The (golden) dawn of audiences? Assessing the audience empowerment thesis through a framing analysis of immigration in the Greek media

The ‘participatory web’ creates opportunities for citizen participation in public debate with a potential to influence public opinion. This study examines the ‘empowerment thesis’ regarding audience participation in the media, exploring whether, and in what ways, audiences’ discourses in established media websites challenge or broaden mainstream discourses about immigration. The study employs systematic framing analysis of journalistic articles about immigration that appeared in the most popular Greek online media from October 2010 to February 2011. These journalistic frames are then compared to the frames produced by readers in their comments. The findings show that readers on several occasions challenge the journalistic framing of immigration. Yet, what we witness in this case is the dark side of audience participation, as readers contest journalistic authority not in the direction of a diversified and more open discussion of immigration but towards the ideological entrenchment in essentialist nationalistic and hate discourses. The article concludes by discussing how the ‘out-of-nowhere’ anti-immigrant political discourses in Greece were gradually built, and the role of the media therein.