Hospitality, as a moral category for thinking about the relationship with the ‘foreigner’ has underlined both public and academic debates on what has been largely described as the ‘European refugee crisis’ over the last five years. Stemming from the assumption that hospitality, as an ethical public disposition towards the refugees, is highly mediated and dependent on migrants’ visibility on media platforms, a wide range of studies have explored how European media reported on the perceived crisis. Empirically drawing upon focus group discussions with Greek audiences in Athens, this presentation moves beyond the media-centric focus of the existing media research and discusses citizen engagement with the media coverage of the refugee ‘crisis’. It argues that mediated hospitality needs to be approached as culturally and politically embedded, conditional both on media narratives and broader discursive frameworks at play within the context of everyday life.