Social Media Help Me Distinguish between Truth and Lies’: News Consumption in the Polarised and Low-trust Media Landscape of Greece

Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Lamprini Rori, Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

How do citizens in countries with weak institutions and highly disrupted media landscapes navigate news? We examine a typical South European case, Greece, via cross-national data sets. Combining data from a pool of different surveys, we show that in Greece–unlike the other five countries of the sample–social media are more trusted than news media to help individuals navigate their news environment. A thematic analysis of open-ended survey answers indicates that Greek respondents embrace alternative news sources (social media, digital-born outlets) in record-high numbers because of their distrust of traditional news outlets. Taking into account the historic interplay of media and political institutions, we present Greece as a dystopian case for news organisations and the information environment in countries with weak institutions.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)109-132
Number of pages24
JournalSouth European Politics and Society
Volume26
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Mass media
  • alternative news sources
  • media disruption
  • new media
  • news consumption
  • polarised pluralist system
  • political trust
  • social media
  • trust in news

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