Saaremaa päevalehtede temaatika 21. sajandi lävepakul
Date
2009
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Description
The purpose of these theses „The topics of Saaremaa Daily Newspapers at the Doorstep of 21st
Century (2008/2009)” was to see if readers could be prefering either of two competing daily
newspapers because of differing topics. Could it be that readers choose their paper due to differing
„classifieds” section of newspapers? Also, using quantitative content analysis, this paper tryd to see
if one of the competing newspapers is aimed more at elderly, farmers and people living in
countryside. This was done according to a small readers survey and analysis of both papers using
the same sample from the year 2008.
According to this research the two papers do not differ substantially when compared topics they
cover. The big picture is that most frequently covered topics are the same with a tiny differents in
their position at the top.
Meie Maa covers a bit more general Estonian topics and sport which together take 26% of all
articles in that newspaper. Since it's a huge amount there will be less room for other topics. Oma
Saar doesn't have topics that come out as vividly and therefore less frequent topics are covered a bit
more often than in Meie Maa.
According to the survey the readers of Oma Saar are more satisfied with their paper and there are
less not satisfied readers among them.
The only really strong differents between two newspapers was seen at the classifieds sections. One
can see a bit more business adverts in Oma Saar. But when it comes to funeral announcements then
Meie Maa is the true leader.
There are probably other things to consider about readers choosing their paper. More emotional
things like habit for example.
But if we look more deeply inside the newspapers, past the topics, we can see that the two have
clearly different characteristics covering the same topics. Future research in this could look into
these characteristics and bring out means how these newspapers could contrast each other more.
Maybe Saaremaa doesn't need two daily newspapers but one daily and one weekly magazine?
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General)