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JOU0010.1177/1464884920985728JournalismSiapera and Papadopoulou

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Journalism

Hate as a ‘hook’: The political

2021, Vol. 22(5) 1256­–1272
© The Author(s) 2021
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and affective economy of ‘hate sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1464884920985728
https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884920985728
journalism’ journals.sagepub.com/home/jou

Eugenia Siapera
University College Dublin, Ireland

Lambrini Papadopoulou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Abstract
The article looks to identify and contextualise the shift of journalism towards emotion
in terms of broader socio-political shifts. It focuses on ‘hate journalism’, a term we use
to describe a new kind of journalism that emerged in Greece during the debt crisis
years and is ideologically close to neo-fascist, and ethnonationalist political positions.
We understand hate as an action oriented socio-cultural practice and examine the
conditions of production and deployment of hate through focusing on Makeleio,
the most successful example of this kind of journalism. Within this context, hate is
produced and circulated as a ‘hook’ to attract and entice users, by mirroring their
emotions; it further constitutes a means of producing and diffusing ideology by helping
readers manage uncertainty through putting forward authoritarian solutions. In doing
so, hate journalism is involved in social reproduction processes by which (Greek)
society produces and sustains itself as ethnically pure, culturally Christian, and gendered
as masculine and virile. Readers are invited to recognise themselves and their practices
and vernacular, to be consoled and offered solace and comfort within an unmoored
world. They, in turn, offer support to this journalism through consuming it.

Keywords
crisis, far-right, Greece, hate, journalism, uncertainty

Corresponding author:
Eugenia Siapera, School of Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin, Stillorgan
Road, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Email: eugenia.siapera@ucd.ie
Siapera and Papadopoulou 1257

Introduction
We are now somewhat used to headlines that appear to mobilise emotions: anger, fear,
disgust and ultimately, hate. Media outlets such as the US-based Breitbart, Infowars and
The Blaze form part of a network of extreme right-wing media, routinely publishing far-
fetched conspiracy theories, often revolving around racist and anti-feminist themes, and
mobilising emotional language (Kelly, 2019). It is noteworthy that the emergence of this
kind of journalism occurred at a time of profound crisis for media and journalism (Gitlin,
2011) and more broadly at a time of economic, socio-political and environmental crisis.
In order therefore to understand it, we have to pay closer attention to this moment of
crisis. In this article we focus on Greece, which has experienced a protracted and pro-
found crisis, and on the case of Makeleio (Massacre), a print newspaper that emerged
within and out of this crisis. We consider Makeleio and its popularity as emblematic of
the relationship between negative public emotions and multifaceted crises.
In Greece, under conditions that can be described as the perfect storm, the links
between journalism’s predicament and socio-political developments in the country are
very clear (Siapera et al., 2015). The financial crisis that engulfed Greece in the last dec-
ade has drastically restructured not only the political system but society itself. While the
crisis is no longer acute, it has had profound and ongoing effects on society that feed into
journalism. One of these effects has been to install uncertainty as the new normal across
all aspects of life: economic uncertainty which ranges from the state’s fiscal policy to the
ways in which people manage their savings and income (Hardouvelis et al., 2018); politi-
cal uncertainty which covers both the collapse of traditional political parties and the rise
and fall of new political parties (Malkoutzis, 2011); and social uncertainty which is asso-
ciated with a series of social phenomena, including high unemployment, emigration, low
birth rates, increased suicidality, and intense poverty (Branas et al., 2015; Matsaganis,
2018). Given these developments, the media system and journalism more particularly
became unmoored from traditional sources of support. It is within this context that
Makeleio emerged as a television show in 2010 and was broadcasted in various main-
stream TV channels, such as Kontra channel, Extra channel and Alert TV. The show was
taken off the air multiple times because of its offensive and hateful contents. In 2011,
Kontra channel was fined €150,000 because the show’s creator, editor and presenter,
Stefanos Chios, sweared at and threatened the then government spokesman. Soon after,
the show was cancelled leading to its subsequent operation as an exclusively digital
show on YouTube. In January 2015 it established itself as a print newspaper.
While Makeleio is part of a volatile ecosystem of far-right news titles, it has emerged
as a consistently sustainable publication given its popularity and daily sales. We focus on
Makeleio in order to identify the principal dynamics formulated by one of the main dis-
tributors of neo-Νazi, racist, homophobic, ultraconservative and supremacist ideological
positions in Greece. Through this case study, we hope to illustrate the broader dynamics
of the relationship between crisis and negative public emotions which operate symbioti-
cally with this kind of journalism.
We begin with a contextual discussion of the crisis in journalism and public emotion,
focusing on hate, followed by a discussion of far-right journalism. We then move to dis-
1258 Journalism 22(5)

cuss our methodology and analytical approach, before a detailed analysis of the deploy-
ment of hate by Makeleio.

