Eesti ja Ida-Virumaa kuvand noorte idavirumaalaste seas

Date

2008

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

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

Citation