content of European newspapers between the two periods. Second, it identifies a set of extra-media and intra-media explanatory factors contributing to the understanding of the emerging differences in a year-to-year comparison. The chapter by Blassnig et al. in this volume provides more detailed information about the newspaper stories we content-analyzed. Two types of stories are analyzed: ‘news articles on immigration’, and ‘editorials commenting on current political events’ irrespective of the topic. While the chapter by Blassnig et al. pooled and jointly investigated the data from 2016 and 2017, and the chapter by Maurer et al. in this volume, used only content data from 2017, this chapter will evaluate and compare the data from 2016 and 2017. These two periods are seen as two phases of a news and policy cycle that responds to real world cues. The two phases are understood as stages of a crisis, which offer more or less favorable opportunity structures for populist discourse (Moffitt, 2015). As stated in the introduction to this volume, a whole range of contextual factors influence the populist worldview of crises and, subsequently, the use of populist communication in news reports and commentaries about theses crises

Politicians’ Perceptions of Populism and the Media: A Cross-National Study Based on Semi-Structured Interviews

Why is it importam to study politicians' perceptions of populism? The way in which something is regarded and understood is of the utmost importance for its impact on politics and society in general. Given the complexities in defining 'populism' and understanding its meaning, and in view of it being commonly referred to as a 'vague', 'slippery', 'elusive' concept (e.g., Canovan, 1981, 1984; Taggart, 2000; Barr, 2009; Lucardie, 2009; Woods, 2014), this study addresses the concept and its potential implications through the views of politicians who represent some of the most importam politicaI parties in 11 European countries and who are therefore important opinion-makers. The main objective is to discern what politicians from the various countries and different types of politicai parties understand by populism and how they perceive the causes and implications of these phenomena in their countries, and, more broadly, in European and global contexts.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio