Absurdity and the “Blame Game” Within the Schengen Area: Analyzing Greek (Social) Media Discourses on the Refugee Crisis

Abstract

Drawing on the European threats regarding Greece's expulsion from the Schengen zone, we analyze Greek political and (social) media discourses on the refugee crisis. The main aim of this study is to explore whether and how the Greek media and social media discourses on the refugee crisis and the political decisions regarding it contribute to the discursive reconstruction of the Greek nation-state and its imaginaries. We assume that the refugee crisis led to a polarized climate that dominates the Greek and European political scene and questions European solidarity. Utilizing the Discourse-Historical Approach, we analyze the social media discourses of the Greek prime minister and the president of the main opposition party regarding the European debate on the Schengen agreement's suspension. Moreover, we employ content analysis to focus on the media coverage of the Schengen debate and the refugee crisis. Finally, based on Camus's allegoric novel The Plague, we emphasize the parallelism between the discourses on the Schengen agreement and the allegory of the plague. “Fortress Europe” and the emphasis on national borders within the European Union prompted us to utilize the allegory of Camus's The Plague to highlight the resurgence of the nation-state and the discursive deconstruction of European solidarity in times of crisis.