Ekathemerini (Traditional): This is one of Greece’s top newspapers. Initially, this source was completely in greek, and not knowing how to understand the language, it was all greek to me (ba dum tss). All jokes aside I quickly found that there was an English section of this site, and unlike some sites where google translates the page in real time, this site has actual translators who translate the articles into English. I found this very cool and having dedicated translators for this site means that much of the information from the original articles won’t be lost in [Google] translation. The site itself is similar to the dispatch or the times in that it is heavy on the news, but it also branches off and covers a variety of different topics such as business, lie, sports, etc. which gives its readers an assortment of topics to chose from.
It is accessed at http://www.ekathimerini.com/
I chose this because I believe that in order to learn about a country it is important to look over their open sources. It is not only good for gathering information about the country but because they are typically written by journalists from within the country itself, it gives you a good idea of what and how the people are thinking, and how the society runs. This can give you a better understanding of cultural norms, and simply an overall deeper understanding of the citizens from within a country.
To Vima (Traditional): This is another one of Greece’s top news outlets. This one differs a little bit from the previous one in that it is more similar to a Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, in that it is more focused on the politics of the country and region. Although it is primarily about politics it does dabble a little bit into economics and religion, but usually relates these to how they affect politics. This site is good in that it gives a more specific focus and its approach to the news is similarly structured. This way if I need to find a credible and reliable news piece about politics in Greece or in the Mediterranean, then this will be the first place I go to, unlike the previous source where it is more open to any kind of news story.
It is accessed at http://www.tovima.gr/en
I chose this for similar reasons to the previous source in that using news sources from within the country itself gives a richer understanding of the culture. However, unlike the previous source, this one gives me a better understanding of the political views of the citizens and in what ways they focus these views. This will give me a better understanding of how they view their government and its relationship with its citizens. This can now only help me learn the history of the country but can give me a good idea of what the political future holds for it as well.
Greek Reporter (New Media): This source is very similar to that of the first one in that it incorporates many different topics in which it reports on. These topics are the news, life, entertainment, sports, etc., again, similar to the first one. One different and interesting thing I noticed with this site, however, is that there is a news tab all about Cyprus, a large island and one that has been controversial since the 1970s when Turkey invaded and took a large portion of the land. Today there have been many attempts towards independence but this is an on-going story and one that I will probably be talking about in the future. But I digress. What makes this source different from the other two, and why I have decided to put it under the “New Media” section, is that they are solely an online news outlet while the other two continue to sell physical newspapers as well as being online.
It is accessed at http://greece.greekreporter.com/tag/greece-news/
I chose this because it gives a different point of view as the other two, arguably more formal and established news outlets. This site also has more of an international view of not just Greece but many different regions of the world (as seen at the tops of the site), and according to their ‘about’ tab “we are the Greek news source for everything that matters from all around the world.” This struck out to me as well as a lot of other things they talked about here, which I don’t have the space to quote it all, but essentially they were one of the first online Greek news sites.
YiaHara (Social Media): I found this source very interesting because it is a combination of social media and a travel guide. By this I mean there is a social media aspect to it, specifically called “social network”, but the site does not stop there. It is essentially a series of forums that discuss all things Greece. Aside from the social network aspect the site also includes destinations (within Greece), upcoming events, news, food, art, religion, sports, and so much more. I found this very interesting because while many social media sites also have these, they are far more difficult to find, access, and interact with, while this one has all of these options right up front and then (after creating an account) you can jump right in and learn about a variety of different things within Greece.
It is accessed here https://yiahara.com/
I chose this because it allows me to, in a way, step outside my social media “comfort zone” if you will. I am so used to sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and other forms of social media that are big in the united states and those used by my friend groups that I sometimes forget that there are so many others out there. Also, this is probably one of the best ways to find out about how the people there think, how they live, what kinds of foods they eat, shows/sports they watch, and so much more day to day aspects of their life, better than that of the first source I mentioned. While this site is great for understanding the people better, I do have to keep in mind that this is not a news site and I probably would have to be more careful accepting things other than opinions that are posted on here.
The World Bank (Data): This site will be a quick one to define and that’s because it’s nothing but numbers. This site dives deep into many different facets of a country such as GDP, Population, Gross enrolment rates, CO2 emissions, Poverty, Life Expectancy, and so much more. This site not only gives you the current rates but shows you graphs of the trends over the years. One cool thing I found about this site is that it goes even further than just giving you raw data and graphs but it also has a number of surveys conducted over the years as well. These surveys can also give the user additional information they might be looking for. But overall, this is a solid site for data on a multitude of countries.
It is accessed at https://data.worldbank.org/country/greece
I chose this site for obvious reasons, that is it gives me good, reliable, data on many different aspects of a country. If I want to see how a country’s GDP or life expectancy is and how it has changed over the years, there’s a graph for that. Overall it is a great site for whatever quantitative information I want to find out about my country.
ERT1 (Visual): This is one of Greece’s top TV news outlets. From here you can find a variety of different topics in which the new station talks about. One of the main challenges I had with this site was that there wasn’t an English version of the site. This wasn’t too much of a challenge when I realized that Google Chrome could translate the pages in real time. After I activated this, navigating the site(s) became far easier. This site has many videos (which are essentially just recordings of when the broadcast was live) about news, entertainment, sports, and a series of different channels as “ERT” is essentially an umbrella/parent company for a number of different channels. One interesting thing I found while navigating this site was under their “Foreign Series” tab. Here, I found that they have different television series from all over the world, but they have been dubbed over in Greek. I don’t know why but I found that cool.
It is accessed at http://webtv.ert.gr/ert1/
I chose this because it is a Greek television and news station, and unlike the previous sources I’ve mentioned, this one gives the news in a video format similar to if you were watching the local and national news from your television; that is because the videos are recordings from the television broadcasts. This is a good source for understanding how information is broadcasted via TV throughout the country, and how it is similar to that of other news stations around the world such as CNN here, BBC in England, and RAI News in Italy. Good for comparisons, really.
Process Notes:
If I’m being honest here I just Googled the different types of media that were required and then simply added “Greece” to the searches. After that, I just skimmed through the searches to find sources that I deemed to be reliable or at least the ones that were presentable, easy to navigate and gave an assortment of articles to look at. All while making sure that they were either in English or personally translated to English because while Google Translate may be okay for sources such as my last one where all I needed to translate were the headers, it would not have been good or reliable for entire chunks of text.
Strategy-wise, what worked best was being able to limit my searches to keywords in order to find specific sources, because if I gave too broad of a source or wasn’t clear in what I wanted then I ended up with completely different sources and sites than what I needed.
What I learned from searching all of this, for me at least, is that it was very easy to find international information as long as I knew where to look. I cant say this is the case for everyone, and maybe it is because Greece is a huge historical country, but there were far more sites than I had originally expected there to be. Again, as long as I knew what I was looking for there was a site in Greek about it, and luckily I was able to find English versions of these sites (with the exception of the last one) fairly easily.
What I plan to do for the next draft is to take my time to try to be even more specific in my searches in order to find even better quality sites. I feel as if I lucked out and found some really good ones this go around but maybe next time I will look even harder, read the “About” sections of each site which is honestly a gold mine in terms of the history, values, beliefs, political affiliation, and other information that can help you better understand not only what the site will be posting about, but also makes it easier to know if there are biases in the articles and if they are valid or not. Other than that I plan on utilizing the university libraries site more in order to find more precise and reliable resources, if any.