University of Edinburgh 2009

Social Media and the Greek Riots

Dissertation – MSc Science and Technology Studies

Exam no. 9781703

[Pick the date]
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Abstract

In December 2008 a young student was shot and killed by a police officer in central
Athens, Greece. The incident resulted in major riots and demonstrations throughout
the country which lasted for several weeks. Greek users of social media responded
immediately to the growing sentiment of outrage and there was increased activity over
various channels, especially twitter, a microblogging service, which proved to be a
valuable tool for communication and news reporting. Twitter acted as an aggregator
for other online media, creating a real-time feed of news and links pertaining to the
riots. Along with blogs, photograph and video hosting sites, social networking sites
and others, a direct and straightforward account of the riots was generated, just as they
were taking place. International media and later on Greek media picked up on the
activity and used it for reporting. The way social media were used and their
relationship to traditional media is examined through the studying of various media
and interviews with users of the service.
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Table of Contents

1. Introduction.......................................................................4

1.1. Chapter Outline...........................................................6

2. Literature Review..............................................................9

2.1. Social Construction of Technology............................9

2.2. Network Society........................................................11

2.3. Web 2.0 and Social Networking Sites (SNSs)..........14

2.4. Twitter........................................................................16

2.5. Internet mobilization, media crisis and new media...18

3. Methodology.....................................................................21

3.1. Text and media research............................................21

3.2. Interviews..................................................................22

3.3. Assessment of methods.............................................24

4. Findings and Discussion...................................................26

4.1. Context of the December 2008 riots..........................26

4.2. Social media and the Greek riots...............................28

4.3. Interview findings......................................................34

5. Conclusions.......................................................................38

6. Bibliography......................................................................43
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1. Introduction

Computer-mediated communication has radically changed the landscape of

human communication during recent decades. A new, direct, horizontal mode of
communication has connected millions of users through their personal computers. The
Internet has penetrated many aspects of life for millions of people worldwide and has
changed the way they work, their leisure, and communication with others. There has
been increased scholarly work studying diverse aspects and impacts of the Internet on
users, on society, the way it is designed and appropriated. There has also been a rise
in recent years of what is now known as web 2.0, online applications and websites
that allow users to generate their own content, to create networks, to interact with
each other in a social manner on the web. Such websites continuously grow and
acquire more members, users and developers of applications, who find new and
diverse ways of expression and interaction.
At the same time, a crisis in traditional media has appeared, especially in print
media. With the proliferation of huge corporations controlling a vast amount of global
media and the rise of the Internet and user-generated content, traditional media have
observed their sales dropping. The Internet provides a new, speedy, direct, and social
way of sharing news and other information; there have been many cases where
breaking news have appeared and have been circulated online before any newspaper
having the chance of printing them. That is why news corporations try to adapt to this
new trend by keeping large and up-to-date websites, engaging users, having a
presence in the new area of social media on the web. Citizens can now become
reporters themselves, with their mobile phones and cameras, and using websites and
blogs to publish content. On many occasions the first images from breaking news
incidents come from people present at the site, not reporters. For example, the first
report concerning the Hudson River plane crash in January 2009 was delivered on
twitter. “Twitter users broke the news of the incident around 15 minutes before the
mainstream media alerted viewers and readers to the crash” wrote Claudine Beaumont
in an article about the event for the Telegraph (Beaumont, 2009).
In this thesis I will attempt to combine these two themes described above, by
examining the role that social media played during the Greek riots in December 2008.
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In early December 2008, in central Athens a young student was shot and killed by a
police officer. This incident sparked widespread protests and riots all over the
country, which lasted for several weeks. It was described by many as a social revolt
with deep-rooted causes that found an outlet with the killing of the 15 year old
student. This movement had a very strong voice online, with social media
immediately responding to the incident and users taking advantage of the services to
report on events, communicate, exchange information and mobilize. Twitter, a
microblogging service that allows users to post short messages and disseminate them
to their network, was central to this phenomenon. It was actually the first medium that
transmitted the incident of the shooting, minutes after it happened. That kind of speed
could not be achieved by any traditional medium. People on the streets sent tweet
messages from their mobile phones, people at home wrote messages, wrote on their
blogs, created videos, uploaded photographs. Such activity was never seen before in
the relatively small Greek online community.
What attracted me to this topic was that as the events unfurled I was not in
Greece, but in Edinburgh. I followed the events almost exclusively through social
media and over the Internet, as I didn‟t have access to media in my country. That was
when I started using twitter more actively, and followed the stream of news very
closely to see what was going on in my city and by extension, in my whole country;
as demonstrations and riots shook not only Athens and Salonica, the two major urban
centres, but many other small towns in Greece. The Internet, with rss feeds from
newspapers, twitter, blogs and other media, proved to be a significantly efficient
means of obtaining news for me at a difficult time that I was away from the country.
After having followed the events closely while they unfolded and in the aftermath of
the months after the riots, I began thinking of this as a potential topic for my
dissertation. Twitter had already gained popularity and featured often in the news,
especially after the riots and other events that were covered and transmitted by its
users. Thus, I began thinking of examining the role of social media in the Greek riots
in combination with the state of traditional media and the crisis they find themselves
into in the dawn of the 21st century. Especially the Greek traditional media, which
have repeatedly been accused of being biased, old-fashioned and with no interest in
the growing new forms of communication and have largely lost respect from many
members of their audience.
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From the above and the initial research I did when considering the topic more
closely, I formed two main research questions that I will attempt to frame and answer
in the course of this dissertation. These are:
Firstly, I would like to examine the way social media were used in the wake
of the riots, how they were taken advantage of by users in exchanging information
and communicating.
Secondly, through the studying of media responses to the events of the riots, I
would like to investigate the relationship of traditional media and social media, their
advantages and disadvantages and see whether social media may over time come to
replace traditional media with their speed and directness.
Several other secondary questions sprang through the research as well, mainly
concerning the usage of social media. Some of these are:
i. whether twitter can be described as an online community
ii. whether users have uniform ways of using the service or not
iii. whether the phenomenon of increased usage and communication through
social media in the event of the particular crisis of the riots was a unique
phenomenon
These main and secondary questions will be examined and addressed in the following
chapters. The dissertation comprises of four more chapters, outlining my research,
findings and conclusions. A brief outline of these chapters is provided below.

Chapter outline

Literature review
For the initial part of my research, the literature review, I used a few strands of
research ranging from STS scholarship to the Internet and of course the twitter
service. I used principally the theoretical framework of the Social Construction of
Technology (SCOT), namely how technologies are socially shaped by the needs of
their users. This approach is relevant in web 2.0 services where content is created by
the users and they define the way services and websites evolve in a significant degree.
The second strand of scholarship I explore is the notion of the Network Society that
has come forward with the increasing use of personal computers in the workplace and
personal life. The change in digital communication and the creation of networks
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between people using the Internet is important for expanding communication and
overcoming various geographical, temporal and social boundaries. Furthermore, as a
result of this proliferation of digital communication, I examine the advent of web 2.0,
which is characterized by user-generated content, enabling users to create and publish
content online, to comment on each other‟s creations, to create networks and
communities. I say a few things about the microblogging service twitter, which is the
central theme of my research Lastly, I briefly examine the Internet as a tool for
political engagement and mobilization and the ongoing crisis of traditional media
against new media.

Methodology
In this chapter I outline the research methods I used to gather information and
data to support my assumptions. It is divided in two parts. Firstly, the texts and other
media I studied; namely, press articles from local and international media, the tweet
messages from the period of the riots, various videos and photographs, blog posts and
other media found on the web. The research of the tweet messages was hindered since
twitter does not keep records of older messages, making it difficult to search for past
tweets, but the website hashtags.org had kept most of the messages published using
the relevant tag, so I was able to go through them. The second part of my research
consisted of eight interviews with users of twitter and other social media, conducted
live and via email. Those were useful for acquiring insider information and insights
on the phenomenon of the riots and the way they were covered on the Internet. I
provide the questions I used and comment on the effectiveness of the interviews or
lack thereof.

Findings and discussion

This is the major chapter of the dissertation, in which I outline the findings
from my research and comment on various issues in an attempt to evaluate and
answer my research questions. In the beginning I offer a brief background of the
situation in Greece in light of the riots, and continue by analyzing what I found from
the study of the various texts. Various sources are used as reference to highlight the
role of social media during the riots and the reaction of traditional media to the events.
I comment on the quick uptake of international media on what was taking place online
and the delayed reaction of Greek media to the multiple voices finding ways of
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expression on the Internet. I proceed by commenting on the interview findings,

grouped by question and providing the various views and responses of the
interviewees.