Crisis, uncertainty and public emotion

In this section, we survey the contours of the material politico-economic conditions that
are understood as a crisis for journalism. We observe that journalism is practised in con-
ditions of profound uncertainty, both for the profession and for society more broadly,
where multiple crises – political, economic, social – have created a volatile and unpre-
dictable setting. In this context, emotions in journalistic storytelling can be seen as mobi-
lised to address and manage this profound uncertainty. However, emotions are not all
equivalent, and emotional storytelling is ambiguous and may have problematic
action-outcomes.

The crisis
The crisis of journalism is first and foremost an economic one, as documented year after
year in reports such as the US-based State of the News report. In general, these reports
show a downward trend in print readership which is not wholly compensated by revenue
from a corresponding rise in digital news readers. But the crisis of journalism is closely
associated with a political crisis, in which its civic role is actively questioned. For
Blumler (2010), the crisis has two main aspects: a financial and a political one, corre-
sponding to a crisis of civic adequacy, in which journalism fails to live up to its norma-
tive role. These ideas are commonly found in the literature (e.g. Gitlin, 2011; McChesney
and Pickard, 2011). Most authors here connect the crisis of journalism with broader
developments in the political, social and economic spheres, associated with the rise of
the neoliberal model of (de)regulation and the expansion of the market across all domains
of life. These, in turn, have created an environment of heightened risk and uncertainty,
since things taken for granted in the (Western) European context, such as for example,
welfare and housing, health services, free education, a stable political system, are no
longer present.
While a focus on the political economy of journalism leaves little room for optimism,
theorists such as Zelizer (2015) argue that that the insistence on a crisis is not productive
and forecloses the diverse futures of journalism, by alluding to a mythical narrative of a
great past. This strand of thought prefers to consider the future of journalism, its trans-
formations and its adaptations in the current ecosystem. The main argument here is that
we have moved towards a post-industrial era for journalism (Anderson et al., 2015) in
which the original, ‘industrial’ model of print journalism has to be reinvented for the
digital era, and journalism must adapt to the present (Deuze and Witschge, 2017). While
these authors adopt a pragmatic if not optimistic view of the future of journalism, the
overall trend towards little state intervention or supportive media policies means that
these adaptations of journalism cannot guarantee quality (Brüggemann et al., 2016). The
crisis is therefore associated with a quest for journalism to survive in a context that is
characterised by increased uncertainty. The shift to far-right politics and the associated
rise of far-right media can be understood in this context.
Siapera and Papadopoulou 1259

Far-right media and hate

One of the outcomes of protracted social, political and economic crises has been that the
political landscape in Europe moved from the centrist political positions that dominated
previous decades towards far-right populism (Mudde, 2016). This is characterised by a
tendency to combine the classic liberal position focusing on individual achievement, the
neoliberal position against strong state interventions and the socio-political agenda of the
right, opposing the integration of minorities and demands for social equality, appealing
to the common sense of the ‘common man’ (Betz, 2016).
While research has identified the ideological dimensions and history of the political
thought of far-right populism, we are more interested here in the role that emotion plays
in making this ideology hold together. We understand hate here using the classic defini-
tion of Aristotle, who makes a distinction between anger and hate. For Aristotle, anger is
caused by perceived harm, and it focuses on individuals thought responsible for the
harm; hate or hatred is primarily addressed to a whole category or class of people, who
may not have harmed one personally, and therefore works through extrapolation
(Aristotle, 1941, Rhetoric). Aristotle further argues that another distinguishing character-
istic between anger and hate is that while anger can be resolved, hatred has no resolution
other than the annihilation of those who are hated. On this basis, as Ahmed (2004) has
argued, hate is used as a means of social organisation, marking who belongs and how,
and who must be eliminated. Ahmed understands hate as part of an affective economy,
where hate circulates, acquiring meaning through becoming associated with certain bod-
ies. Given the action-orientation of emotions (c.f. Chouliaraki, 2010), hate too is mobi-
lised with a view to achieve certain socio-political outcomes.
Like Aristotle, Ahmed views hate as a social emotion and not as hate is not a private
and individual feeling generated by particular objects or persons. For Ahmed, hate
emerges through circulating, moving from one group of people to another, and acquiring
meaning and function through this circulation. She argues that hate works as and in cri-
sis: it presents itself in situations which construct or are constructed as crises that threaten
the national or social body, such as for example, terrorist attacks. Hate emerges in the
moment of crisis as a means by which society separates the victim from the perpetrator;
the hated then become those who are constructed as the source of injury ‘through a dis-
course of pain’ (Ahmed, 2004: 118). Hate in circulation works through what Ahmed calls
‘stickiness’, that is through sticking figures together (adherence). This, in turn, creates a
form of metonymic coherence; in order to accomplish this coherence, hate discourses use
signs of difference and displacement. Figures such as the ‘asylum seeker’ or the ‘terror-
ist’ become signifiers of difference, indicating who belongs and who doesn’t. They oper-
ate through displacement, that is, working as stand-ins or substitutes for other objects
that are feared or hated. For difference and displacement and ultimately for hate to stick
to some communities, the discourses used must evoke a past history of relationships of
difference and displacement that is tacitly known by members of the community. In this
sense, they must map on existing and familiar signs, discourses and practices.
Following Ahmed’s (2004) construction of hate as social rather than individual, it is
evident that it is called upon to serve certain social functions, which Ahmed locates at the
level of social organisation and belongingness. Equally, given that hate circulates through
1260 Journalism 22(5)

