The AMI scientific team has as its aim to look into economic and social evolutions in Greece and Cyprus. More specifically, to research the common path both countries adopted since the economic crisis, their coming under Adjustment Programmes and – eventually – getting off such Programmes. For both countries, the starting point is to be found at the public debt crisis they were both faced with, and which served as a catalyst for a wide-ranging reform of several aspects of economic and social life. Economic evolutions are approached both independently and through their influence on society – an influence that can still be seen at each and every turn: unemployment, salary levels, consumption, explosion of private debt, emigration, low growth rates etc. Such abrupt changes have upended economic and social relationships; they offer to scientific research an ideal chance for fieldwork to test methodological tools and analytical approaches.

The AMI scientific team with this original and multifaceted research which covers economy, debt, society – and communication, is also called upon to widen the horizon of Communication by making its findings and conclusions public, using all tools available for it. Notwithstanding everything, the economic crisis – along with other changes that have taken place (e.g. in digital technologies) – has overturned economic models that have proved successful for decades all over the world. Communication and the Media couldn’t but be influenced by the crisis too, while at the same time acting to alter the ways in which society sees, understands, analyzes the crisis and reacts to it – and, more recently, the its end.

More specifically, the research undertaken:

•     First, looks at evolutions in the fields of Economy – Debt – Society – Communication and analyzes them scientifically.
•     Second, contributes with its deliverables to the corresponding Thematic Units of the Postgraduate Programme “Communication and New Journalism” of the OUC
•     Third, contributes to (and feeds into) public debate and scientific discussion in Greece, Cyprus and internationally with its results and conclusions. 

The AMI scientific team is made of: Antonis D. Papagianidis, Leonidas Vatikiotis, Eugenia Pires, Eleni Mavrouli, Alexandros Minotakis, Chris Avramides and Manos Takas.