Rethinking media events in the context of a global public sphere: Exploring the audience of global disasters in Greece

Current accounts on globalization and transnational media flows have reformed traditional debates on media events and have raised questions on the integrative potential of media events at a global level. This article addresses this issue by employing the case of global disasters as media events and exploring some of the characteristics of the global public sphere surrounding them in one of its particular actualizations: that of the Greek audience. The article is empirically grounded on focus group discussions through which questions of perception and framing of disasters as well as of the potential of promotion of global solidarity will be addressed.