Conclusions
Finally, the last chapter deals with the conclusions derived from the previous
chapters and attempts to provide answers to the research questions. Lastly, twitter‟s
popularity is seen in juxtaposition with other major events such as the Iran Election
uprising and the conclusions that can be drawn from its use.
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2. Literature review

During the last decades of the 20th century and largely since the beginning of
the 21st, the Internet has become one of the major communication channels globally.
Due to its nature, it provides horizontal communication between users, without
intermediaries. The Internet holds a vast amount of information and can easily
overwhelm the millions of users that surf through it every day. Still, it provides
effective means for communication, work and leisure and has become dominant in the
daily lives of a large part of the world‟s population, especially in developed countries.
There has been a great amount of scholarship examining various aspects of the
Internet as a technology and the way in which it has changed communication and
dissemination of information, among other things. For the purposes of my research I
will rest upon several key concepts pertaining to information communication
technologies (ICTs), the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) strand of STS
research and some concepts pertaining to politics and media studies, to address the
relationship between traditional media and social media, which are largely operating
through the Internet.

Social Construction of Technology

In order to situate my research within the broad STS discipline, I have chosen
the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach, as it is outlined by Trevor
Pinch and Wiebe Bijker in their important paper “The Social Construction of Facts
and Artefacts: or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology
might Benefit Each Other” (1984). Pinch and Bijker present a theory of social
construction of science and technology, meaning that the use of a technology is
defined by the users of that technology and not vice-versa. They use the successful
example of the bicycle to illustrate their approach. Pinch and Bijker dismiss
traditional, linear models of technological development, stressing that constructivism
adopts a „multi-directional‟ model, using an “alteration of variation and selection”
(Pinch & Bijker, 1984: 411).
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Thus, when examining the developmental process of an artifact or a technology,

the SCOT approach looks at the social groups interacting with the artifact and any
problems they might have with it. Based on these problems and meanings given to the
technology by its users, the artifact will evolve to meet their needs. A central concept
of the theory is that of “interpretative flexibility” which illustrates the relativism and
diversity of meanings and interpretations held by various social groups concerning
different technological artifacts. As Pinch and Bijker write:
The sociocultural and political situation of a social group shapes its norms
and values, which in turn influence the meaning given to an artifact. […]
SCOT‟s descriptive model seems to offer an operationalization of the
relationship between the wider milieu and the actual content of technology
(Pinch & Bijker, 1984: 428-429).

Stewart Russell has criticized Pinch and Bijker for their approach to SCOT,
identifying various flaws in their argument, especially concerning the usage of
relativism and the merging together of the sociology of science with the sociology of
technology (Russell, 1986). Pich and Bijker responded to Russell defending their
theory, since when they originally posed it the area of the sociology of technology
was still at its very beginning (Pinch & Bijker, 1986).
SCOT can be a useful approach when discussing the Internet, as so much of its
use is defined by users. Especially with web 2.0 and the social uses of the Internet,
many websites developed quite differently than what their founders had in mind, due
to different perceptions of the users. Manuel Castells has written: “The Internet has
been appropriated by social practice, in all its diversity” (Castells, 2001: 118).
In his book “The Network Society”, Darin Barney also comments on social
constructivism. He writes:
In the constructivist view, the social character of a technology such as the
Internet will not be universal and homogeneous, comprehensively
determined by the logic of its essence as a technology. Rather, the
character of the Internet is potentially plural and heterogeneous, and will
depend upon the social relations and conditions that arise to support
particular elaborations of the technology, and deny other possibilities, in
any given context (Barney, 2004: 41)

Although SCOT and constructivism in general have received several points of

criticism over the years, the discourse appears to express quite aptly some central
concepts useful for my research.
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Network Society

One of the key concepts signifying the change brought about by Internet
communication is the Network Society. This concept has been analyzed extensively
and thoroughly by Darin Barney in his book of the same title (2004) and by Manuel
Castells, leading thinker in the area of Internet and Information Communication
Technologies.
Barney identifies „the network society‟ as the leading trend in our times, along
with some concepts and discources such as post-industrialism, information society,
post-fordism, postmodernism and globalization that set the scene towards the dawn of
the 21st century for „the network society‟ to develop. The widespread use of the
internet has made this possible, since it facilitates direct communication between
individuals through their personal computers. As Barney aptly states, “the possibility
is that networks are the womb from which a qualitatively new form of society is being
born, a society in which identity, politics and economy are structured, and operate, as
networks” (Barney, 2004: 2). In what way can societies achieve being connected
through networks? In the post-modern, post-industrial, information-based way most
developed countries operate, the Internet has found its niche and has infiltrated many
aspects of daily life for millions of users.
The network is primarily composed of three components, „nodes‟, „ties‟ and
„flows‟. Nodes are points which are connected to one another using ties, whereas
flows are what pass through the ties in between nodes (Barney, 2004: 26). With the
aid of the Internet, these connections can overcome geographical, temporal, and other
boundaries, and enhance the proximity between the „nodes‟, whether these are
individuals, firms, or other institutions. These three characteristics – nodes, ties and
flows – create diverse relationships in the network. They can take on various aspects
and thus “condition the character of any given network” (Barney, 2004: 26). Barney
offers an impressive array of such different aspects the three elements can assume and
concludes that the networks themselves become influenced and assume new
characteristics:
networks can be centralized, decentralized, or distributed; hierarchical or
horizontal; bounded or boundless; finite, or proliferating; accessible or
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inaccessible; inclusive or exclusive; intensive or expansive; interactive or

non-interactive (Barney, 2004: 26-27)

All the above elements make the concept of the network society important for the
purpose of my research, which is the reason I rest on them thoroughly. The examples
of the development of web 2.0 and the various social networking sites (SNSs) that
increasingly dominate online communication now that the first decade of the 21st
century is nearly over, show the operation of networked communication. Internet
users remain connected, overcoming boundaries of space and time, interacting
through the enhanced connectivity provided to them by their personal computers and
Internet connections. Especially for twitter, which will be my focus for the
examination of the Greek riots, networking is extremely important. The way the
website is set up, enables the users to create networks by simply choosing whose
updates they wish to follow. In this way members are interconnected with each other
and share information within their network and at large, since the service‟s character
is public.
Over the years there has been extensive scholarship about the use of networks in
communication and interaction between Internet users. Issues of interactivity,
community and communication arise in various authors, and such issues are central to
my discussion on the social media. Before I discuss web 2.0 and social media, I would
like to rest briefly on issues of community and personalized networking that the
Internet offers. According to Manuel Castells, “the Internet seems to have a positive
effect on social interaction, and it tends to increase exposure to other sources of
information” (Castells, 2001: 121).
Barry Wellman has written about community forming and networking online. In
his article “Physical Place and CyberPlace: The Rise of Personalized Networking”
(2001) he outlines the development of online networking and community,
commenting on the social character of these aspects of the Internet. Wellman
mentions the personalization and centralization offered by the web, claiming that
these two elements “need not mean individual isolation. Collaborative filtering is
developing. […] People can use their filters and personal agents to find like-minded
others and form communities of shared interest” (Wellman, 2001: 5). The rise of
different websites catering to all sorts of interests proves this position. On these
websites groups of people can be found who share similar interests, goals,
characteristics, and who form online communities to share support, information and
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solidarity. The use of the internet transcends typical boundaries of geographical

location, age group, socio-economic status, gender, and other factors. People coming
from all kinds of backgrounds, who share a similar interest, can connect using the
web.
Critics of the Internet have claimed that the web actually inhibits communication
and threatens traditional communities, by isolating individuals in their homes, in front
of their screens. Castells writes how a “major misunderstanding” was induced:
the term “community”, […] confused different forms of social
relationship, and prompted ideological discussion between those nostalgic
for the old, spatially bounded community and the enthusiastic supporters
of Internet-enabled communities of choice” (Castells, 2001: 125)

On the other hand, defenders of the Internet have shown that the concept of
community is quite different than what it used to be. Communities are no longer
defined by geographical proximity, but by other attributes shared by their members.
Social relationships are often dispersed away from the neighbourhood and often
people interact more with persons away from their location, rather than the ones they
are geographically closer to. The Internet and other channels of communication
enable the maintenance of long-distance relationships with family members, friends,
co-workers, etc.
Wellman and Gulia‟s article “Net Surfers Don‟t Ride Alone: Virtual
Communities as Communities” (1999) is a comprehensive analysis of how
communities are formed and maintained online. Through a number of questions,
which they attempt to answer, they outline the way individuals interact, seek like-
minded others, offer support to near-strangers and conduct affairs on the Internet.
Through the use of weak ties, people connect and interact online: “On-line and off-
line, weak ties are more apt than strong ties to link people with different social
characteristics. Such weak ties are also better than strong ties for maintaining contact
with other social circles” (Wellman & Gulia, 1999: 8).
It is thus apparent that the trend of online communities exists and offers users
important benefits. I have tried to establish whether twitter – which will be the social
networking tool of choice for my analysis – is considered to be a community. This
was one of the questions I posed to the twitter users I interviewed and it will be
analyzed further on.
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Web 2.0 and Social Networking Sites (SNSs)

