Vlasis Vlasidis, Sofia Karekla |
|
Abstract: This text examines the role played by social media in Greece in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, pressuring the Greek government to take measures to suspend the operation of worship places. Although the Orthodox Church is a very important institution in Greece and the Greeks trusted the Church until 2019, its inability in the first wave of the pandemic to accept the need to close the temples and the termination of the Holy Communion caused the dissatisfaction of public opinion that was expressed against the Church on social media. Mass media held the same position and this had as a result the spreading of dissatisfaction against the Church throughout the society. The case of coronavirus showed that even an institution such as the Church cannot ignore public opinion as expressed through the media and the government’s mandates to protect public health.
Keywords: Orthodox Church, Holy Communion, social media, COVID-19
REFERENCES
Faroog, G. (2018) “Politics of Fake News: How WhatsApp Became a Potent Propaganda Tool in India”, Media Watch 9 (1), 106–117. DOI: 10.15655/mw/2018/v9i1/49279.
Howard, P. & Kollanyi, B. (2016) “Bots, #StrongerIn, and #Brexit: Computational Propaganda during the UK-EU Referendum”. Compor Research Note 1, 1–6.
Hua, J. & Shaw, R. (2020) “Corona Virus (COVID-19) “Infodemic” and Emerging Issues through a Data Lens: The Case of China”. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, 1–12.
Hunt, R. & McKelvey, F. (2019) “Algorithmic Regulation in Media and Cultural Policy: A Framework to Evaluate Barriers to Accountability”. Journal of Information Policy 9, 307–335.
Huynh TLD (2020) “The COVID-19 risk perception: A survey on socioeconomics and media attention”. Economics Bulletin 40(1), 758–764.
Paparizos, A. (2000) “Enlightenment, religion and tradition in the modern Greek society”, in: N. Demertzis (ed) The Greek political culture today (Athens: Odysseas), 3rd Edition, 75–113.
Quattrociocchi, W. et. al (2020) “The COVID-19 Social Media Infodemic”. arXiv, 1–18. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-73510-5.
Roese, V. (2018) “You won’t believe how co-dependent they are Or: Media hype and the interaction of news media, social media, and the user”, in P. Vasterman (ed) From Media Hype to Twitter Storm. News Explosions and Their Impact on Issues, Crises, and Public Opinion (Amsterdam: University Press), 313–332. DOI: 10.5117/9789462982178/ch14.
Sharma, A. & Shukla, A.K. (2016) “Impact of Social Messengers especially Whatsapp on Youth A Sociological study”, International Journal of Advance Research And Innovative Ideas In Education 2(5), 367–375.