discourse (text and speech) it can be seen as performative in the sense of a speech act,
which has a dual orientation: one towards the object of the discourse, the ‘hated’, and one
towards the audience of this discourse. The work of Chouliaraki (2010) is instructive
here. Discussing humanitarian communication, she argues that in its performative dimen-
sion it establishes an emotional connection between mediated suffering and spectators.
In doing so, it constitutes this collectivity as a body of action (Chouliaraki, 2010: 110).
In practice, this is accomplished through mediated discourse operating as a kind of moral
education, offering proposals as to how spectators should feel and therefore act, which
become further entrenched through repetition and habituation.
We make these distinctions because, as we hope to show in our analysis, the focus on
hate and the emphasis on the affective dimension is what distinguishes the form of journal-
ism that we are studying from what the literature understands as right wing alternative
media (Haller et al., 2019). Alternative media are understood primarily through their rela-
tionship to the mainstream. They can, in principle, host a variety of viewpoints and political
positions, but are united in their stance that they are being treated unfairly in the main-
stream media. Haller and Holt (2019) note that right wing political parties are forming
increasingly close connections to right wing alternative media, while their rising popularity
has enabled some of them to professionalise. Despite a discourse of exclusion, mainstream
media often use or host materials from these media and right wing politicians. In this sense,
it seems that such media are getting more and more close to the mainstream, transitioning
from a counter-hegemony to a new hegemony (Cammaerts, 2018).
Research on the right wing alternative media has shown the ways in which such media
connect or disconnect from the mainstream (Holt, 2018), the construction of alternative,
revisionist accounts of history and collective memory (Wasilewski, 2019); the similari-
ties and differences from the mainstream in covering key issues such as migration
(Nordheim et al., 2019), and the motivations of users/readers of such media (Noppari
et al., 2019).
While this research has undoubtedly contributed significant insights, there is a ten-
dency to sanitise the discourses that some of these outlets host, by understanding them
from a media centric perspective as alternative media. A close examination of the consti-
tution of their discourses, and especially of the ways in which these outlets contribute to
the affective economy of hate, may provide both a more in depth understanding of their
socio-political functions and an understanding of their position within the journalistic
ecosystem. There are open questions regarding the political function of their storytelling,
and the role of hate specifically, especially in a context characterised by profound uncer-
tainty. For the most part the literature on far-right media has seen them in terms of their
ideology or relationship to mainstream media but has not focused on the context of their
production or their business models, and did not seek to connect the contents and con-
texts of production. In addressing these omissions, the remainder of this article examines
two issues: the role of hate in far-right journalism, and the extent to which the mobilisa-
tion of hate sustains this new form of journalism, born from and in a moment of crisis. In
doing so, we are looking to connect the affective economy of hate with the political
economy of crisis and locate journalism within this.
Siapera and Papadopoulou 1261

Research approach and methodology

On the basis of the above discussion, we pose the following questions: How is hate pro-
duced, constructed and mobilised in the far-right journalistic outlets? What are its
functions?
To approach these questions empirically we focus on a particular outlet, Makeleio,
because of its wide popularity and reach. We collected and analysed 96 print editions
(each containing approximately 30 articles) of Makeleio during May–August 2018 and
complemented the analysis with materials from the website Makeleio.gr, ranked number
16 in Greece by the web analytics company Alexa. The sampling of the print edition of
Makeleio does not seek to capture any particularly significant event or series of events;
rather we sought to understand the everyday operations and discourses of the paper and
its digital presence. The materials were analysed through Critical Discourse Analysis
(CDA), which focuses on the way social power, dominance and inequality are enacted,
reproduced, legitimated or challenged by text and talk in the social and political context
(Van Dijk, 2001). This approach enables us to focus not only on the signifiers that make
up the text, (i.e. the specific linguistic selections, their juxtapositioning, their sequenc-
ing), but also on the historical and cultural dimensions of these selections. As Fairclough
(1995) conceptualised it, CDA looks beyond the textual elements and seeks to integrate
an analysis of relations between discourse with other elements of the social process. In
this manner, his approach is compatible with Ahmed’s (2004) critical approach to emo-
tions as social practices expressed through linguistic and visual signs.
For Fairclough (1992), analysing discourse is a synergy of three levels of analysis: the
actual text; producing, distributing, transforming and consuming the texts (discursive
practice); and the larger social context which may have influenced the creation of the
texts (social-practice) – which takes into consideration the underlying socio-cultural and
power structures in society. As he points out, the analysis of a specific piece of text calls
for analysis across each of these three levels and their interrelations. This process requires
a continual movement back and forth among the levels of analysis.
Taking the above into consideration, we follow in theoretical terms Ahmed’s affective
economy of hate and in methodological terms Fairclough’s three levels of analysis in
order to unveil the multitude of ways in which hate is formulated and mobilised in far-
right outlets focusing on the most popular one in Greece, Makeleio. Since we seek to
connect the affective economy of hate to the political economy of journalism, we begin
with a discussion of the context and process of production of Makeleio.

