What is it about?
NGOs contribute to social change and transformation as part of their ontology and also reconstruct reality through communication. The development of the organized NGOs in Greece in the 1980s reflects this transformative nature of the third sector and also relates to the role of communication as the carrier of this transformation, by offering qualitative information and also a discourse that enhances the idea of citizenship.
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Why is it important?
The Greek NGOs study is a fairly new field. It has only been looked upon in the last twenty years or so. Research has been focusing primarily on the role of NGOs in the political and social contexts as well as on the relationships between the State and the Organizations' role, functions and operations. The historical perspective that looks at the development of NGOs and the role of communication has been largely ignored with the exception of the relationship between the media and the NGOs. It is the aim of this paper to look at the nexus between the Greek Civil Society and the role of communication not from the perspective of functionalism but rather through the lenses of social theory in the field of Public Relations.
Perspectives
The legacy of the Public Relations role in the NGOs work and in the third sector overall in Greece is an important one. The field of Public Relations became an integral component of the civil society and it laid the groundwork for network-based activism, it fostered citizen's new ideological identities beyond the polarized political system of the time that defined and gradually led to a more holistic approach in communication. Besides we do see a new discourse in communication emerging beyond the functional role of Public Relations, where pluralism in communication tools and methods led to a new generation of citizens which were offered new ways of exploring socially sensitive, political and environmental issues, beyond governmental control. Some of the NGOs were supported by the Greek government but others were completely opposed, and this love hate relationship between the State and the world of Greek NGOs continued in the following decades.
Emmanuel SKOULAS
The American College of Greece Deree
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The role of communication in the establishment and growth of NGOs in Greece during the 1980s, Corporate Communications An International Journal, March 2026, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/ccij-07-2025-0212.
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