How often do you use social media to discuss or learn about current events? Do you follow presidential candidates on Twitter? Peek at the trending news topics on the Facebook sidebar? Comment on (or chuckle at) your friends’ heated political posts? Mediating the Message: Social Media and People (in Greece), a new CYA Communications course taught by professor Demetris Kamaras, explores the implications of social media on Greek political rhetoric, discourse, and even structure.

Present-day Greece is a ripe setting for the new course; during recent “crisis years,” online public dialogue has experienced a substantial growth. Individual voices of social media users/voters carry farther and louder online, and news content is put under scrutiny by active cyber-chatters (particularly in Greece, where few are shy about sharing their political opinions!). Students have a chance to observe and analyze first-hand the effects of social media on the greater media industry, social/political movements, public discourse, and contemporary rhetoric and reality regarding the Greek crisis.