Eesti- ja venekeelse Delfi ja Postimehe kõneaine Vene-Ukraina sõja kontekstis 2022. aastal

Abstract

Media agenda in Delfi and Postimees online news portals in the context of the Russian- Ukrainian war in 2022 The starting point for my master's thesis was the theory of media effects, which posits that the media shapes political reality and can lead to changes in audience behavior. Given that Estonia has both Estonian- and Russian-language press, I became interested in comparing articles published in both languages. The aim was to determine whether there are differences in agenda and framing in Estonian- and Russian-language articles. For the analysis, I selected the news portals Delfi and Postimees. The material was collected throughout 2022, which predetermined the theme of the Ukrainian war as the main framework of my thesis. The analysis showed that Estonian-language Delfi and Postimees paid the most attention to the events on the battle-front and showed empathy with Ukrainians. Although the Ukrainian war was an important topic in Russian-language articles as well, the tendency was to concentrate on the war’s impact on various areas of local life. This might be due to the role of a facilitator of integration assigned to Estonian Russian-language journalism. The war was perceived negatively in both Estonian- and Russian-language articles. Certain discrepancies were discovered when analyzing the naming of events, the description of the participants, and the allocation of responsibility. In Estonian-language articles, the war was called by its name, and the war crimes committed in Ukraine were repeatedly mentioned. In the Russianlanguage articles, the Russian soldiers were associated with war crimes to a minimal extent. The result was a smoothed reflection of reality and shifted emphases. Estonian- and Russian-language Delfi and Postimees created information spaces dominated by the theme of the Ukrainian war and similar in terms of evaluations of events. The selection of facts and the frames however differed. The well-argued Estonian-language articles better prepared readers to understand societal processes and the impact of the war. In contrast, Russian-language articles, characterized by clear evaluations but vaguely defined agency, did not provide readers with clear answers to possible questions about what was happening in Estonia and on the international stage.