Postimehe online-väljaande lugemine gümnasistide hulgas

Abstract

The aim of the bachelor thesis „Reading of the Online Version of Postimees Among Upper Secondary School Students“ was to determine which articles young people open at Postimees.ee website and on what grounds their choices are based. Responses to the research questions were obtained by combining two methods, qualitative research method (semi-structured interviews) and observations using think-aloud method. I comprised in my study nine last-year-students of media class of Lähte Gymnasium aged 17 to 20. To analyse the research results, I used qualitative content analysis and received the following answers to the research questions. The responders almost merely opened the articles in the middle column of Postimees.ee. Next to all the opened articles the photographs were used by the editor. The most frequent reason for opening an article was involvement in the topic. Other reasons to open the news were human interest and actuality of the topics. News about Estonia and Estonians were also important and interesting for young readers. Less interesting were news about exceptional events and previous experience as the reason of selecting the news. The headline and photo next to the article were also important reasons to select the articles, but more in the way of being teasers, rather than the main reason. It also occurred, that in most cases respondents didn’t finish reading the article. They said they got the information they wanted from the beginning of the story or that the article was too long. The opinion that the second part of the article wasn’t that interesting, was also mentioned as a reason for not finishing reading the story. During the study no-one opened the articles which could be classified as entertainment, though the majority of respondents said they often visit one or several web-sites, which offer that kind of material. The future studies in the topic are important for several reasons. It is important to study the online-reading habits and the reasons why online-readers tend not to finish reading the articles. Second of all the results may prove useful materials for the practitioners, who provide online texts and news for young people.