The political economy of ‘hate journalism’

Previous research (Iosifidis and Boucas, 2015; Siapera et al., 2015) has discussed the
profound crisis for journalism in Greece. In the last 15 years, the field has seen the col-
lapse of historical news titles, an unemployment rate estimated at 30%, and very high
levels of precarious and unpaid labour. The issue of the sustainability of journalistic
outlets is at the forefront of discussions on the state of the news in Greece (Siapera and
Papadopoulou, 2016). It is within this context that the field has seen the emergence of a
handful of far-right newspapers. These include the titles Golden Dawn, Empros,
1262 Journalism 22(5)

Makeleio, Stochos, Eleftheros Kosmos, Eleftheri Ora. Most of these titles have very low
circulations, on average less than 2500 copies per day. Golden Dawn, Empros, Eleftheros
Kosmos and Stochos are directly linked with the far-right Golden Dawn and were receiv-
ing subsidies from the party. Specifically, each of the party’s local organisations had to
buy a large number of copies and sell them to its members and supporters, a strategy of
‘forced subscription’. For the most part these newspapers followed the fate of their party.
As support for the Golden Dawn gradually diminished, circulation figures dropped dra-
matically. Empros ceased operations in November 2019.
The trajectory of Makeleio is different. It began life as a TV show, presented by
Stefanos Chios. This was broadcast by various Greek media, until it was removed from
the air because of its inappropriate and offensive contents. The show moved online and
in January 2015, Makeleio appeared for the first time in print. While Makeleio is linked
ideologically to nationalist and far-right politics, it does not have a formal relationship
with any political party and Stefanos Chios has publicly fallen out with the leader of the
Golden Dawn in 2016. This is important because Makeleio’s lack of any connections to
far-right political parties enable it to capture broader audiences and avoid the fate of
other far-right titles that were dependent on party support.
According to data provided by the Athens Daily Newspaper Publishers Association,
Makeleio sells around 6000 copies daily, and is ranked 5th out of 15 afternoon dailies.
Makeleio is formally listed as an afternoon daily, enjoying access to national distribution.
Its website Makeleio.gr is ranked by Alexa as 16th in Greece, well above the website of
ERT, the public service broadcaster, which is ranked 56th. Makeleio costs €0.80, so we
estimate its gross revenue at around €115,200 per month since it publishes six editions a
week. While it is difficult to estimate its expenditure, it is evident that it tries to keep its
operational costs very low, printing fewer pages than average (24 compared to an aver-
age of 40), and is run by a very small editorial team. Taking into consideration Picard’s
(2004) estimations that ‘back shop’ activities (e.g. printing costs) account for 30% to
35% of a newspaper’s operating expenses, and administration, distribution and editorial
costs contribute about 10% each to operating expenses, it is evident that Makeleio is
financially viable. It should be noted that Makeleio does not host advertisements and
relies on revenue from sales exclusively; the website Makeleio.gr hosts only one adver-
tisement by an online gambling site (stoixima.com.gr). While the brand is associated
with Stefanos Chios, he appears as an ‘editorial consultant’ to Makeleio, which is owned
by a company called Makeleio S.A., possibly to avoid personal liability for the many
lawsuits he has to deal with. Indeed, Chios has faced several lawsuits for slander, libel,
hate speech and incitement to violence. Chios makes a point of presenting Makeleio as
an ‘one man show’: ‘Makeleio newspaper relies only on Stefanos Chios’ signature. Only
he knows how he manages to pull it through’.1
In political economic terms, we see that Makeleio emerges as a financially successful
journalistic enterprise in a context that has seen other far-right but also mainstream pub-
lications going bankrupt. Its revenue comes entirely from sales and its operational costs
are kept low. The website hosts a greater variety of contents, usually pulled from press
agencies and other online outlets. Makeleio.gr does not post the print edition online,
although it regularly features teasers, photographs of the print covers, and occasionally
article ledes. The business model on which Makeleio relies therefore is one in which it
Siapera and Papadopoulou 1263

sells access to its contents exclusively to those that buy the print newspaper and uses its
website and social media in order to sustain its community of readers and promote its
contents.

The affective economy of ‘hate journalism’

Bearing the above discussion in mind, we to identify the ways in which hate is con-
structed and circulated, following Fairclough’s (1992) three levels of analysis. We seek
to identify the language and vocabularies alongside the contextual elements that connect
the texts to ideologies, with the aim of identifying the role played by hate in this kind of
journalism.