One of the most important developments of the Internet has been the onset of a
second generation in web development, called web 2.0. This new configuration that
flourished in the beginning of the 21st century and keeps growing and evolving
continuously enhances communication and interaction between Internet users,
through various social media, blogs, wikis, social networking sites and other services.
The Internet acquires a new meaning for its users, since they can now create content
themselves, without necessarily being IT specialists. They can also interact with other
users and share information, comment on each other‟s content and interact in various
other ways.
Dominique Cardon and Christophe Aguiton, in their article “The Strength of
Weak Cooperation: an Attempt to Understand the Meaning of Web 2.0” offer an
interesting analysis of web 2.0 and its various aspects. According to the authors, web
2.0 interaction is based on the creation and maintenance of weak ties between users, a
notion that has been also outlined by the authors commenting on online communities.
Specifically:
The success of web 2.0 services shows that its users mobilize much
weaker cooperation between individuals. [...] The strength of the weak
cooperation comes from the fact that it is not necessary for individuals to
have an ex ante cooperative action plan of altruist preoccupation. They
discover cooperative opportunities only by making their individual
production public, i.e. texts, photos, videos, etc (Cardon & Aguiton, 2007:
52)

Many web 2.0 services are specific according to content, and this facilitates
the bringing together of various groups that share similar interests. For example,
flickr.com enables users to post their photographs, interact with each other, form
groups, search for images, and perform other activities related to photography.
Similarly, youtube.com is a service for video content, where users can post their own
generated content, search for videos, post comments on them, etc. Blogs attract
readers according to their content and thematic identity, not necessarily because the
readers know the author personally. The authors describe this as the development of
“relational” communities and networks (Cardon & Aguiton, 2007: 54). These services
have grown significantly over this nearly ending decade and become more specific
and targeted as they evolve. More websites and services are created continuously,
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attempting to attract users. Some of them have become extremely successful and
made their founders a lot of money, such as facebook for example. As Cardon and
Aguiton write, “Web 2.0 services can be characterized by the astonishing rise of
public interpersonal relations in mediated communities, the extension of the number
of contacts and the growth of a new form of weak friendship” (Cardon & Aguiton,
2007: 55).
Blogs have been an increasing way of expression and creation of content
online globally. They have grown immensely over the years and allow a big portion
of the population to express their views on issues with minimal effort and to reach a
significant audience. There are blogs dealing with various themes and topics, and
others that are simply their owners‟ online “diaries”. Successful blogs can reach a
wide online audience and may achieve important readership, though not as much as
traditional media. Nevertheless, the blog format facilitates discussion over texts, is a
form of communication open to debate, connected to other blogs and texts,
interconnecting information through hyperlinks and other data.
Some of the most successful web 2.0 services, that attract millions of users
globally, are social networking sites (SNSs). These websites allow users to connect
with weak and strong ties, form networks, interact and communicate with friends,
play games, post content such as photos and videos and comment on it, arrange
meetings or parties, and many other activities. These websites, such as facebook or
myspace, allow the users to define and shape their use according to their own needs
and form their unique usage patterns. The focus of my research, twitter, is a social
networking site, which has grown significantly this past year. Before I outline twitter,
I would like to rest a little on social networking sites in general, using danah boyd and
Nicole B. Ellison‟s article about “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and
Scholarship” (2007).
The authors offer a comprehensive analysis of the growth and development of
social network sites, their history, mode of conduct and functioning. Early on, they
describe social network sites as:
Web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or
semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other
users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their
list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature
and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site (boyd &
Ellison, 2007: 2)
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The above statement sums-up nicely how social network sites operate. Most
websites function in this broad way, with differences in content, features and
applications and other services provided to users. They enable users to interact with
each other very effectively and they provide an interesting basis for studying
computer-mediated communication, online communities and other channels of user
interaction through the use of the Internet. The global popularity of these websites has
given a trigger for increased scholarship on various issues, some of which boyd and
Ellison cover in their article.
The creation of networks is also a highly important aspect of these websites..
According to some of the research boyd and Ellison cover, “most SNSs primarily
support pre-existing social relations” (boyd & Ellison, 2007: 10). boyd has stated that
“SNSs are “networked publics” that support sociability, just as unmediated public
spaces do” (boyd & Ellison, 2007: 11). These and other issues are prevalent in
research on social network sites.
In the next section I will give a brief description of twitter, which will be the
central point of analysis in my research concerning social media and their use during
the Greek riots in December 2008. Many websites were used, with users posting
content and furiously updating blog posts, videos and photos. The use of these sites,
along with twitter, was essential to the discussion concerning the events.

Twitter

Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) is a microblogging service, launched in

2006. According to Java et al, in their article “Why We Twitter: Understanding
Microblogging Usage and Communities” (2007) “[microblogging] tools provide a
light-weight, easy form of communication that enables users to broadcast and share
information about their activities, opinions and status” (Java et al, 2007). Messages
are limited to 140 characters, making this a novel way of posting text. This poses an
interesting challenge for users, as their messages need to be clear and concise, within
the character limit. As a tool, it resembles the status messages on other social network
sites, such as facebook. Java et al identify the major differences between regular
blogging and microblogging as follows:
Compared to regular blogging, microblogging fulfills a need for an even
faster mode of communication. By encouraging shorter posts, it lowers
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users‟ requirement of time and thought investment for content generation.

This is also one of its main differentiating factors from blogging in
general. The second important difference is the frequency of update. On
average, a prolific blogger may update her blog once every few days; on
the other hand a microblogger may post several updates in a single day
(Java et al, 2007)

Also, microbloggers, through the twitter platform can also post questions to be
answered by other users, comment directly to other users and express views much
more quickly than they would on a regular blog. Twitter users form networks by
“following” other users and watching their updates. If the other user follows them
back, they are considered “friends”. The friend/follower relationship is the main
interaction on the website. A user forms a list of friends and followers, to whom s/he
publishes his/her updates and in turn s/he keeps track of the updates followed by the
users s/he follows. In this way a timeline of messages, or “tweets” is created, which
the user reads, responds to and interacts with. Krishnamurthy et al have identified
some basic groups of twitter users, “broad attributes” as they term them
(Krishnamurthy et al, 2008: 20). Firstly, there are the “broadcasters”, who have a
much larger number of followers than they have friends. These are the twitter
accounts of several mainstream media, who utilize the new medium to inform users,
celebrities or other public figures. The second group, the authors describe as
“acquaintances”, are more regular users and have a balance in the number of friends
and followers. They “tend to exhibit reciprocity in their relationships, typical in online
social networks”. The third and last group comprises of these users who follow a
disproportionately large amount of people compared to the number of their „friends.‟
According to the authors, “such behavior is typical of miscreants (e.g., spammers or
stalkers) or evangelists, who contact everyone they can, and hope that some will
follow them” (Krishnamurthy et al, 2008: 20).
During 2008 and largely 2009, twitter has gained immense popularity among
Internet users. It has featured prominently in the media and a new use was discovered
for it that made it ever more acute in expressing public reactions to events. Twitter has
shown that it is extremely quick in broadcasting information, bringing together users
who reproduce facts and reach other users through their networks. This is enabled by
the ability to post to twitter using mobile devices and other applications, without
having to access the website directly. There have been several examples over the past
months about events that were extensively “tweeted”, reaching wide audiences in an
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effective and direct manner. For example, during the recent upheaval concerning the
elections in Iran, social media and twitter were in many cases the only means of
expression and communication for the protesters and their supporters.
Twitter proved to be an effective way of publishing and sharing information
during the Greek riots as well. In the analysis section of the dissertation I will attempt
to offer a description of how twitter and social media in general were used and their
benefits to the protesters and the wider public. I will also attempt to outline the
relationship between social media and traditional media. In the next and last section of
the literature review, I will outline a few theories and positions concerning
mobilization and protest utilizing the Internet, as well as new media and traditional
media in the era of web 2.0.

