The discourse of fear: The financial crisis in the international news media

• Author: Marta Martínez De Hurtado - María Antonia Urquía
• Profession: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos - Madrid
• Pages: 409-423

THE DISCOURSE OF FEAR: THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

IN THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS MEDIA

Marta Martínez de Hurtado

María Antonia Urquía

Universidad Rey Juan Carlos - Madrid

INTRODUCTION

Most experts on the subject seem to agree that the present global finan-

cial crisis, we are now facing, started to show its effects in the middle of 2007

and into 2008. At that time, stock markets around the world started to fall,

large financial institutions dramatically collapsed or were urgently bought

out, and governments in even the wealthiest of nations had to come up with

rescue packages to guarantee their financial systems. This ongoing pheno-

menon is considered by many economists to be the worst financial crisis ever

since the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Asian crisis in 1997.

Specialists have pointed out several causes with varying importance for

the financial crisis, among the best known and most relevant ones, the Uni-

ted States housing bubble which peaked approximately between 2005 and

2006 and the international valuation and liquidity problems apart from

many others. The Levin-Coburn Report1 describes the situation as follows:

“the crisis was not a natural disaster, but the result of high risk, complex

financial products; undisclosed conflicts of interest; and the failure of regu-

lators, the credit rating agencies, and the market itself to rein in the excesses

of Wall Street”.

But whatever the causes, which economists have yet to agree upon,

people’s main concern is that this global financial meltdown is affecting the

lives of practically everyone in a gradually more interrelated world. Its social

impact is expected to be massive and enduring, with more and more job los-

ses, less income and wages, less purchasing power and social spending, with

increasing hunger, houses lost, new investment postponed and a decelerated

1 The Levin Coburn Report on the Financial Crisis by Carl Levin & Tom Coburn: http://www.

levin.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/us-senate-investigations-subcommittee-releases-levin-co-

burn-report-on-the-financial-crisis