The language of hate

The first level in the three-dimensional framework proposed by Fairclough, is the actual
text and the linguistic choices made that describe the contents of the discourse. Makeleio’s
language uses the informal vocabulary of everyday exchanges, employing casual expres-
sions and swear words, paying little attention to grammar and syntactical cohesion.
Ungrammatical sentences are common, and sentence formation often appears as a tran-
scribed conversation. The typical linguistic features we encountered include the use of an
informal vocabulary, the frequent use of vulgarities, slang and offensive expressions.
The language used is vernacular, using swearwords and slurs, ungrammatical expres-
sions, multiple exclamations marks and hyperboles which are not ordinarily encountered
in mainstream journalism and its formal, ‘proper’ use of language.
Often, Makeleio’s linguistic choices become aggressive, (‘sit down and talk already,
you sh@t people!’), indicating anger and expressed with multiple insulting adjectives
(‘You unrepentant, bloodthirsty, gangster-like Bolshevik butchers’, ‘lazy dogs’, ‘com-
mies’, ‘crooks’ and so on) and neologisms (‘tsontokanala’/porn channels to refer to TV
broadcasters). In most cases, those addressed through this language (mainstream journal-
ists and politicians, migrants, homosexuals) are constituted as a threat. In this manner,
Makeleio is this is a means of constructing difference drawing upon an inventory of lin-
guistic and rhetorical tools and strategies that sharpen a ‘self’ versus ‘other’ dichotomy,
as illustrated in the use and prevalence of opposing plural pronouns (e.g. ‘we’ and ‘us’,
vs ‘them’ and ‘they’).
Makeleio is further making use of metaphors, which often take extreme forms. For
example, migrants are regularly described through dehumanising metaphors, using ani-
mal imagery (‘lathro-pithikoi’/illegal apes) and military terms (‘Τhere will be blood in
the nest of the invaders’, 25/5/2018). Mainstream journalists are described as ‘parrots’,
left wingers as ‘bolsheviks’, and politicians as ‘traitors’. For example, during the nego-
tiations with North Macedonia, Makeleio reported that ‘The government was bribed with
a truck full of money to falsify our history. 11 billion pieces of silver for our betrayal’
(8/6/2018). Homosexuality is presented as a despised and sick vice that is in total con-
trast to the ideal of the heroic masculine Greek (‘Filthy homosexuals have turned into a
brothel the sacred land where 300 men of Sparta’s king, Leonidas, were sacrificed’,
1/6/2018). Greece’s recent legislation that allows homosexual couples to foster children
1264 Journalism 22(5)

prompted strong reactions and Makeleio featured headlines such as ‘Greek parliament
turned into a brothel. Parade of faggots, trans and perverts for the shameful bill that will
allow child fostering by same sex couples. Syriza’s MP’s wear wigs and garter belts and
engage in cruising’ (9/5/2018). Gay men are always referred to using homophobic slurs,
the pejorative use of female pronouns, and through descriptions of sexual acts (‘pisoglen-
tis’, ‘aderfi’, ‘poustis’).
It is rare to see women feature without any references to their sexuality and sexual
allure (or lack of). Makeleio has very often referred to prominent women as ‘whores’
(‘poutanes’) and ‘sluts’ (‘tsoula’). A former female Syriza minister was referred to as
‘old hag’ (‘mpampogria’). Their power is located mainly in their success in ‘seducing’
men. For instance, an article on a female MP described her as ‘crawling on her hands and
knees and opening men’s trouser zippers with her mouth’ (10/8/2018). Women are also
described as cunning and crafty, manipulating men. For example, the wife of Kyriakos
Mitsotakis, the current prime minister of Greece, was described as a spider that caught
him in her web and would ‘throw him away like a stray dog if he fails to become PM’
(30/5/2018). By using such characterisations, Makeleio is attacking not only women but
also the idea that women have a place in public life.
The use of neologisms is another linguistic characteristic, with terms such as
‘lathroisvolis’ (illegal invaders) and in general the word ‘lathro’ (‘illegal’) which is
generically used to refer to any migrant, claiming an a priori unlawful and criminal
status for migrants. Hyperbolic expressions, often in bold, very large capital letters are
used in almost all headlines: for example, Hell, Lament, Bomb, Nuclear Revelations,
Filth, Whores, Horror, have all been used in headlines. While this type of hyperbolic
language is not uncommon in the tabloid press, the difference is better understood as
one of degree, since Makeleio takes the language one step further, through constructing
new terms, printing vulgarities and slurs, and directly attacking individuals and groups
which are not only constructed as ‘other’ but are targeted through negative emotions
such as hate, anger and fear. Through these, the identity constructed as ‘normal’ is ethni-
cally Greek, Christian Orthodox, anti-communist, male gendered and heterosexual.
In short, through these linguistic choices, Makeleio is mobilising signs of difference
as discussed by Ahmed, constituting certain others as threatening, inferior, and deserving
of hate, replacing the formal language of journalism with a popular vernacular associated
with the ‘common people’. Through this, Makeleio is looking to achieve two goals: the
first is to draw a line separating itself from mainstream journalism; and the second is to
diminish any distance from its readers, presenting itself as ‘one of them’, sharing their
vocabulary, expressing their thoughts and anger, and facing the same threats.

