December 2008 Revolt Media (Greece)

The protests that started in Greece on December 6, 2008, after the police killing of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos, lasted for more than 2 weeks. Whereas the political parties and the media system stood unable to cope with the cruel incident and the young people's rage, the new media as well as face-to-face communication were the basic vehicles to organize the longest and most violent nationwide riots in Greece since the Metapolitefsi (the period after the military junta fell in 1974, and democracy was restored).

School and university students, leftists, and anarchists were the protagonists of a youth revolt coordinated by texting, e-mails, special groups and personal messages on Facebook, journalistic blogs, and the Athens Independent Media Center (IMC). Significantly, this mobilization was achieved completely outside the mainstream parties and the media system, both of which were taken by surprise, especially in the early days. The streets of the capital and other big towns were taken over by students, while occupations and demonstrations broke out all over the country. The crucial moments—daily marches to police stations, parliament, and ministries; sit-ins; invasions of broadcast stations and theaters; the raising of a banner [Page 161]on the Acropolis; and the burning of the Christmas tree in Athens' central square, right by the parliament building—were first announced and systematically covered by new media.

During the December days, all the new media—both the more prestigious ones, such as blogs and forums, and the more popular ones, such as social networks and sites—brought together and directed the flow of information in a “struggle for interpretation.” The mainstream media system and especially commercial TV, incapable of understanding or controlling the flow of events, were reduced to following and reporting, for the most part, information originating via the Internet.

This, then, was the first time since the advent of commercial television in Greece in the 1980s, that television could not set the agenda, with the result that most channels, particularly the private ones, expressed strong support for the young rebels, positing an artificial distinction between them and the koukouloforoi (the hooded ones, so-called because of their ski masks, gas masks, and keffi-yes), who, according to other sources, played a decisive role in the mobilizations.