Korvpalliajakiri Basket Eesti spordiajakirjanduse kontekstis
Date
2009
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Description
Basketball Magazine „Basket“ in the context of Estonian Sports Journalism
The main aim of the current thesis is to provide a broader look at Estonian sports journalism
by mapping different sports publications but also their readers and opinion leaders in the
subject matter plus analyzing the content of one sports magazine.
During the mapping process it became evident that most of Estonian sports publications of the
last decade share magazine like qualities, for instance a number of informational bulletins,
yearbooks and formal publications of sports unions have been published.
The course of change in the readership of Estonian sports publications became apparent due
to the analysis of data provided by the Estonian Media Monitoring Centre (TNS Emor). Two
out of three sports publications have according to the aforementioned study lost a significant
part of their readers. Yet at the same time another publication has managed to move in an
opposite direction and increased its number of readers.
Compared to sports publications of 1979, nowadays basic sports magazines have many times
less readers. Paralleling with publications of the Soviet era, the loss of readers seems huge,
but even „Sporditäht“, an Estonian sports magazine started at the early nineties, has lost 80 %
of its readers in the following fifteen years of 1993.
Division of readers by their gender proved a tendency contrary to the widespread idea – the
number of male and female readers of basic sports publications is almost even. Only
basketball magazine „Basket” has reason to boast with 75 % of its readers being male.
When aiming to identify a typical reader of sports journalism, an intriguing contradiction
appeared between two different studies. According to the study by “TNS Emor”, the keenest
readers of sports literature are between ages 20-29 and 65-74, yet the research „I, the World
and Media“ conducted by the department of journalism and communications in Tartu
University, showed these age groups as the least interested in sports.
Although by age and gender there were a number of differences between the readers of
different sports publications, certain characteristics of a typical reader of sports literature can
still be distinguished. A typical reader according to the studies analyzed lives in Tallinn, has
secondary education and earns an income of over 10 000 crowns per month.
The second part of the bachelor`s thesis is a quantitative content analysis of 253 articles
published in basketball magazine „Basket“. During the analysis it became apparent that by the
end of its third publication year, „Basket“ has finalled managed to find its journalistic face.
The latter idea is well illustrated by the fact that during its first publication year, 38% of
articles lacked a specific column, but in year 2008 there were merely 1 % of articles like that.
Sports is considered a patriotic activity in magazine „Basket“, thus central articles are about
important sportsmen and teams in local sports. During the last three years the importance of
foreign basketball has also increased, for instance in year 2008, about 30 % of all articles
published in „Basket“ were about basketball outside Estonia.
Leading sports journalists nowadays bring out three main reasons for a decrease in sports
publications` readers compared to the Soviet times. Firstly, sports publications of that time
contained fairly many news about life abroad, secondly people had less choices and finally,
competition was not as harsh as it is now. Many see media concern „Kalev“ as the reason
behind the huge loss of readers of „Sporditäht“, yet the specialists interviewed bring out no
clear reasons for the same tendency appearing in „Spordileht“.
According to the opinion leaders of Estonian sports, sports media is living in an era of rapid
change. Perspectives for future mostly include fast online-directed development, arising from
the latter is the reformation of paper based publications in the future. Many interviewed
specialists say that the historically characteristic genres of sports publications have started to
disappear (e.g news) or have already ceased to exist (e.g reportage).
The current thesis managed to bring out prevailing tendencies in Estonian sports journalism.
Both the constantly decreasing number of readers and the interviews with the leading figures
of Estonian sports journalism prove that sports media is living amidst great changes. The only
thing that remains unknown is the scope and speed of this change. The author of the thesis
holds the opinion that the future of Estonian sports publications is bright only if together with
the changes in media, sports journalism changes as well.