Hate as discursive practice

The relationship between text and social practice is bridged by discursive practice, which
involves the interpretation of text with its context (Blommaert and Bulcaen, 2000: 449),
including the context of its production, and the closing off of other interpretative possi-
bilities. The linguistic choices described constitute performative speech acts, in that they
bring about what they describe. However, for these choices to make sense, texts must
allude and connect to other texts, bringing together disparate elements while seeking to
Siapera and Papadopoulou 1265

achieve coherence. At this level, an overall narrative is constructed, foreclosing other

interpretations and meanings. The elements of performativity and intertextuality are
important because they make connections between disparate elements and have direct
and immediate outcomes. In Makeleio, we found that the use of textual conventions that
allude to investigative journalism are linked with conspiracy theories, ostensible ‘truth
telling’ and simplified narratives of victimisation and scapegoating. Through these,
Makeleio seeks to establish its credibility as a journalistic outlet and use this to legitimate
its worldviews and especially its construction and targeting of specific groups with nega-
tive emotions.
A crucial element of discursive practice concerns the production of text, which
includes the material and practical aspects of the work that goes into this production.
While we discussed earlier the political economy of Makeleio, at this level we are look-
ing to outline in more detail the connections between the business model and the dis-
course of hate produced by Makeleio. We focus on the role of the ‘editorial consultant’2
of Makeleio, Stefanos Chios. Chios has been a professional journalist, and former mem-
ber of journalist professional bodies (ESPIT and ESIEA), and therefore familiar with
journalistic practices and conventions. He has continuous public spats with politicians,
other journalists, and members of the public, and has been convicted for libel at least
three times. He regularly uses these incidents as evidence of his ‘anti-systemic’ creden-
tials. It is noteworthy that all these convictions result in hefty fines, while court appear-
ances are costly even if they do not result in fines.
This implies that the production of material that is likely to result in lawsuits and pos-
sible convictions must make financial sense for Makeleio. We suggest that ultimately the
production of such contents is profitable because it secures the ‘anti-systemic’ creden-
tials of the paper and a regular readership that may have fled if the paper moderated its
discourse. The production of such ‘anti-systemic’ discourses that develop a whole world-
view rest on the production and reproduction of three narratives; the persecution of
Greece; the persecution of men; and the corruption of the elites. A meta-narrative that
sustains these is that Makeleio is doing the proper job of journalism which is to uncover
the truth and speak for the people.
Specifically, the style of Makeleio imitates that of investigative journalism, promising
revelations, investigations, and acting as the ‘custodian of public interest’.3 It makes use
of two related practices, conspiracy theories and scapegoating, to construct a narrative in
which Greece as essentially a nation of ethnically Greek, Christian Orthodox, hetero-
sexual men, is under attack by a corrupt world system. This revolves around three types
of conspiracies that are used to explain current events. The first constructs a geopolitical
world of villains and heroes, where ‘globalists’ ‘traitors’ and ‘enemies’ are pitted against
‘patriots’ and the ‘people’, and every country and every politician have to fit in this mold
(for example: ‘Schizoid Erdogan: I will join forces with Putin, invade the Aegean sea and
take ten islands from you’ 14/8/2018). A second conspiracy concerns the usurpation of
the power of ‘real men’ by homosexuals and women: ‘All the “whores” of the traitor that
pimped society: a pack of she-wolves’ referring to Syriza’s women politicians, 10/3/2019.
A third conspiracy concerns the corrupt elites of politicians, intellectuals, and journalists:
‘They were all in on it: he ate [money/bribes] like a horse’ referring to the journalist
Kostas Vaxevanis 25/2/1019. These conspiracies are meant to reveal that Greece is under
1266 Journalism 22(5)

attack by global political actors, women, homosexuals, and corrupt local elites, and they
feature simplified explanations of events in terms of a black and white morality, where
villains and ‘abnormal’ people are clearly separated from ‘normal’ everyday men, who
are essentially ‘the people’. These three conspiracies are used to explain almost all events
and news that take place in Greece.
For example, migration and the refugee issue are explained as the outcome of a global
conspiracy to ‘flood’ Greece (and Europe) with Muslims, whose non-Christian and cul-
turally ‘other’ identity is incompatible with Greek identity. Migrants and refugees are
therefore seen as the ‘tools’ by which the globalist elite seeks to weaken Greece. Makeleio
supports these contentions through focusing on crime, such as murders, thefts, and rapes;
highlighting state support and social benefits given to migrants ostensibly at the expense
of ethnic Greeks; and pointing to cultural differences that emphasise the inferiority of
migrants. For example, Makeleio features a daily column titled ‘Foreigners’ Criminality
Report’ which records criminal acts attributed to migrants. Migrants are also targeted on
account of their religion (‘Islamists ride horses at night, attack and shoot’ 16/5/2018).
The combination of the conspiracies against Greece and the construction of migrants
as part of these conspiracies posits their physical removal as the only solution. This
‘solution’ often involves a direct incitement to violence. A notorious example comes
from Makeleio’s front page on April 15, 2015, that depicts refugees arriving in Greece
from Turkey as cannibals with the headline ‘Throw them into the sea because they will
eat us alive’.
Similarly, politicians, especially those associated with the centre-left party Syriza, are
seen as ‘enforcers’ of the global elites, with violence against them pegged as the solution.
In general, centrist and leftist politics and the media (or generally ‘the system’) are con-
structed as ultimately responsible for the attack against Greece. Makeleio is amplifying
but also perverting the anger and humiliation felt by many Greeks during the past decade
of the acure financial crisis by constructing simplified narratives that ‘reveal’ the ‘truth’
of what happened and who is responsible, and then proposing specific actions. Through
blaming specific others, ‘normal’ Greek people are guided towards dealing with their
anger and humiliation through displacement as Ahmed (2004) showed: migrants, women,
gays, leftists and Jews (standing in for ‘global elites’), represent fear, anger, and humili-
ation and ultimately become the hated thing themselves. In this manner, Makeleio seeks
to offer solace to Greeks who have suffered from austerity by pointing the finger on who
is to blame and how to restore national pride. Against this background of threats, traitors
and conspiracies, Makeleio’s ‘editorial consultant’, Stefanos Chios reserves for himself a
messianic role posing as a ‘punisher-avenger’ that has taken on the mission to expose
these lies and declare a state of emergency concerning the nation’s survival. This allows
him to construct the various lawsuits as part of a persecution against him, fitting them
into the conspiracy narratives while also making profit through them.