Internet mobilization, media crisis and new media

One area where the Internet and social media have proved to be effective is
political activity and mobilization of groups towards various causes. As Henry Farrell
and Daniel W. Drezner write, “blogs play an increasingly important role as a forum of
public debate, with knock-on consequences for the media, politics, and policy”
(Farrell & Drezner, 2008: 16). Their article “The Power and Politics of Blogs” deals
with blogs and their influence in US politics. Furthermore, recent research by
Kavanaugh et al has shown that blogs are becoming increasingly important as news
sources for users of the Internet and enable them in civic engagement, even if they are
not very politically active (Kavanaugh et al, 2008).
The Internet as a medium has facilitated new ways of protest and activism,
enabling organizations to mobilize and experience decentralized organization. The
book “Cyberprotest: New Media, Citizens and Social Movements” offers a
comprehensive array of essays on examples of this. As stated in the introduction by
van de Donk et al, “the Internet is not used as a mere supplement to traditional media,
it also offers new, innovative opportunities for mobilizing and organizing individuals”
(van de Donk et al, 2004: 6). More recent research comments on the use of the
Internet in networking within alternative political movements. Tobias Olsson, in his
article “The Practices of Internet Networking – A Resource for Alternative Political
Movements” (2008) studied activists form political organizations and their use of the
 Exam no. 9781703 19

Internet in networking and organization. Among other conclusions, he found that his
subjects agreed on
the Internet‟s value to them as a resource for their construction of
alternative political identity. [it] provides them with alternative
information, opportunities for internal coordination, contacts with
likeminded people, access to public spheres beyond their respective
organizations, as well as a resource for everyday activism (Olsson, 2008:
672)

To move on with the case of the media in the contemporary global landscape,
it has been apparent that the media have been largely affected by globalization. As
communications became more global and reached increasingly more people through
various outlets, print, broadcasting and online, the way people receive news has
changed. Large corporations own a vast amount of such communications outlets and
in a way control what is being broadcasted and what is not. In the same way, news
travel fast and are not limited to time and space, as most people are able to have
access to large amounts of information and news stories from all over the globe. This
trend is described in the first chapter of the book “Spaces of Identity: Global Media,
Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries” (1995) by David Morley and Kevin
Robins. They describe this trend as “an expansionist tendency at work, pushing
ceaselessly towards the construction of enlarged audiovisual spaces and markets”
(Morley & Robins, 1995: 11). The authors term this the “new media order”, “the
construction of the media order through the entrepreneurial devices of a
comparatively small number of global players” (Morley & Robins, 1995: 13). Manuel
Castells also comments on this, by writing that there is a “profound restructuring
[which] is associated with mergers and consolidation between major companies, so
that seven multimedia mega-groups control most of the global media, and in each
country a few corporations […] determine what is published and broadcast” (Castells,
2001: 191).
One could argue that this trend has been tiring certain groups of the audience
of these news corporations. When so much information exists from so many channels,
it is understandable that users may become alienated from traditional media and seek
more personalized options. The Internet may be able to provide that more controlled,
personalized information sharing. In Cass Sunstein‟s book “Republic.com” (2001)
this trend is described:
 Exam no. 9781703 20

[…] a long-standing fact of life in democratic countries: a diversity of

communications options and a range of possible choices. But the
emerging situation does contain large differences, stemming above all
from a dramatic increase in available options, a simultaneous increase in
individual control over content, and a corresponding decrease in the
power of general interest intermediaries. These include newspapers,
magazines, and broadcasters (Sunstein, 2001: 11)

It is apparent, thus, that the vast power shared by mainstream media over the
course of the 20th century, is diminishing. As Sunstein comments, “at the very least,
the sheer volume of options, and the power to customize, are sharply diminishing the
social role of the general interest intermediary” (Sunstein, 2001: 13). Newspapers
most importantly are facing an ongoing crisis, since with the onset of television and
more recently, the Internet, the speed at which they offer news is considered quite
slow. In this way, most newspapers have turned to the Internet and are now available
online for their readers.
Traditional media in Greece, which remains the central part of my analysis,
have several flaws added to the global crisis tendency. As some of the interviewees
have mentioned, Greek traditional media are often biased, insensitive and serving
political agendas. This will be analyzed more in the following, findings and
discussion chapters. The online community of bloggers and, more recently, twitterers
-if it can be described as a community- channels ongoing criticism about various
events and circumstances in Greek society. This frustration erupted with the incident
of the shooting of the 15 year-old student in Athens in December 2008 and social
media picked it up immediately; for weeks there was a tumult of activity online
concerning the riots and other events. This activity, along with the way the media
were used and their relationship to mainstream media will be examined in subsequent
chapters.
 Exam no. 9781703 21

3. Methodology

The topic of the dissertation deals mainly with the Internet, so my research
was focused on this medium and its diverse pathways of content. There is a fairly
large amount of resources available concerning the Greek riots, so it was necessary to
choose and filter through a selection of texts and other media. The research is divided
in two strands: one concerns the studying of various texts and other media pertaining
to the riots; while the second concerns the conducting of interviews with bloggers and
twitterers who participated in the events.

Text and media research

For the first part of the research I looked through and read many media
articles, both from Greek and international media, blog posts, tweet messages, videos
and photographs uploaded to various websites and other resources. The nature of
these media helped with the research, since they were still online and available,
organized and tagged accordingly. The work undertaken during the riots and in their
aftermath was important since many bloggers, twitterers, and users of other social
media gathered their data, wrote analyses, organized content using the specific tag
(#griots), making it easier for anyone wishing to search and go through the content.
Twitter messages were difficult to get hold of though, since twitter as a service is
rather ephemeral, not keeping records of old tweets and making it difficult for
retrieving messages after some time. The hashtag was especially useful for this
hindrance. Hashtags are keywords preceded by a hash symbol, that help group
messages that have the same theme together, so that they can easily be searched for
through the twitter search engine. In the case of the Greek riots the hashtag that was
agreed to be used was #griots. Users added this tag to their messages and these
instantly appeared on the search engine stream, creating a real-time feed of messages
containing news, links to other media, reports and other information. In the website
http://hashtags.org/tag/griots a record is kept from these initial messages that enabled
me to go back and read some of them to recreate the atmosphere of the time and see
 Exam no. 9781703 22

what kind of messages were being published. Of course it was still quite limited since
not all messages are retained, and there were also several at the time of the riots
without the tag. Users retweeted messages adding the tag in order for them to appear
in the live feed, but from the large amount of messages produced during the riots, not
all have been restored in the website. The tag has been kept alive though, and every
once in a while it will be used again when something relevant appears. Messages are
infrequently added to the stream about once or twice a month, resulting in messages
continuing to be shown on the hashtags.org website and the twitter search engine
months after the initial riots messages. This may show that the phenomenon of
reporting and discussing crises on twitter and other social media did not simply last
while the riots themselves lasted, but created a basis for reacting to and perceiving
events for the users of social media. The riots were still reflected upon and discussed
many months after they ended.
A valuable aid in the online research was provided interestingly by the users
themselves, who have kept the various data well-organized and easy to reach. A social
medium that helped very much in my searching and reading texts and researching
other media was the social bookmarking service delicious. An account with the
username “griots” was created (http://delicious.com/griots), which kept bookmarks of
texts, articles from Greek and international press, blog posts and other media
pertaining to the riots. A total of 262 bookmarks were recorded on the website from
the 12th of December 2008 up to the 14th of January 2009, for a full month. This was
valuable and helped reduce the time I spent searching for data using other means,
such as conventional search engines.
The second part of my research consisted of interviews with users of social
media who actively participated in the online reporting and following of the riots, and
will be analyzed in the next section.

Interviews

In an effort to gain information from the users themselves, who played an

important role in the way the Greek riots were framed on the web, I conducted eight
interviews with users of social media. These took place in Athens and Salonica in
early June 2009, and some were conducted by email since I could not get hold of the
 Exam no. 9781703 23

interviewees otherwise. The interviewees were seven men and one woman, active
users of twitter and other social media. I would have liked to include more women,
but few women rose to the standards I had when selecting subjects to interview. I
aimed to obtain replies from ten persons, but two never answered my questions, even
though they agreed to at first. Most of them have or participate in blogs, use flickr for
their photographs, youtube for their videos, and are in general quite active and vocal
online. A few are professional or amateur journalists and were able to provide
valuable insights about the state of traditional media in Greece and to comment on
their relationship with social media.
The interviewees were chosen based on their activity on twitter during the
riots. I ascertained that by studying the tweet messages of the period from the
hashtags.org website, and tried to select users that are still active today and continue
to use social media for their online communication. Most were very positive and
helpful when I contacted them, willing to meet with me and answer my questions. A
few of the interviewees were especially active and trend-setting during the riots,
generating a large amount of content and being followed by many other users. Some
of the other subjects were active in generating content but also followed the events
closely using social media. I wanted to keep a balance and to discuss both sides, that
of the creators of content and that of the followers of that content.
I created a core of six questions, which I used for the email interviews, asking
the subjects if I could contact them again if I needed to ask them follow-up questions.
These same core questions were used in the live interviews as well, but in that case
variations occurred depending on the direction the discussion was taking. The live
interviews were more efficient in that way, more expansive and thorough, since the
subjects were able to share their views and I was able to follow the flow of the
discussion and ask more relevant questions as we progressed. The live interviews
lasted on average between 30 minutes and an hour and were conducted informally,
usually in a café or other public place. For the email interviews I sent an initial email
introducing myself, stating the purpose of my research and asking the subject whether
s/he would accept to answer my questions. After they replied positively I sent a
second email with the list of questions, to which they wrote their answers and sent it
back to me. With the two subjects that had initially agreed to respond but never did, I
sent a couple of reminder emails.
 Exam no. 9781703 24

