Heaoluühiskonnast riskiühiskonda: terrorismiteema Helsingin Sanomate siseuudistes aastal 2004
Date
2005
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Description
The purpose of this research was to study terrorism and its outcome in media. One of the starting
points was the constructive understanding of media as the creator of social reality. The author relied
mainly on Ulrich Beck`s theory of risk society, on Anthony Giddens explanation of risk and on
Risto Eräsaari`s descriptions on the nature of the risk. It was also important for the study to explain
the global and local context of the risk. For that, the author used the research work about risks from
Sitra (The Finnish National Fund for Research and Development). In her research, the author
wished to explain the outcome of terrorism as a risk factor in the country (Finland) context.
Since the authors purpose was to observe terrorism in the local context, she limited her research
with the articles published in the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat in the year 2004. The sample
consists of articles, where the word terror- occurred in the headline or in article text. The aim of the
author was to find out, how many articles have been written about the named subject, what kind of
main topics occur, who are the main speakers in the articles, how important is terrorism as a topic in
those articles, how is talked about threat and security and what kind of position Finland holds
against the probability of terrorism threat.
The data for the research comes from the articles published in Helsingin Sanomat in 2004 (N=129),
where the word terror occurred in the headline or in the article itself. Combined content analysis
and discourse analysis were used as tools for research. Through the combined content analysis such
manifest characteristics as the articles headline, main topic, main characters, the importance of
terrorism as a topic for the article and the evaluations of threat were observed. Partly readymade
categories were used, through which the material was analysed, open coding was also used to deal
with the material. Later on the wider topic circled were formed on the basis of open coding. Content
analysis formed the starting point for the discourse analysis. The articles chosen through content
analysis (N=46), where terrorism was an important topic of the article formed the data for the
discourse analysis.
As a result of the discourse analysis the main discourses came visible: The West discourse and the
war discourse, warning discourse and the overreacting discourse. The mentioned pairs of discourse
can be generally taken as opposites to each other. The west discourse finds its way to the paper through the politicians. Terrorism posed a threat for the (European Unions) western values. In
western picture a line was drawn between the soft standpoints of the west and United States views.
The war discourse regarded terrorism as the new asymmetrical form of war, where the
counteractions are also military. The warning discourse showed that one must taken terrorism as a
threat in account also in Finland. The overreacting discourse brought out, that precaution methods
should be in balance with the reality of the danger - Finland in not the United States.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General), bakalaureusetööd, heaoluühiskond, riskiühiskond, globaalprobleemid, terrorism, ajakirjandus, diskursusanalüüs, Soome, Helsingin Sanomat (ajaleht)