Eesti ja Ida-Virumaa kuvand noorte idavirumaalaste seas
Date
2008
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Description
The purpose of this bachelor's thesis was to research and analyse different image elements of
Estonia and Ida-Viru County among Estonian and Russian secondary school graduates of Ida-
Viru County. The second objective was to find out whether these images differ among various
native language speakers and how they have changed over the past year.
The paper consists of six chapters. The first one gives an overview of different theoretical
discourses that explain the concept of image, the image formation process and its importance.
The second chapter describes Estonian population and Estonia as a transitional society. The
third part of the thesis includes background information about general state of Ida-Viru
County and an overview of relevant strategies concerning the image of the county. Research
methods, research questions and a more accurate description of the object of the study are
explained in chapter four. The results of the research as well as a comparative analysis of
Estonians and Russians are presented in chapter five. The last part of the thesis lists the main
conclusions.
The study methods used for the empirical part were Osgood’s semantic differentiation (SD)
and a formalized questionnaire. The open questions of the questionnaire were analysed with
the methodology of content analysis.
The results of different methods revealed that the image of Estonia is all in all, positive. It
came out that Estonian and Russian speaking students of Ida-Viru County see Estonia
differently. The comparison between two national groups showed that the image of Estonia is
much more positive among Estonian students.
Changes in the image of Estonia were regarded through self-reflection of the respondents. It
appeared that half of those questioned had changed their views on Estonia over the past year.
There was an equal number of those, among the Estonian youth, whose opinions have
changed and those whose views have remained the same, while the opinions of Russian youth
have changed considerably. The viewpoints of those who speak Estonian as a mother tongue have changed for the better, while the views of Russian speakers tend to have changed for the
worse. The major factor in the change of the image lies in April riots, since a number of
respondents mentioned it explicitly or made reference to it in connection with justifying their
change in attitudes (e.g. consequences, the deterioration of relations with Russia, international
hostility, poor politics etc).
In conclusion, it seems that the views on the home country are significantly different among
the Estonian and Russian youth and that tends to be more negative in the case of Russian
speakers. Therefore, one should concentrate on improving the image of Estonia primarily
among Russian speakers, starting by implementing changes among Russians living in Estonia,
whose pessimism and misconception could be disastrous for Estonia in the long run.
The outcome of this research is that the image of Ida-Viru Country is quite positive. In
addition, it did not differ considerably among the school-leavers of Estonian and Russian
speakers. The image of the county has not changed radically among the adolescents of Ida-
Viru County but has instead remained more or less the same. However, it has changed little
among Estonian youth for the worse.
The thesis did not clarify what could the main reasons for different attitudes towards the
images of Estonia and Ida-Viru County among Estonian and Russian youth be. Despite the
fact that those reasons may be speculated, it would be more effective to research into the topic
more thoroughly through this particular angle, trying to find out where such different opinions
originate from. The topic will be discussed further in great depth in my Master’s thesis, where
the cause of different attitudes will be studied through interviews. In addition, I aim to create
strategies for improving the image of Ida-Viru County.
Keywords
bakalaureusetööd