The core of questions consisted at first of a couple of simple and general

questions to enable the subject to reflect on their use of social media and then moved
on to more specific questions concerning the riots and traditional media. Though these
questions and answers I was able to derive valuable information that helped with the
overall research.
More specifically, the core questions I used were:
1. How long have you been a user of twitter?
2. In what way/why do you use the service?
3. Can twitter be described as an online community? Does it enhance
communication and exchange of information between users? In what way?
4. Twitter & griots: how did the service contribute to the coverage and discussion
of the griots? In combination with other social media (blogs, flickr, youtube,
etc.)?
5. Opposed to traditional media (tv, newspapers, radio, etc.), what do social
media have to offer? How do you perceive the future of traditional media in
relation to social media?
6. Do you believe that the sudden uptake in the use of new media in light of the
December events consists of a unique phenomenon or not?

These were the questions that the subjects received by email and the ones I used
as a discussion guide in the live interviews. With the live interviews there was a level
of straying from this initial basis, since the nature of the interview is to follow the way
the discussion is headed, so the direction of the interviews changed with each
interviewee, though they did retain the same central theme. After conducting the
interviews, the audio had to be transcribed and typed out and with the emails answers
all interview material was gathered in a single document for ease of reference. The
passages needed for the findings chapter and quotes I used were translated and added
to the text of the findings.

Assessment of methods

The two methods used for my research were the reading of texts and studying
of various articles and other media pertaining to the riots and the interviews
 Exam no. 9781703 25

conducted with users of social media. Despite some drawbacks in these methods, they
proved to be overall efficient in helping me study the case and provide answers for
my research questions, which were outlined in the introductory chapter.
The efficiency of creating and maintaining content online was very helpful,
since with the onset of web 2.0 and the rising social aspect of the web, creating
content for individuals is easy, cost-free and can be hosted in many different websites.
This helped produce a large amount of content which was available for studying even
months after the riots ended. The online versions of newspapers helped in finding
articles easily as well, something that otherwise would have to be done by accessing
newspaper archives and would be time-consuming and inefficient.
One major drawback was the difficulty of finding old tweet messages from
twitter, since the website is not designed for retaining records of old messages. The
present time is more important for the service and old messages very quickly slip into
oblivion. The hashtags.org website helped to keep the tagged messages that I went
through, but there are bound to be messages I missed, or couldn‟t access, that were
not tagged, or were not retained by the website. It is difficult to know which of these
messages might have been important or if they would have changed anything in my
findings.
After studying these texts the interviews provided an added resource that in
addition to the online content became the basis for my findings and conclusions. The
interviewees offered insights not found in the other texts and often complemented the
views I already had with their specific expert knowledge. They also helped dispel
some mistaken assumptions I may have had before contacting them. The drawbacks
of the interview process were not being able to get hold of everyone for a live
interview, not being able to get answers from everyone and the limited time which I
had in order to conduct these interviews. Email was somewhat more efficient but did
not leave room for elaborating and changing direction in the discussion if the
interviewee wished.
The results and findings of this two-fold research will be elaborated upon and
analyzed in the next chapter.
 Exam no. 9781703 26

4. Findings and discussion

The events that shook Greece in December 2008 had wide repercussions on
the web community. There was increased –almost frenzied– activity over various
channels, such as blogs, youtube, flickr and twitter among others. Apart from the
straightforward reporting from riots and demonstrations, there was also an attempt of
opinion expression through discussion and writing of ideas. The events left a mood
for discussion, critique and engagement in affairs of the state by members of online
communities such as the blogosphere and twitter. From the first hours of the crisis,
social media users were attentive to it and there was an almost constant flow of
information and discussion, reporting and personal accounts from the scenes of riots
and demonstrations. Twitter as a service, acted as an aggregator of news, links for
blog posts, videos and photos, a service where members could follow events in real-
time. The limited amount of space provided –only 140 characters– gave an air of
spontaneous messaging and urgent information being passed through the networks of
users on twitter. A lot of work was done on other social media as well, important and
thorough work, since the medium was different and allowed more space, but twitter
provided a public forum of information that brought together many users, Greek and
international, who wished to find out about the events.
While the events are familiar to most Greeks, especially users of social media,
and while the riots were covered by international news media, it will be useful to
outline the context of events in some detail before continuing with the analysis. In this
way, the discussion and findings of the interviews will prove to be more relevant and
meaningful to the reader. Thus, in this chapter I will offer a timeline and context of
the Greek riots (#griots), findings of the research including interviews with Internet
users and studying of resources from traditional and social media, and discussion of
these findings.

Context of the December 2008 riots

On the night of the 6th of December 2008, in Exarcheia, a central area of

Athens, a 15-year-old student was shot and killed by a police officer. Exarcheia is an
 Exam no. 9781703 27

area associated with anarchist groups, and attracts many young people and students.
The official police statement concerning the incident is that the boy with several other
youths provoked the officers and threw rocks at them, though eye-witnesses disputed
this later on. Following the shooting there was immediate reaction by citizens. In fact,
the first news of the killing was transmitted through twitter, by a user who lives
nearby and heard the gunshot. His tweet was published at 9.15 pm, minutes after the
gunshot and hours before any mainstream media coverage.
“someone has been shot in Exarcheia” (@cpil)

Following the killing of the student there was widespread demonstrating and
rioting all over the country, which lasted for several weeks, well into the Christmas
holidays. Such widespread rioting, which combined demonstrations, fires, breaking
into shops and looting on many occasions, had not been experienced for at least thirty
years in Greece, even though it is said that demonstrations and civil unrest is quite
common in the country. International media often portray Greece and its residents in
such a way. An example of such rhetoric by international media is the article by BBC
correspondent Malcolm Brabant titled “Rebellion deeply embedded in Greece”
(2008). Brabant writes: “Rebellion is deeply embedded in the Greek psyche. The
students and school children who are now laying siege to police stations and trying to
bring down the government are undergoing a rite of passage” (Brabant, 2008).
The riots spread in many Greek cities, fuelled not simply by the killing of the
student, but from deeper dissatisfaction with the government and state of affairs. The
identities of the protesters mainly comprised of youths and students, who felt
exasperated by the growing pressures they face at school and university, the lack of
opportunities and the bleak future. Augmented by the killing of one “of their own” it
sparked feelings of closeness and identification, in a sense that “it could have been
them.” There were also multiple sit-ins and occupations in school and university
buildings, widespread damaging of property –especially banks and branches of
multinational companies or of state interest– burning cars, vandalizing monuments
and clashing with riot police. What was unprecedented was the extent of the rioting
and demonstrations, which lasted for several weeks.
The Hellenic Observatory of the London School of Economics published a
series of essays by notable thinkers and experts analysing the events. Academics,
journalists and others attempt to offer interpretations of what exactly sparked such
 Exam no. 9781703 28

widespread rage and violence all over the country. In the process, they also identify
and deconstruct key features of Greek history and society, which may help throw
some light on the causes of the recent events. In one of these essays, Antonis
Karakousis, Editing Director of one of the most popular Greek newspapers, „To
Vima‟, writes:
All these events allowed many people to speak of a new social
phenomenon, which others, especially other Europeans, associated with
the international economic crisis, and saw it as a precursor to a wider
social explosion that could be transmitted throughout and threaten Europe
more generally (Karakousis, 2009: 29)

There were demonstrations in other European cities as well, in solidarity of the

protesters in Greece. Many were organized by Greek expatriates, but not only.
One view expressed in the essays is, according to Kevin Featherstone,
Professor at the London School of Economics, that the riots “raise important
questions about governance and cohesion in Greek society that can be expected to
linger for the foreseeable future” (Featherstone, 2009: 1). Another view of the riots by
Alexis Kalokerinos, Associate Professor at the University of Crete, raises an issue of
the identity of the protesting youths. As he writes,
[...] The December „uprising‟ sprang from inherent structural distortions
within basic social institutions which Greek society views with increasing
mistrust. In other words, there is a particular substratum where one spark
will suffice to ignite a wildfire at any moment in time (Kalokerinos, 2009:
24)

Having provided this brief background of the riots, I will attempt to outline the
way in which the Internet and social media tools also played a role during the riots.
As tools of communication, information sharing and discussion among members, the
use of social media in such a large scale was unprecedented and crucial to the
analyses of the riots.

