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“The Power of Language”: Young People in Greece as “Scapegoats” in Covid-19 Crisis
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.
2021 (English)In: HAPSc Policy Briefs Series, ISSN 2732-6578, Vol. 2, no 2, p. 9-13Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Governments around the globe take measures to protect citizens against the coronavirus threat. At the end of the day, security becomes a top priority issue and therefore is included in almost every policy agenda. In light of this, some governments seem to victimize certain social groups when they are incapable o faddressing successfully the health crisis of Covid-19. An indicative example is the Greek government’s tactic (New Democracy Party) to blame young people for the spread of the virus, while the real ‘culprit’, according to some (Tziantzi & Papadopoulou, 2020), was the restart of tourist industry that resulted in a sharp rise of the Corona incidents. In doing so, language was the key ‘vehicle’ for this purpose along with statistical numbers, but the latter is a whole different discussion that this paper is not going to open. On the contrary, this paper constitutes a problematization on the usage of language for political reasons. Language is not a neutral tool but plays the games of political elites, while it has the power to create new scapegoats. Is this a wise political choice when Greek society encounters so many problems related to the Covid-19 pandemic? Logical reasoning says no. Will young people be the only exception to this rule? Certainty not, today new scapegoats come into light: citizens who refuse to be vaccinated and/or the sprayed’ ones.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Hellenic Association of Political Scientists , 2021. Vol. 2, no 2, p. 9-13
Keywords [en]
language, ruling party, young individuals, scapegoats, victimization, coronavirus
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-97459DOI: 10.12681/hapscpbs.29486OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-97459DiVA, id: diva2:1637023
Available from: 2022-02-11 Created: 2022-02-11 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
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  • Other style
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