Cooperative media and the politics of class: Exploring post-capitalist logics in the cooperative media of Ef.Syn and AlterThess

This chapter problematizes three critiques of cooperativism by reflecting on new forms of workers cooperativism in Greece. Although there are many insightful inquiries addressing the role of class and media (Pleios 2011; Smyrnaios 2010), our chapter aims to contribute to such debates by examining how modern cooperativism practices can problematize and inform the construction of a post-capitalist imaginary. In doing so, we explore a sector of cooperative activity that has received less attention in the recent literature that deals with the wave of new cooperativism in Greece. Our research follows a case-study research design (Yin 2009), and is based on desk and document research, as well as qualitative interviews with members of two worker-owned media cooperatives, namely Efimerida ton Syntakton (the Editors’ Newspaper; hereafter Ef.Syn) and AlterThess. We start with our problematization of working-class politics and the trade-unionist critique of cooperativism. We then set out our theoretical framework that is informed by a post-structuralist understanding of class and adopt a Political Discourse Theory approach, before we develop our analysis of the cooperativist practices of Ef.Syn and AlterThess.