Social media and the Greek riots

Social media played an important role during the riots and in this section I will
attempt to illustrate how this was done. Through blogs and websites such as flickr,
youtube, facebook, twitter and others, content was shared, information was
exchanged, and frustration was voiced. Although the use of Internet is not as
 Exam no. 9781703 29

widespread in Greece as it is in other European countries, the user community is very

active and vocal and it was even more so during the December events. In an article for
Reuters, Dina Kyriakidou writes that “the Greek youths‟ message moved so fast over
the Web and the international response was so immediate that it surprised many in a
country seen as the Internet backwater of Europe” (Kyriakidou, 2008). Led mostly by
young people and students, the uprising became an expression of dissatisfaction about
the limited opportunities and bleak future most young people face.
As it was mentioned above, the first medium that reproduced the news of the
shooting was twitter. Almost instantly the news began circulating among groups of
people, some who were already in the area – which houses many bars and cafes that
are usually full on a Saturday evening – and others who got the news via mobile
phone or the Internet. Antonis Karakousis describes the process and writes that “the
atmosphere became electrified” (Karakousis, 2009: 28). Another account, that of
George Pagoulatos, Associate Professor at the Athens University of Economics and
Business, describes the revolt as “both spontaneous [...] and organised, though in a
decentralised manner”. Pagoulatos writes about how “hundreds or thousands of
messages were sent over mobile phones and the Internet calling for demonstrations
and „revenge‟ for the killing of Alexis [Grigoropoulos]” (Pagoulatos, 2009: 46). The
level of solidarity with the protesters was also quite high, even by people who did not
participate in the riots. Many social groups identified with the plight of the protesters,
from adolescents of Alexis Grigoropoulos‟ age, parents who had children of that age,
teachers, university students, and of course the more extreme leftist and anarchist
groups who are always in the centre of various protests. By many members of the
population, the police was seen as brutal and dominating. Several videos were seen
and commented on, where bystanders not participating in the protests, shouted
slogans and berated members of the riot police who were chasing and arresting
students.
The essays of the Hellenic Observatory of the London School of Economics,
are in depth and important in analysing the causes and underlying societal problems
which may have helped to spark the riots. They do not, however, refer much to the
Internet and the way social media contributed to the coverage and commentary of the
riots. Bloggers and journalists themselves offered a great amount of content, which is
still available and accessible for anyone wishing to learn more about the riots.
According to the Economist,
 Exam no. 9781703 30

Already, the Greek riots are prompting talk of a new era of networked
protest. The volume of online content they have inspired is remarkable.
Photos and videos of the chaos, often shot with cellphones, were posted
online almost in real time. Twitter, a service for exchanging short
messages, has brimmed with live reports from the streets of Athens, most
of them in Greek but a few in English (Economist, 2008)

International media, in contrast to their Greek counterparts, almost immediately took

to the new way news were being transmitted and shared. There were liveblogging
accounts of the riots, communication with Greek bloggers and twitterers in an attempt
to assess the situation, mentions of twitter and its usage as a tool for reporting. Media
such as the Guardian, Skynews, CNN and others responded promptly and accurately
to what was taking place on the streets and online. A crucial part in the reporting and
communication of the riots was the hashtag used, #griots. Hashtags enable users of
twitter to follow popular topics, by aggregating tweets on a real-time stream through
the twitter search tool. In this way, even if users are not following each other, they can
still follow events and gain information. Twitter ranks the „trending topics‟ as they are
called, by the number of tweets published containing keywords of hashtags. Thus, it is
an efficient way of following popular events. The hashtag used for the riots in Greece,
was #griots. Users added this tag to their tweets and they instantly appeared on the
twitter search stream. Griots remained a popular way to refer to the riots, and tags
were used in other media as well, such as flickr, in order to categorize content under
the same theme. The #griots hashtag even made it to twitter‟s trending topics for a
brief period of time, thus bringing many international users to the stream, who wished
to find out more information about what was going on. This prompted Greek users to
post some updates in English as well, to accommodate them and inform international
users about the situation.
The Greek Institute of Communication organised a colloquium in February
2009 concerning Social Media and Communication. During that colloquium the
December riots were mentioned as an example of communication and mobilisation
through the use of social media. The colloquium was a social event itself, with live
streaming and online connection through which communication was undertaken on
twitter. The speeches were later uploaded on vimeo, a video hosting website, and
photographs were added on flickr, so that anyone could have access to what was
being discussed. Matthew Tsimitakis, journalist, blogger and twitterer, gave a speech
concerning the riots and the role of social media. He gave a brief overview of social
 Exam no. 9781703 31

media activity during the riots, which is as follows – information gathered as of

February 2009. Apart from Athens Indymedia and Indy.gr, independent news sites,
which proved to be valuable in organizing action, there were: at least 15 facebook
groups, the most popular of which comprised more than 130,000 members; The use of
the hashtag #griots, which enabled the use of twitter for following the events; more
than 3,000 photographs posted on flickr using the tag, and possibly many more
uncategorised; more than 700 amateur videos posted on youtube; lastly, together with
traditional blogs, a new form of collaborative blogs arose. Blogs of school and
university occupations, though which students expressed views and shared content,
writing texts about the reasons of their protests (Tsimitakis, 2009).
Tsimitakis adds that the December riots were a true social revolt, though a
more decentralised one, organised in a way that the status quo did not recognize or
acknowledge. Mostly online and on the streets of course, with demonstrations, riots
and activity on the web. “On the web, [the revolt] took place in a much more
structured manner, which differentiated systemically from or responded to the rhetoric
of the status quo of the media, as this was mainly expressed though television
broadcasting” (Tsimitakis, 2009). In the Greek newspaper “Kathimerini”, Yannis
Souliotis writes how “mobile phones and blogs, through which real-time
communication is achieved, proved to be a weapon more efficient than Molotov
cocktails” (Souliotis, 2008).
Users generated content and gave their own accounts of the riots, writing texts,
posting photographs and videos, participating in discussions. One of the most active
and important accounts was that of blogger teacherdude, a British expatriate living
and working in the city of Salonica, which also saw extensive riots and
demonstrations. A citizen journalist and amateur photographer, he published
numerous articles accompanied with photographs from the demonstrations he
attended. His blog, found at http://teacherdudebbq.blogspot.com was a valuable
source of information and direct reporting from the riots in the city of Salonica,
second city in Greece. Teacherdude also wrote articles which were published in the
independent crowd powered news website NowPublic. One of these is titled “Social
media and the Greek uprising”, in which he describes the role of social media in the
riots and their relationship to traditional media. He writes that “What has been
witnessed is a form of internet hyper - Darwinism in which the forces of change
which usually take years have been compressed into a time frame measured in weeks”
 Exam no. 9781703 32

(teacherdude, 2008). As a key member on the online activity concerning the riots,
teacherdude was also contacted by various foreign news networks, such as the
Guardian, CNN and Skynews, in order to be interviewed about the riots.
Many international media, both mainstream and independent contacted Greek
bloggers and twitterers to gain information and used the stream of real-time tweets as
a resource for reporting. The riots were also covered in Global Voices, a website
collaborating with bloggers across the world in order to translate and share coverage
from various events. Global Voices managing editor Solana Larsen used content from
Greek social media users for her article about the riots, mentioning twitter and blogs
and using photos, videos and other user-created content (Larsen, 2008). The
Guardian used the twitter stream and other resources in liveblogging articles which
gave a sense of live coverage from the events. Comments posted over a period of
time, using resources from the Greek press, twitter, youtube and other websites and
updating every few minutes was the mode of reporting for these articles. One example
is the liveblogging article covering the events on the 10th of December 2008, 4 days
after the killing of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, posted in Matthew Weaver‟s news blog
(Weaver, 2008). Skynews also featured interviews with bloggers and twitterers and
along with footage from the demonstrations and riots, it also showed the twitter
#griots stream. The video can be found on youtube, where it was uploaded by a Greek
user (Skynews, 2008).
In this way, it appears that international news networks and traditional media
try to compete with new technologies and changes in the way content is generated and
news shared and commented on. They have caught wind of new developments and
have a strong online presence, having websites and many of them, twitter accounts.
The crisis that traditional media, especially newspapers, are undergoing has led them
to seek new ways of reaching their audience. It is notable, how about the time when
the riots broke out in Athens, the Global Forum for Media Development was taking
place. Andrew Lam wrote an article titled “Letter from Athens: Greek Riots and the
News Media in the Age of Twitter” where he outlined the media crisis – “how citizen
reporting has usurped professional reporting and how the old business model no
longer holds, but new ones aren‟t working very well either” (Lam, 2008) – and gave
insights on what the era of the Internet means for journalists and reporters. Lam writes
about how lately and increasingly the first images and accounts received from
breaking news incidents are in fact generated by civilians. He writes:
 Exam no. 9781703 33

