Eesti 2009. aasta kohalike omavalitsuste valimiste online-kampaania ajalehtede veebikülgedel ja uudisportaalides

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2010

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Online campaign for 2009 Estonian local government elections on newspaper websites and news portals. The aim of this thesis is to analyze political communication on the Internet, focusing on newspaper websites and news portals before the 2009 Estonian local government elections. The central research question of the paper is: “what are the characteristics of pre-election political communication on newspaper websites and news portals and how are these phenomena connected to the general development of democracy in Estonia?”. The author aims to prove that Internet has both positive and negative effects on democracy. In the first part of the thesis the author presents an overview of the literature, characterizing contemporary political communication and election advertising. Large portion of the theoretical discussion is devoted to the debate whether Internet could be the new public sphere (the ideal of which derives from the theory of Jürgen Habermas). A lot has been written about if and how Internet helps to advance democracy and the positions are very different. The author tries to give an overview of the main opportunities and problems. The first chapter ends with a review of earlier empirical studies from Estonia that have touched on subjects similar to the problems presented here. The empirical research carried out for the thesis consists of three studies, all of which used quantitative and qualitative text analysis methods. The first study looked at online political news and opinion articles from all the Estonian language national daily newspapers (Postimees, EPL, Õhtuleht, Äripäev), main national weeklies (Eesti Ekspress and Maaleht) and the most popular news portal (Delfi). The results were compared with print versions of the same newspapers. The second study focused on election ads on 29 national and local news websites and in chosen print newspapers. The third analysis looked at readers’ comments in online news media (the most active online forums were chosen - EPL, Postimees, Delfi, Järva Teataja, Oma Saar, Pärnu Postimees, Sakala, Valgamaalane and Võrumaa Teataja). The studies were carried out from September to October in 2009, before the local government elections in Estonia (18 Oct 2009). The analysis of the results showed that Internet (in this context online newspapers and news portals), has both positive and negative effects of democracy. On one hand Internet increases political diversity, offering unlimited space and better access to media for those persons and subjects that do not pass the traditional media thresholds. On the other hand, despite the opportunities, online journalism still focuses on the main political forces and larger cities (mainly Tallinn). The only stories about smaller towns and townships are those concerning scandals and bizarre happenings. Although Internet is a unique medium, there is too much information and online journalism often presents it in an unedited and unsorted form (the working speed of online news desks is so fast and the need for new articles so urgent, that they are forced to copy and paste blog posts and press releases from politicians and parties without any editorial input). This means that people who know less about politics and are not so interested in it, may find it difficult to distinguish relevant information from the irrelevant and may become even more alienated from politics. Also, people who rely on online newspapers and news portals as their main source of political information, will have a very different view of politics than those reading the print press. Election ads in the Internet enable new solutions that other mediums do not have - for example linking to websites and interactivity. Therefore it could be possible to offer people more meaningful political information and a chance to become a participant in the campaign. However, although linking was very actively used in the campaigns, the messages of online political ads were often confusing and carried little meaning, rendering the link useless. Interactivity is seldom used to engage in a dialogue with the voter. It should be noted, that the professionalization level of the campaigns was different on local and national levels. On the national level the advertising campaigns were very considered and more finished, while in the local media the ads were often more amateur. The main discussion on the local level took place in the print press and Internet was not as important. The discussion forums have sometimes even been seen as an expression of the new public sphere, but despite the technical opportunities, they do not rise to the level. Rational discussion in the readers’ comments section suffers from anonymity, lack of trust, negative environment and the attitude that comments do not and should not have any real power. The discussions almost never reach any conclusions and only a very small and unrepresentative part of the society uses these spaces. At the same time it is important to stress the positive aspects - there is evidence that rational discussion occasionally takes place in these online forums and on rare occasions the debate that started in election ads and in newspaper articles is continued there. In discussion forums people also have a chance to come in contact with different political views and develop their own and other people’s political thinking while writing down their arguments and positions. As a result of the study the author concluded that although technically Internet presents many opportunities for fostering democracy, then in reality there are numerous problems and one cannot say that it is a medium that can easily solve those issues. But despite that, there is an enormous potential in this technology and therefore it is important to try to find solutions to the negative aspects that come with it.

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magistritööd

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