Online memories of 1980s–2000s lifestyle and consumption politics in Greece during the current economic crisis (2009–2015)

Abstract

Lifestyle media very successfully promoted (conspicuous) consumption as a major referent in the social and cultural convergence between Greece and Western Europe between the mid-1980s and the late 2000s. Perceiving the Internet as a crucial component of the contemporary public sphere where testimonial cultures abound, this article explores how during the current economic crisis particular communities of web users dealt with the breakdown of previous consumer certainties, placing emphasis on the downfall of the lifestyle media industry and on how and why publisher Petros Kostopoulos is discussed as a metonym of this media field. Using comments published below articles about the collapse of lifestyle in popular media and posts in a popular men’s forum, the article examines the uses of contemporary history in the construction of arguments about the origins of the current crisis and explores how the dismantlement of recent consumer utopias echoed questions of Europeanization and often carried traumatic loads.

Keep calm and carry on: European consumers and the development of persistent resilience in the face of austerity

“…Often families undergo chronic long-term stressors as a result of unemployment (e.g. Zestanakis, 2018) with financial adaptations ranging from relying on savings, borrowing from family and friends, increased work effort and use of mainstream credit (Bartfield and Collins, 2017). Similar to the chronic stressor of long-term unemployment during the recession of 1970s (McCubbin et al, 1980;Moen, 1979), the effects of austerity persist for many consumers in the EU.…”

From Media Idiom to Political Argument: Uses of "Lifestyle" in the Early Years of the Greek Crisis, 2009–2015

“…If images aim to stimulate emotions, in this case interactions between images and audiences were taken for granted, while the fact that audiences actively chose to consume such media, contributing to their popularization, was concealed. Moreover, by presenting lifestyle as a hegemonic media idiom, these media constructed audiences as unavoidably enthusiastic proponents of lifestyle, when in reality many readers had only casual exposure to lifestyle as, for instance, through information on nightlife they came across in the magazines they purchased (Zestanakis 2018). This indicates that consumers somehow negotiated representations in lifestyle discourses, pursuing those compatible with their needs, a process corroborating the fluid character of media power.…”

“…The empowerment of audiences in such cases is pivotal to the proliferation of information production (Appadurai 1996, 22) and the propagation of public discourses about the past through both media and pop culture (Kurasawa 2009;Reynolds 2011). In such mediascapes, conflicts are often developed through interactive social media, and the polarized mediascape of the Greek crisis is not an exception to this rule (Zestanakis 2018). Through a process of remediation, newer media often achieve cultural singularity by mimicking and refashioning older media (Papacharissi 2010, 64).…”

“…Simultaneously, such analyses can be seen as reflective of theories of cultural hegemony (Carah and Louw 2018, 2-3), presenting lifestyle as a hegemonic media idiom able to manipulate the consumerist attitudes of audiences. The third simplification concerns the excessive influence attributed to publisher Petros Kostopoulos, a figure who exemplified the heyday and decline of lifestyle media (Zestanakis 2018). Kostopoulos was seen as associating lifestyle and its supposedly corrupting values with PASOK, the party that had dominated Greek politics between the 1980s and 2000s and with which Kostopoulos had personal relations.…”

Η Μνήμη Της Κρίσης: Κοινωνικές Συνιστώσες Της Οικονομικής Ύφεσης Στον Επιστημονικό Και Βιωματικό Λόγο

“…Δηδηθφηεξα, ε κειέηε ηεο Petrova (2018) (Daskalaki et al, 2019• Drakaki andTzionas, 2017), ε νπνία δε δηαθαίλεηαη απαξαίηεηα ζηηο κειέηεο γηα ηε δξάζε νξγαλσκέλσλ πξσηνβνπιηψλ αιιειεγγχεο (πξβι. Chatzidakis, 2014• Papadaki and Kalogeraki, 2018• Vaiou and Kalandides, 2018 (Tziovas, 2017) θαη ην θνηλσληθφ παξειζφλ (Knight, 2012• Knight, 2015• Zestanakis, 2018…”