December 22nd, 2008
Greece Riots: Smart Mob, Snap Mob, or Networked Anarchy?
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On 6 December 2008, after 15-year-old student Alexandros Grigoropoulos died from a gunshot wound inflicted by a policeman, Epaminondas Korkoneas, after an altercation between a police patrol and a small group of youths in Athens, Greece erupted into violent riots that are still going on two weeks later (see Wikipedia, NowPublic, Mahalo, The Boston Globe Big Picture).
The riots have once again shown, just as they did during the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack, that legacy media often lags behind participatory media in crisis reporting. Andrew Liam (via Patrick Meier and Howard Rheingold), who was in Athens to attend the Global Forum for Media Development, quotes Greek columnist and TV commentator Pavlos Tsimas –
Thousands of people were in the street protesting the murder of a boy whose name they didn’t know. Established media have not yet reported the event. TV stations came in a little late. The next day the newspapers did not carry words of the event with the exception of some sports papers that carried the story due to late night printing.
