Eesti Päevalehe loetavus paber- ja online-variandis 20-40-aastaste lugejate seas
Date
2007
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Description
The main objective of the present thesis “The Readability of Eesti Päevaleht on paper and Online
Edition in the Age Group 20-40” was to find out whether the articles most read on paper are also
most popular on the online edition. The diploma paper also tried to characterise the different types
of readers based on the readers’ preference of medium.
The following research questions were posed:
1. How does the readability of stories differ among paper and online media?
2. What are the differences between a typical online reader and paper reader?
3. What may cause the differences of readability?
4. What are the different priorities of the editorial boards of the paper version and online edition
when playing out stories?
The author performed a survey where 200 online users and the same amount of paper subscribers
were asked to participate. The total of 114 of the respective age group responded. The survey
included the headlines of three different editions (April 9 to April 11, 2007) which helped to
compose readability charts. Also expert interviews with the Editor-in-chief of Eesti Päevaleht and
the Editor-in-chief of Eesti Päevaleht Online were carried out.
It became apparent that there are three clearly distinguishable reader groups of Eesti Päevaleht:
firstly, readers who prefer online, secondly, readers who prefer paper and thirdly, readers who do
not have a specific preference. All three groups were surprisingly similar in size, varying between
31 and 45 respondents. The author reached the conclusion that the readers who prefer paper were
most dominantly satisfied with Eesti Päevaleht. They had the highest opinion of the quality of the
stories, they read the most stories and they spent most time reading the paper. While the third group
was in between, the first one (preferring online) showed the weakest results in these categories.
Resulting of this, the author concluded that the second group has adopted most values that Eesti
Päevaleht shares.
The charts showed that only four articles among the top ten of readability of both the paper and
online edition overlapped (e.g the most read article from newspaper “Autokoolide tase langeb iga
aastaga” achieved the second rank in the chart of online). At the same time there were remarkable differences in the charts. For example the sixth most read story in the paper chart was only 32nd
in
the online chart.
The differences may be caused by the fact that online users have had less time to adopt to the style
of Eesti Päevaleht. Online also offers much more than just the reflection of the paper. In addition,
the attention of the online user must be caught very fast and it is much harder to lay down the path
for the online user to follow. Finally, it is quite difficult to lure an online user to read a specific
story: basically only very good headlines can attract readers. Although the priorities of the editorial
boards don't differ much, the stories produced for the paper version tend to be replaced by fresh
events on the opening page of Eesti Päevaleht Online, resulting in less attention of readers.
Very few similar works have been carried out before and therefore it gives a good basis for further
research. For example it would be very useful to know how the types of reader evolve in time and
also more specific knowledge about the reasons why this or that story is read would be of
importance.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General)