From the earthquake in Sichuan to the subway bombings in London to the

recent Mumbai terrorist attack, the initial images and information that
reached the public were recorded by citizens who happened to be there.
The bystanders, the witnesses – with their cell phones, cameras,
camcorders and blackberries – play central roles in newsgathering and
news dissemination (Lam, 2008)

This is exactly what happened in the Greek cities that were overcome by riots
and demonstrations in protest for the killing of the 15 year-old student. Twitter played
an important role in being in the centre of the content, as it aided to aggregate news,
reporting from the streets, content from other websites using links, discussion from
users, translations of tweets for the benefit of international users who may have been
following the stream. However, this brings forth criticism about the credibility of
these sources. Despite the directness, straightforward communication and instant
transmission of news, sources such as twitter may give rise to rumours and prompt
action based on unconfirmed reports. It is always a risk with amateur, citizen
journalists who control content posted on the web, and those who follow news from
Internet sources blindly. As Lam comments,
It is a dangerous world, indeed, when citizen reporters are completely
trusted, both by the media institutions that incorporate them and by the
audience who consume that information. The role of the mature news
organization, [...] is to filter real news from pseudo news, rather than
treating al content as equal (Lam, 2008)

During the Greek riots, most active users did try to confirm and corroborate sources
and hearsay in an effort to create credible news. To an extent they succeeded, as many
people felt they were satisfied from the news they received using twitter. This issue
was mentioned by a few of the interview subjects and it will be elaborated on in the
next section. This is amplified by the mistrust that citizens show in Greek traditional
media, which are often deemed as biased, old-fashioned, and subject to governmental
influence. Various incidents have caused this attitude and the way the riots were
covered by traditional media, led many users to other forms of news reporting and
communication. A survey showed how the wider public reacted to the riots and
reflected the overall sentiments that were outlined in social media as well. The survey
was conducted by Public Issue Company, for Kathimerini newspaper. A few of the
results are as follows: 60% of respondents believed that the events reflect a social
revolt; 66% were dissatisfied with the way events were covered by television
broadcasters; 76% expressed dissatisfaction with police attitude; and 69% believed
 Exam no. 9781703 34

the way the government handled the situation was rather wrong (Public Issue, 2008).
It is apparent from these results that the public was widely dissatisfied with the
government and the media for the way they handled the situation. This general
atmosphere also aided the rise of social media as alternative means of communication
and information sharing.
Patrick Philippe Meier in his blog iRevolution, wrote some posts concerning
the Greek riots. In one he commented on Andrew Lam‟s article concerning the
dissemination of news via the Internet and the likelihood of protests and riots
sparking. He makes a comment at the end of his post saying,
As a consequence of the information revolution, the likelihood of an
individual receiving and broadcasting information is increasing
significantly while the likelihood of any two people communicating is
increasing exponentially; and world population is also growing at a
furious pace. Since each of these three variables are increasing, the overall
risk of protests increases as well (Meier, 2008)

In the next section I will outline and discuss the answers of the eight twitter
and social media users I interviewed in order to gain some insight from the users
themselves concerning the December riots and the role that social media played in
them.

Interview findings

The eight interviewees were asked about their use of twitter and other social
media, about their personal experiences during the riots and their feelings and views
about the relationship of traditional and new media in the age of the Internet. The
interviews were conducted in person and by email with twitterers from Athens and
second city Salonica, which were both heavily affected by the riots, along with other
Greek cities.
Beginning with the first question, how long and in what way they are using
twitter, most replies were similar. Most interviewees have been using twitter for about
a year, or a year and a half and some of them did not start using it immediately after
they signed up. They did not see its appeal, and it took some time for them to start
using it regularly and actively. The way they use the service varies and it incorporates
many aspects. They use it to keep in touch with friends, to receive news and
 Exam no. 9781703 35

information, to share links of interesting finds, to write briefly about things that are
not worthy of a whole blog post, and other uses.
When questioned whether twitter is a community, most of them claim that it is
not. One interviewee says that “it‟s more like communication, like „tell everyone‟”
(Interviewee 2, 2009). Apart from users that already know each other, in real life of
through their blogs, it is not easy to create a community with the limited space for text
and the constant flow of information. Interviewee 4 commented on a “nucleus of users
that can act collaboratively and give the impression of a community” (Interviewee 4,
2009) but did not think that there is, in fact, a community formed among users. The
way users create their networks is subject to many different interpretations and cannot
easily be analysed by external commentators. Moving on, a more important aspect of
the service is that of exchange of information and communication, for which the
interviewees‟ answers were to the point and extensive. They commented mostly on its
directness and speed. The possibility of replies between users and retweets of
messages enhance the information flow. According to interviewee 7, communication
and exchange of information is enhanced in two levels: “someone I follow may say
something interesting, that I wouldn‟t easily get hold of otherwise. On a second level,
this message may cause a conversation either to elaborate of to argue on the issue”
(Interviewee 7, 2009). However, interviewee 3 expressed the problem of twitter not
retaining records of the messages: “it was designed in a specific way and has not
changed much, thus making it difficult to retain data” (Interviewee 3, 2009).
Concerning the use of twitter and social media during the griots, all
interviewees stress the importance of these outlets to the information gained and
transmitted. They see twitter as the central aggregator of other media, with the
hashtag extremely useful for maintaining a stream of messages easily followed,
providing coverage and comments on the events. Interviewee 4 likened twitter to “the
backbone of all the other social media” (Interviewee 4, 2009), while interviewee 3
compared it to what journalists term “the water-cooler, the grapevine, the meeting
room” (Interviewee 3, 2009). According to interviewee 6, “the reporting done through
twitter was much more direct and spherical compared to other media, [and it] gave the
opportunity to various amateur journalists to share information that otherwise would
have found no audience” (Interviewee 6, 2009). Users saw the opportunity of real-
time news by following the stream, nearly unprecedented for Greece and unique at the
time. Of further importance was the lack of an agenda of the users, which provided a
 Exam no. 9781703 36

more spherical and direct way of exchanging information, finding out what was going
on in the streets and gave the international press direct eye-witness accounts of the
events, without them having to rely on the local media viewpoints. As Interviewee 2
pointed out, “If you wanted to find out what was going on you could simply ask them
and talk to them. So that was a big, big difference. And the message, instead of just
being a bunch of kids running around, to becoming an uprising, to becoming
political” (Interviewee 2, 2009).
The next question had to do with the relationship of traditional media to
twitter and other social media, and how the interviewees perceived it. There were very
interesting and in depth responses as some of the interviewees are professional or
amateur journalists themselves. Nearly all of them favoured the rise of social media,
especially in Greece, were traditional media are often critiqued as inadequate, old-
fashioned and biased. Interviewee 2 provided an interesting description of how Greek
media operate, mostly following police reports and not bothering to get in touch with
the actual events. Other interviewees also expressed dislike on how the Greek media
operated and highlighted the different narratives held by traditional media and the
Internet users. International media that came into contact with bloggers and twitterers
formed a new narrative, which was then followed by Greek media as well. The
directness and neutrality of social media were greatly valued by users. According to
Interviewee 6, “I find the directness of the new media insurmountable, and the
vastness of information they provide from various sources important for big events
(such as the griots). Traditional media, on the other hand, have in their nature limited
time and space to present news, and are bound to make selections from the material
that they will present” (Interviewee 6, 2009).
Some interviewees though, do not see social media as the sole providers of
news, but wish to see them in a more sceptical manner. They claim that the news
published is important, but that social media should be treated as another valuable
source, which nevertheless needs to be verified. Objectivity cannot be achieved and as
Interviewee 2 said, “you cannot judge who said it more correctly, every social
medium is a subjective way of expressing a topic, you are here and you are living it
from your viewpoint. What journalists chase is the objective, but again, it is not
objective, it is subjective and from various other points of view” (Interviewee 2,
2009). Furthermore, Interviewee 1 claimed that the better coverage of the riots came
from traditional media, due to better resources and the wider reach of audience. He
 Exam no. 9781703 37

claims that “whatever you do digitally, if it is not taken by a traditional medium, it

cannot reach wide audiences. If it doesn‟t appear on TV, it does not exist”
(Interviewee 1, 2009).
The last theme to be discussed with the interviewees was whether they viewed
this upsurge in user content and discussion during the period of the riots as a one-off
phenomenon, or not. Here, again, most replies were uniform in that it was not a one-
off phenomenon, but that it set the basis for a growing awareness among users of
events. Most believe that the usefulness of social media in such cases as the Greek
riots is felt by users and that this will enable them to grow more. According to
Interviewee 4, “the usage of new media in periods of crisis is a global, universal and
escalating phenomenon. New media, such as twitter, have become mainstream tools
for reporting in cases where traditional media cannot, from their nature, transmit
information worthy of the events themselves” (Interviewee 4, 2009). Interviewee 2
believes that with the right trigger there could be a new eruption of protests, since
“Groups are still around and the things that caused [the riots] haven‟t disappeared”
(Interviewee 2, 2009).
The interviews, along with other resources from traditional media and the
Internet, form interesting conclusions concerning the use of social media during the
riots and their relationship to traditional media. These conclusions will be outlined
and analyzed in the next and final chapter.
 Exam no. 9781703 38

