The Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) organised a seminar on the media in Greece. The seminar took place on 6 April 2012 at the premises of ELIAMEP in Athens and was attended by academics, media policy experts and journalists.The workshop, which included a brief introduction to the MEDIADEM project, comprised two sections: the first one was about the Greek media in the light of technological developments and the crisis and the second one about journalism.

The first session started with a presentation of the findings of the Greek case study report on the most important challenges facing nowadays the media in Greece by Evangelia Psychogiopoulou, the scientist in charge of the Greek MEDIADEM research team. It continued with a presentation of the main elements of a draft law on the reorganisation of the public service broadcaster ERT by Dr. Athanasios Tsevas, Lecturer at the University of Athens and member of the expert committee set up to formulate suggestions on a new model for ERT’s governance. His presentation was followed by that of Dr. Alexandros Oikonomou, Lawyer at the National Council for Radio and Television, who talked about the current state of the migration to digital terrestial television with a focus on the newly adopted legal provisions mandating the legal separation of content providers (i.e. broadcasters) from digital terrestrial network operators. Mr Giannis Mandalidis, Newsroom Deputy Director at Lambrakis Press SA, then took the floor to talk about the impact of the internet and the economic crisis on the business model of the Greek press, both in the online and the offline environment.

The second session opened with a presentation by Dr Evgenia Siapera, Lecturer at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, who discussed the current dynamics of journalism in Greece, based on Bourdieu’s theory,[1] and the challenges it faces due to technological convergence and market consolidation. The final presentation of the panel was that of Paschos Mandravelis, journalist at the daily newspaper Kathimeri, on the work of a drafting-law committee concerning the protection of privacy and the secrecy of communications in the online environment in which he participated.

All presentations were followed by lively discussion in which speakers exchanged opinions and views on the issues discussed and the challenges that the Greek media policy should address in order to promote media independence and the media’s role in fostering public dialogue.

The agenda of the workshop is available here (in Greek).

[1] Bourdieu, P. & Wacquant L. J. D. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.