Läänemere reostustemaatika kajastamisest Eesti Päevalehes 2006. aastal
Date
2007
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Description
Siim Lõvi´s bachelor thesis ”Coverage of the Baltic Sea pollution thematic in Eesti
Päevaleht in 2006” analyses how the newspaper kept an important environmental
issue on public agenda and how the problem was framed throughout the year. The
topic of sea pollution was first introduced at the newspaper agenda in the end of
January when a widespread oil leakage was found on the North-Western shore of
Estonia, killing thousands of seabirds.
Drawing upon Ulrich Beck’s risk society theory, a theoretical presupposition to the
current analysis is that media has an influential role in defining risks, especially in the
case when the topic is unknown for the audience and hence all information about it is
meditated by media. Thus for the public it is crucial, how the media portraits risks -
such as oil leakage in the Baltic Sea. Media has to cover a risk thoroughly to keep the
public concerned. The debate in the opinion section of the newspaper is also vital for
the development of ideas how to deal with risks. Those ideas can lead to political
actions that might resolve the insufficiencies that became apparent in dealing with oil
leakages.
In the analysis, 225 articles published on the issue in Eesti Päevaleht during 2006
were analysed, using both the quantitative content analysis method and the qualitative
analysis. The results of the study show that the daily Eesti Päevaleht covered the topic
of sea pollution widely when there was a newsworthy event. However on other
periods, the coverage was much lower which leads to the conclusion that the public
debate on opinion pages did not show continuity. Only on some occasions there where
opinion articles that reintroduced the problem.
Besides covering the main topic of sea pollution and its effects on wildlife, four
distinct frames where found in the analyzed articles. First, there was a significant
number of articles dealing with the topic of political responsibility during the first of
five periods analyzed. The frame mostly associated with sea pollution was the
problem of resource insufficiency. Eesti Päevaleht covered proposals how to improve the situation, however did not offer any actual solutions. Nor did it question their
validity. Also the lack of effective resolutions to sea pollution episodes was framed as
an error of the official’s judgment and as a result of legitimate and organizational
faults.
Eesti Päevaleht succeeded in contextualizing individual events of sea pollution into a
wider problem. Criticism of the lack of (state) resources to combat sea pollution led to
a larger debate on the underfinancing of the entire internal security system in Estonia.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General), bakalaureusetööd, ajakirjandus, päevalehed, keskkond, keskkonnakaitse, saastamine, naftareostus, veereostus, merereostus, Läänemeri