Discourse-as-social-practice
The last level in Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework, sociocultural practice, is
based on the understanding of the wider socio-cultural, political, ideological and histori-
cal context and structures surrounding the text and their associated discourses. In this
Siapera and Papadopoulou 1267

Figure 1. Makeleio’s front page (3/6/2018).

step, the analysis aims to explain the logic underpinning these texts, and shed a light on
the underlying power relations which can then be used to understand their socio-political
functions (Waller, 2006).
Following this line of thought, we found that Makeleio’s discourse draws heavily on
the triptych ‘Patris-Thriskeia-Oikogeneia’ (Fatherland, Religion, Family) that was asso-
ciated with the politics and propaganda of authoritarian regimes and which is closely
associated with the military junta that ruled Greece in the 1970s (Gazi, 2013). In this
context, Makeleio relies on and subsequently encapsulates and reproduces deeply rooted
ideologies, such as nationalism, patriarchy, orthodox Christianity, fixation on a glorious
and heroic past, and homophobia.
In upholding these ideologies, Makeleio insists on punishment of the transgressors as
the only means of redemption and invites readers to initiate, take part or support actions
of violence. While for the most part this incitement to violence is implied, occasionally
it takes an overt form. For example, Makeleio’s front page on June 13, 2018, staged a
photoshopped ‘execution’, in which the then prime minister, the president of Greece, and
the foreign secretary face a firing squad for supposedly ‘selling out’ Greece’s ‘exclusive’
right to the name Macedonia. Its headline read ‘[execute them] at eight meters, like
Beloyiannis’, referring to Nikos Beloyannis, a Greek communist leader who was exe-
cuted in 1952. The front page (see Figure 1) further featured photoshopped images of the
1268 Journalism 22(5)

bloodied faces of these politicians. This front page led to the arrest of Stefanos Chios on
the grounds of incitement to violence, feeding into his narrative of persecution, which
functions as a selling point.
The analysis of Makeleio’s discourse as sociocultural practice relates to Ahmed’s
(2004) notion of the affective economy of hate operating though a history that is unde-
clared but known to all. For good measure, Makeleio reproduces some of this history
through its own lens, focusing on the glory of Byzantium, the ‘crimes’ of communists in
the civil war, and refering to the military dictatorship as a ‘revolution’ undertaken in the
interests of the nation. Its openly misogynist, xenophobic, nationalist and populist hate
draws on available cultural sources for meaning and legitimacy (Baider and Constantinou,
2014). But in reproducing them in its own way, it effectively reclaims these cultural
sources as its own, positioning itself as the only legitimate carrier of ‘patriotic’ Greek
traditions and culture, and reinforcing its position as a journalistic outlet that expresses
and connects with the ‘real’ people’. In this manner, Makeleio succeeds in producing and
circulating hate as a ‘hook’ to attract and entice readers, by mirroring their emotions, and
channelling them through deeply rooted national stereotypes based on the core doctrines
of conservatism: traditionalism, patriarchal family, religious values and morality.
Makeleio’s hate journalism has therefore two outcomes: an ideological and a material
one. Ideologically, it is used to constitute an imagined community of those who share the
same ideology, religion, and culture, stigmatising certain communities and eventually
legitimising actions to subjugate and control them (Kopytowska et al., 2017). Materially,
it establishes and reinforces the position of Makeleio as a journalistic outlet for this imag-
ined community of patriots, who are then asked to support it financially, precisely
because it is the only newspaper that represents them.

