Investigating the Macedonia Naming Dispute in the Twitter Era: Implications for the Greek Identity Crisis

Persefoni Zeri, Charalambos Tsekeris and Theodore Tsekeris

GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe from Hellenic Observatory, LSE

Abstract: The Macedonia naming dispute has been an important issue in Greek affairs. It constitutes both an irresolvable, decades-old international problem and a significant, yet undertheorised, analytical topic. In this context, our aim is to critically explore, highlight and discuss the deep-seated and pervasive patterns, representations, attitudes, beliefs, ideas and norms within the Greek social imaginary, as these emerged on Twitter in real-time, during the mass “Macedonia rally” on February 4, 2018. More specifically, drawing on the dialectical interaction between Twitter posts, sociopolitical behaviours and interpretative analytic frames linked to interdisciplinary theoretical discourses, we attempt to understand and interrogate the intellectual structures, value system and operational categories of a large number of Greek groups on the ‘Twittersphere’. Based on the assumption that, in the last instance, the rigid refusal of the majority of the Greek people to accept a ‘composite name’ solution is connected with the tacit social imaginary of the Greek society, the present paper brings to the fore a complex identity problem. This problem relationally refers to the internal workings of the individuals, the psyche and the unconscious, but also to hidden and unreflected symbolic backgrounds, macro-social processes, and cultural legacies. Our following Twitter network analysis, focused on selected hashtags regarding the ‘Macedonia rally’, point out the character of social dynamics and ascertain the findings of the interpretative research strand.

Date: 2018-07
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