‘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 and Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou

South European Society and Politics, 2021, vol. 26, issue 1, 109-132

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.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1080/13608746.2021.1980941

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