Conclusion: The political functions of hate journalism

We began this article by discussing the crisis of journalism and the more general context
of socio-political and economic crisis and uncertainty. We conceive public emotion as an
avenue through which to frame and manage uncertainty. In doing this, we seek to bind
affect to the material circumstances in which it arises and is expressed. We argue that
expressions of negative emotions such as hate should be understood both in terms of the
material circumstances they are produced in, and in terms of their affective dimensions.
To understand the operation of public negative emotions such as hate, we adopted
Ahmed’s (2004) perspective of the affective economy of hate, whereby hate circulates,
operating through difference and displacement, accruing on certain bodies and social
groups; in circulating, emotion is performative and oriented towards action.
In empirical terms, we focused on a publication that is ideologically associated with
the far-right, as it constitutes an important case study of ‘hate journalism’ and the politi-
cal functions it serves. To understand how this kind of journalism may impact society, we
identify two dimensions: an ideological and a material one. We understand the ideologi-
cal dimension as social reproduction, building on the work of Chouliaraki (2010) who
views mediated emotion as contributing to the moral education of spectators. By social
reproduction we refer to the ways in which the current social values and general common
sense are reproduced, sustaining social relationships. For feminist theorists,
Siapera and Papadopoulou 1269

social reproduction refers to the labour that is necessary in ‘maintaining a sustainable

environment or satisfying emotional needs’ (Brown et al., 2013: 78). If we extend this
beyond the interpersonal level, we can see that journalism has an important role to play
in social reproduction, through curating the (legitimate) expression and management of
public emotions. In other words, it can socialise readers in terms of what is appropriate
to feel towards certain others. This is accomplished primarily through building upon and
borrowing from what is already there, as we saw in the preceding analysis. Hate journal-
ism as practised by Makeleio is therefore not so much a pathological version of society
but a ‘pathological normalcy’ to use the phrase of Mudde (2010: 1178); it is ‘well con-
nected to mainstream ideas and much in tune with broadly shared mass attitudes and
policy positions’. In these terms, rather than opposing, or being at the margins of the
mainstream, hate journalism is radicalising mainstream views, taking them a few steps
further along the same path.
Specifically, our analysis showed that Makeleio’s hate journalism is mirroring, repro-
ducing, and reinforcing the nationalist, xenophobic, misogynist, homophobic and anti-
Semitic values of conservative Greece. At the same time, it amplifies them by expressing
them in less moderate and more radical forms. In doing so, it validates the feelings of its
readers, who recognise themselves and their practices and vernacular in all this. For
some, this is a validation of what they were already feeling; for others, it may help chan-
nel their anxieties by offering an outlet and a form of release. In this manner, readers are
consoled and offered solace and comfort within an unmoored world. They, in turn, offer
support to this journalism through consuming it. This is what we identify as the material
dimension: in political economic terms, Makeleio has achieved financial success and
sustainability precisely because of its role in the affective economy of hate: in this way,
the political and affective economy of hate sustain one another. It is worth noting, finally,
that the success of this outlet in a very tough environment for journalism in Greece
entails the possibility of emulation, since selling hate has proven to be a recipe for finan-
cial sustainability.
The ‘solutions’ offered by hate are clear: the hated groups must be deported, annihi-
lated, subjugated so that social equilibrium can return. Everything will then fall back into
place and Greece will be restored to its rightful place. Politically speaking, therefore,
hate journalism is redirecting social energies towards regressive social values and
authoritarian positions, positing these as the solution to capitalist crisis.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this
article.

Notes
1. Found in this article: shorturl.at/bwxKU [shortened url]. In fact, we identified five different
authors of articles on Makeleio.gr, using the pseudonyms ‘Amartolos’ [Dimitris], ‘Patriot’
[Chryssa], ‘Katadotis’ [koukos], ‘Enimerotis’ [Thanos] and ‘Makelaris’ [Stefanos] which
seems to be the pseudonym of Stefanos Chios himself. The print edition has no signed articles.
2. This term (in Greek: σύμβουλος έκδοσης’) is used in Makeleio S.A. to refer to Chios in an
effort to deflect personal liability for lawsuits, as both publisher and editor in chief would be
personally liable for costs of lawsuits and fines.
1270 Journalism 22(5)

3. Makeleio.gr typically posts online teasers for its print editions, accompanied by this text: ‘We
continue without rest the revelations and the struggle for a free and independent homeland.
- The national is what is true
- Truth is people’s truth
- Those who hide the truth are enemies of the people and we must get expose them with the
reporting and journalistic revelations as guardians-together with the public opinion – of the
people’s interest.’ – for example here: shorturl.at/aIST6

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Author biographies
Eugenia Siapera is a professor and head of the School of Information and Communication Studies
at University College Dublin, where she is also the director of the UCD Centre in Digital Policy.
She is the editor of Online Information Review and her research interests are in the areas of digital
media, journalism, race and racism, feminism and gender, hate speech, and in general questions of
digital media and inequality. Her most recent book is Gender Hate Online: Understanding the New
Anti-Feminism (Palgrave, 2019, co-edited with Debbie Ging).
Lambrini Papadopoulou is a teaching fellow at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications
at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) and is also a print media journalist. She holds a
BA in Journalism (School of Journalism and Mass Communications, AUTH, Greece), an MA in
New Media and Journalism (School of Journalism and Mass Communications, AUTH, Greece)
and a PhD in Journalism and Media Business Models (Department of Communication, Media &
Culture, Panteion University, Greece). She is a member of the International Federation of
Journalists and the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA).