The Aegean crises’ effects on social behaviour. Stereotyping the alterity: the case of the Greek printed media (1974-1996)

The paper revisits the main characteristics of the Greek-Turkish relations, taking as its point of departure the Greek-Turkish dispute over the Aegean continental shelf (1974-1996), as in that period, a list of mutual grievances on issues of high politics still remained intact. The article examines how the main Greek Dailies: Kathimerini, Eleftheros Typos, Ta Nea, Makedonia and Rizospastis covered Aegean crises of 1976, 1987 and 1996. An effort is made to analyze the position of the above-mentioned newspapers on the Aegean energy crises and to show the Greek media behaviour towards the Turkish people. Do the Greek printed media use ethnic stereotyping to exaggerate the conflict and the crises? Our purpose is to remonstrate that the Greek daily press produces and perpetuates stereotypes on the Turks through textual and visual messages at least for the duration of the crises. The front page articles of the major Greek dailies contain textual messages that stereotype Turks by their concentration, frequency and omissions. The methodology applied for this particular research is the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the content of the above-mentioned newspapers’ front pages during the Aegean crises of 1976, 1987 and 1996.