The media construction of the financial market crisis in a comparative perspective – An analysis of newspapers in UK, USA and Switzerland between 2007 and 2009

Abstract

This paper focuses on the patterns discerned in the communicative construction of economic crises by the media. The media reporting on the recent financial crisis in 2007–2009 was examined within a country-comparative analysis (Switzerland, UK, USA). It transpires that the threat implicit in the crisis increases to the degree that the media can describe it as a “system crisis” spreading like an epidemic and producing an increasing number of victims. The answer to the question whether the quality of the discourse denotes a fundamental break with the prevailing neo-liberal model of society is no. Given the strong focus of the media reports on single personalities, the demands for radical reforms were largely sidelined in the public debate.