Töötute representatsioon Postimehes madala ja kõrge tööpuuduse ajal

Date

2011

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Tartu Ülikool

Abstract

The representation of unemployed in Postimees during low and high rates of unemployment. The main aim of this bachelor’s thesis is to seek how Postimees represents unemployed in 2005-2006 and in 2009. The years 2005 and 2006 were the highlight years of economic boom, which could be exemplified with high rate of employment and decrease in unemployment. According to the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund the percentage of registered unemployed was all time lowest since Estonia became independant in 1991. The main theme in these years was rather shortage of labor force and many changes took place in this period – the wages rised fast and employers had to reassess their value of the employee. In the time of economic boom, the unemployed were seen as people, who had the best opportunity to search for a new and better job. The year 2009 was chosen, because in that year, the influences of economic crisis were the most recognizable. The number of unemployed in Estonia started to rise on very fast pace and by the end of the year, there were more than hundred thousand unemployed in the country. That number formed 15,5% of labor force and the percentage was higher than in any other year since Estonia became independant in 1991. 1) In which context are unemployed spoken about during economic growth and recession? 2) How media expresses the main characteristics of unemployed and what are the differences between the years 2005-2006 and 2009? 3) Which are the main ideologies appearing in media about unemployed and what are the differences between the years 2005-2006 and 2009? 4) Who are given a chance to speak in relation to unemployed and what are the differences between the years 2005-2006 and 2009? a) Do the unemployed get a chance to speak as well? Based on the Postimees-online search engine, 39 articles were chosen from the period of economic growth and 54 articles from recession for qualitative analysis, whereas there were two main criterias whether the article was appropriate as empirical source material or not: it had to relate to unemployed-theme and stories had to be based on Estonia’s local events. For research were used elements of Fairclough’ and van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis. An important difference from the two periods is the ideology: during the years 2005-2006 there main approach was liberal, in the year 2009 it was social. In the first case, it was recommended for the unemployed to just be more active, but they were also warned for setting their demands too high. In 2009, in most articles, politicians and officals emphasised the importance of dealing with unemployment and that we all should care about and help the unemployed, beacause it is now the hole society’s problem. The results resembled on both periods about the context in which unemployed were characterised. Articles frequently related them with negative adjectives and in majority of articles, the unemployed were portrayed as „others“, towards whom the speakers were in higher position and had more power to decide what needs to be done for unemployed.

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