Exercising control in media during Covid-19: the “Stay at Home” campaign on Twitter in Greece

Abstract

In 2020, the Greek government initiated the “Stay at Home” Campaign (or “Petsas’ list”), a fund for supporting the country’s media industry due to financial issues provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic. Also, the campaign would promote the message of staying at home to stop spreading Covid-19. However, that initiative seemed to have been perceived as a manipulation effort to control the news media in order to support an ideal image of the government, including defending the excessive pandemic restrictions (e.g., lockdowns and the prohibition of music in restaurants and bars). The current study employs Ideological Discourse Analysis (IDA) to investigate the online anti-media sentiment empowered by the “Stay at Home” Campaign. It focuses on the Twitter users’ ideological constructions emphasizing on the positive depictions of one group (i.e., the government and the media) against the “other” (i.e., the public) in 1623 Tweets of the relevant hashtag in Greek #Petsas_list (#Λιστα_Πετσα) on Twitter. The results showed that financial support when used in a controversial and non-transparent way, could undermine media independence and empower anti-media sentiment. Lastly, the study enhances the literature about the mass media industry’s problems globally, including the decline in media freedom that contributes to the democratic recession.