Euroopa Liidu kuvand üleriigiliste ajalehtede ja maakonnalehtede ajakirjanike seas
Date
2007
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Description
In my bachelor´s thesis I studied the attitude of the journalists of the Estonian media towards
the European Union (EU) during the years 2006 and 2007 and how this attitude is reflected in
the articles written in Estonian language about the EU.
The aim of the study was to assess the image of the EU among the journalists and to compare
to what extent this image differs between nationwide daily and local newspapers. In addition a
goal was set to investigate if and how this image influenced the content of the articles.
Principal expressions:
Image – For use in the field of public relations Aune Past has proposed the following
definition: “an image is a vision about an organization or an individual among the target
groups that forms their attitude towards the bearer of the image and influences the readiness
of the target groups to react to the actions of the bearer of the image in one way or another”
(Past 1999).
A journalist is defined as any person involved in the preparation of content of all nationwide
and local daily newspapers, including editors and others who contribute to the content of the
newspaper.
The European Union is a community of European countries that exists in its present state
since 1993 and its institutions.
Article is a journalistic text produced by a particular author in an editorial office that has been
published in an Estonian newspaper and which contains the expression “The European
Union” or its equivalent.
Local newspaper is a newspaper that is published in Estonian language in mainly one county
at least twice a week.
Nationwide daily is a newspaper that is published in Estonian language at least 5 times a week
all over the country.
Methods and results
Firstly I created a formalized questionnaire and analyzed the results by using the methods of
semantic differential and the situation theory of Grunig. Altogether 40 journalists filled the
questionnaire anonymously, 20 of them were from nationwide dailies and 20 from local
newspapers. According to the answers, I assessed the image of the EU and determined the
target groups of Grunig, at the same time the questioned journalists also evaluated the use of
their sources and their reliability.
As a result of the analysis of the empirically collected answers it is clear that the image given
to the EU by the journalists is mainly positive, the image by local newspaper journalists being
even more positive than that of the nationwide daily journalists. It became evident that
according to the Grunig method most of the journalists belonged to the target groups named
as “aware” or “active” and there were noticeable differences between these groups regarding
their image of the EU.
In order to find out, how the positive image influences the articles, I used the method of
content analysis and analysed 100 articles about the EU that had been randomly selected from
1st
of March to 30th
of April 2007 and published during this time in Estonian newspapers and
internet web pages. From this analysis I found that even though most of the articles were
mainly neutral, positive articles were more abundant than negative ones. Local newspapers
published significantly more positive articles.
In order to clarify the reasons why the image of EL is positive among the journalists and why
positive articles are published more often than negative ones, I analyzed the transcriptions of
four in depth interviews. All the interviewed journalists had been working at a newspaper
more than ten years, two of them at nationwide dailies and two at local newspapers, two were
editors and two were reporters. As a result it became evident that a consciously positive
attitude towards the EU prevailed in the editorial office and among the journalists already
before the referendum in 2003 and it has not changed. At the same time the EU as a subject
has become less important and more often journalists are satisfied with easily accessible
information and material.
All four hypotheses were confirmed:
The image of the EU among the journalists is mainly positive, being more positive among the
journalists at local newspapers.
In both, nationwide dailies and local newspapers, positive articles about the EU were
published more often than negative ones.
The journalists get most of their information from Estonian sources and do not show activity
in searching new themes and sources.
Most of the journalists belong to the aware and active target groups.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General)