5. Conclusions

After having analyzed primary and empirical research in the previous chapter,
this concluding chapter‟s goal is to offer answers to the research questions and
concluding thoughts on the topic; to recapitulate the research questions which were
first stated in the introductory chapter and a few secondary questions that came up
while researching the topic and to offer tentative answers to them, and possible new
pathways for future research in the area of social media.
As it has been discussed in previous chapters, Internet communication and
social media provide a radical new way of connecting users and creating networks.
Furthermore, there is a new trend of witnessing events and publishing information
about them, without the intermediary that is the traditional media sector. My initial,
main research questions circled around the issue of the usage of social media in the
period of the Greek riots and the relationship between traditional and social media in
that occasion. While researching these themes, a few secondary questions arose,
concerning the identity of twitter as an online community, and the way it has been
used by users with different backgrounds and needs.
In the particular case of Greece, during the crisis of the riots, social media
proved to be efficient and useful in communication and reporting between users.
Users from many services came together and generated a large amount of content still
available for anyone interested in finding out more about the riots. The constant
stream of news from twitter, with direct reports from demonstrations and riot scenes,
with links from various other services with photographs, videos and other texts
proved to be a valuable resource for individual users and members of the traditional
media who wished to obtain more direct views from the events. International media
did almost immediately respond to this extensive online activity, by using the twitter
stream as a resource and by contacting users for interviews and correspondences. The
nature of the activity on the web was decentralized, without an agenda and without
specific organization. It was not used to organize mobilizations, demonstrations and
protests, but rather to promote messages, to give information, to facilitate
communication. Valuable information was offered via the twitter stream, which might
not have been covered by traditional media, such as which subway stations were
 Exam no. 9781703 39

closed at the time, or where exactly there were riots at a precise moment. The way the
medium is designed, its directness and nature of discussing what is happening in the
present, was very helpful in these situations. Other social media helped in bringing
together images and views that would not have been heard otherwise. All
interviewees agreed on the value of these media in providing direct and neutral views
of the events. Almost all of the content that was created during and in the aftermath of
the riots is still available in a large part and can be found and viewed by any user. It is
a valuable resource for research for anyone wishing to investigate the riots.
Concerning the relationship of social media and traditional media, it is a very
interesting relationship that offers many opportunities for further research. While for
many of the satisfied users of social media they can be seen as an alternative to
traditional media, more direct, speedy and neutral, the case is not as simple. The
content created and published online is done by individuals, amateurs and simple
citizens in most cases. In this way there is a lot of room for various problems to arise,
such as non-credible data, proliferation of rumour and hearsay, inaccurate data that
may lead to hasty, baseless reactions. This has been highlighted in various sources,
making clear the need for sensible checking of facts and sources when dealing with
amateur journalism. This may possibly be the important role of traditional media in
the future. They will most likely not be replaced by social media and there cannot
exactly be talk of antagonism between the two. More likely, it should be a relationship
of complementary collaboration. As it was mentioned by some interviewees, they
view social media as just another source, which needs to be cross-checked as any
source. Social media, just because they are powered by individuals, should not be
taken at face-value. There still needs to be some amount of control and scepticism
when dealing with these new and still developing forms of communication. To shift to
the specific Greek case, social media reached a limited audience, because the Internet
is not as widespread in Greece as it is in other developed countries. Still, the work
done by social media users was important and was acknowledged by international
media and to a lesser extent by Greek media. Greek traditional media are still lagging
behind in response to new media and the developments of the Internet. Moreover,
they have in a significant amount a disillusioned audience that seeks information from
alternative means. Greek media are often accused of partisanism, bias, and have faced
a long-standing crisis, especially newspapers. In this context, people turned to
alternative means of information and communication in order to follow the events of
 Exam no. 9781703 40

the riots. Still, we cannot talk about the whole population and more likely there was a
fairly limited amount of users who chose alternative means for their information. In
any case, this formed a change in the way users of social media perceive crises and
utilize the services to facilitate communication during these. There have been several
incidents of traditional media criticism and this added to the December riots events
may have urged more people to turn to alternative means for obtaining news. As one
interviewee stated though, traditional media are still very powerful in that they can
reach a vast audience, have more resources and are deeply embedded in society. It has
also been relevant that social media and services such as twitter rose in popularity
after they were featured extensively in traditional media, thus resulting in more people
finding out about them and begin using them. Thus, while social media provide
valuable sources and diverse information, they cannot completely replace traditional
media. The relationship should not be seen as antagonistic, but collaboration should
be attempted, as it has already been done for several international news agencies. In
the case of the Greek riots, social media did provide a valuable alternative to
traditional media and users were satisfied by the quality of news they were receiving
overall.
To move on to the secondary questions, it is seen that services such as twitter
and other social media, may be designed in one way, but eventually are used in many
different ways according to their users‟ needs, interests and backgrounds. In this way,
twitter may be used for promoting one‟s work, for publishing messages when one has
updated his or her blog, for connecting with existing friends, for creating networks,
for getting news, sharing links and other information, for following celebrities; or
even for a combination of the above and many other uses. It has been shown that the
fluid character of the Internet with its diversity of users and services provides with
customized services. In the case of social media, they are what their users make them
to be according to the way they use them. A website may be founded in one way, only
to become popular by being used in a completely different manner.
Nevertheless, twitter is not seen as an online community. Most interviewees
claimed that its function does not enable the creation of a community. It may give the
impression of being a community because many users interact with already existing
friends and acquaintances. Its design of publishing short messages and following a
network of users who in turn post short messages themselves, is very different from a
 Exam no. 9781703 41

forum, for example. Twitter cannot easily support conversations and its public
identity may limit the type of messages people post.
Twitter has gained a lot of popularity in recent months, rapidly increasing the
amount of users in the service. It has introduced a new way of publishing messages,
using short status updates and providing users with a means of expression that they
cannot find in other social media. The service can provide many areas of future
research, especially its usage in times of crises. A recent example was the use of
twitter in the tumult that occurred in Iran after the election whose results were
allegedly altered in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Other incidents have
also been widely discussed and covered on twitter over the past year or so, when it
began gaining popularity. An article by Noam Cohen for The New York Times
written mainly for the Iran uprising offers six points that make twitter a notable
service in communication. These points can be applied in the Greek riots case as well
and make interesting comments about the developments new media such as twitter
have brought in Internet communication. The article is aptly titled “Twitter on the
Barricades: Six Lessons Learned” and outlines six points concerning twitter and its
use in light of recent crises and events. Firstly, twitter as a medium is difficult to
censor, since it is possible to use the service without accessing the website, using
various applications, mobile phones or others. Secondly, even though individual
messages may seem unimportant and trivial, according to Cohen “collectively,
however, the tweets can create a personality or environment that reflects the emotions
of the moment and helps drive opinion” (Cohen, 2009). Thirdly, Cohen highlights
how nothing is completely verified on twitter and the usage remains “a matter of
trust.” The fourth point rests on how twitter can be used to misinform and trick users.
Interestingly, for his fifth point, Cohen comments on the structure of the twitter
community, and describes it as one having “leaders and cliques.” Lastly, Cohen‟s
sixth point is about how “twitter can be a potent tool for media criticism,”
commenting on the broadcasting ability of twitter and how it can be used for criticism
(Cohen, 2009).
Studies of the dynamics of networks, detailed content analysis of messages
and other research can be conducted in various cases that still arise. In the space of
this dissertation I was not able to conduct more exhaustive research on other themes
of the service, but it remains a topic that is interesting and very close to current
events.
 Exam no. 9781703 42

Social media have gained popularity in the last few years, but are still growing
and evolving along with their users. It will be a fascinating development to follow this
evolution as it progresses. These services are still in their infancy and new ones keep
being created in an attempt to gather users and become popular. The coming years
will probably hold new developments that will possibly be fruitful for more detailed
research in the area of Internet communication, web 2.0 and social media.
 Exam no. 9781703 43

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