Victor Tsilonis

The results of Greece’s snap general election, triggered by Syriza’s defeat in May, are eagerly awaited. Support for the far-right Danish People’s Party has collapsed, while Lithuania has grown more conservative. But isn’t there more to European politics than national swings and roundabouts?

The outcome of this year’s European elections is more likely to be determined by the state of nations’ finances than their media landscapes. However, the making and breaking of coalitions is something that money still, it seems, cannot buy.

From 1975 until 2002, the terrorist activities of the revolutionary organization 17 November, or “17N”, preoccupied Greek public opinion and the secret services of several states. Victor Tsilonis critiques the first book offering a view “from within” 17N, by offender-author Dimitris Koufontinas.

The periodical translation of news into words and the associated analysis that constitutes the print medium, writes Victor Tsilonis, is no longer enough. It cannot attract a wider audience. The answer: humorous, issue-specific poster, social media and video campaigns.

With sharp drops in advertising revenue and drastic public cuts, the financing system for Greek journals has never been less transparent. As the “networking” factor attains new levels, meritocracy seems a far-off dream says Intellectum editor Victor Tsilonis.

The Greek media “failed completely” to predict the consequences of debt-fuelled reality loss, says journalist Stelios Kouloglou in interview with Intellectum editor Victor Tsilonis. The very sector whose job it was to burst the bubble played a major role in creating and preserving it, he argues.

The suicide of a pensioner outside the Greek parliament, the latest in a series, sums up the mood of a population confronted with the steady erosion of its rights. Victor Tsilonis wonders whether tomorrow will be just another day in Greece’s “predestined” future.

Despite ceaseless social networking, the virtual rebel’s many hours of online agitation remain largely unproductive. Victor Tsilonis, editor of Greek journal Intellectum, says it’s time for some real-time.

Hazy though its contours might be, Greece’s economic crisis didn’t creep up from behind, writes Victor Tsilonis. The scandals littering Greek politics in recent decades indicate a chronic lack of accountability, culminating in the anti-constitutional approval of the EU/IMF loans.

“Sometimes we forget that maybe we need to ask more questions about the situation we are getting into. Then we have the right to say no.” In 1999, forensic anthropologist Sue Black joined a British UN Forensic Team investigating mass graves in Kosovo, and has since been to Sierra Leone and Iraq. She talks to the journal Intellectum about how she came to work in warzones, and why, despite everything, she loves what she does.