The Euro Crisis in Online Media: Civic Resilience and Social Innovation in Sweden

While Scandinavian countries may be coping with the Euro crisis relatively better than most other European countries, they are far from unaffected. Nonetheless, the mainstream media have represented Scandinavia and Sweden as prime examples of resilience at a governmental level (i.e. the ability of a national economy to withstand, adapt and overcome the financial crisis), disregarding the consequences of growing inequalities and the dismantling of welfare state. Consequently, reports on resilience at the civil society level (i.e. the ability of citizens and communities to withstand, adapt and overcome the financial crisis) remain largely absent from mainstream media reports. Instead, civil society initiatives that respond to the consequences of the crisis have to rely on self-representation and sharing of resources in online media. One example is the Swedish grassroots organisation, Megafonen.