Muusikateatri representatsioon Eesti trükimeedias

Date

2007

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Tartu Ülikool

Abstract

Description

This paper examines the representation of opera and musicals in the Estonian newspapers comparatively in 2001 and 2006. The field of musical theatre was interesting for several reasons. Both of the genres of the musical theatre are in a rather prominent position in the society. Opera for its historical values and the importance assigned by the national culture policy, and musicals for its popularity in the public. Also important were the widely spread and varying controversial statements and opinions regarding both of the genres. The research was focused on the general model of representations of both genres of the musical theatre: how often and in what form are they represented, who are the authors and what kind of discoursive practices are used in the media texts about the opera or the musicals. The methods of both quantitative and qualitative content analysis were used to approach these goals. The theoretical framework of the study was based on Stuart Hall’s theory of represen- tation, Roland Barthes’ works on mythology and van Dijk’s concepts of ideology, as well as the discussion over the concepts of high culture, mass culture and popular culture (including Gans’ hierarchy of cultural taste, McQuail’s theory of popular culture etc.). The population of the quantitative study consisted of 440 texts printed in Postimees and Sirp in 2001 and 2006 that were about opera or musicals. Of those, there were 147 texts in 2001 and 130 in 2006 from Postimees, and 114 in 2001 and 49 texts in 2006 from Sirp. The results of the quantitative content analysis showed, that the representation of the genres in both years was rather balanced and equal in numbers, with the exception of the dominance of opera in Sirp when compared to musicals. The most prominent change in the representation of musicals in Postimees was the transformation from being the subject of culture editors to the subject of entertainment editors, including even the reviews of performances. It is also notable, that the texts about the opera were slightly shorter in 2006 than they were in 2001, as the texts about the musicals were slightly longer in opposite. On the other hand, the quantitative emphasis had turned from news stories to reviews and columns in 2006, which displays a positive change from formal coverage to a more analytical approach. The study showed a similar change towards the increase of the number of analytical texts in Sirp in 2006 – there were more reveiews of both opera and musicals than there were in 2001. 2006 introduced also reviews of opera performances from major opera houses in the world, which was rare in 2001. A quite interesting phenomenon is associated with theatre Vanemuine – the theatre was mentioned more in association with musicals than it was with operas in both years and both newspapers, although the theatre is as active in the genre of opera (or sometimes even more) as it in the field of musicals. The comparison of the discoursive practices found in the texts regarding the opera and the musicals displayed that there is more consensus in the notions associated with opera and there is more contradiction and opposition in the notions associated with musicals. The most dominant statement regarding opera in 2001 is the idea of static or weak direction in terms of artistic conception, and in 2006 the view of opera as a vital genre with strong potential to artistic development. When speaking of musicals, the most important notion is the concept of extraordinariness of musicals (the largest, the unseen etc). In addition to that there are opposing discussions of the artistic value or potential of musicals and the frequent lack of artistic ambition of the producers of musicals. The concept of extraordinariness has diminished by 2006, but the opposing discussion has polarized even more – the discussion of artistic potential of the unfairly underrated genre on one hand and the negative attitude towards musicals as non-theatre or cheap circus on the other.

Keywords

H Social Sciences (General)

Citation