Eesti tele- ja raadioajakirjanike käsitlusi avalikkusest

Date

2009

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Tartu Ülikool

Abstract

Description

Current bachelor's thesis is looking at Estonian public television and radio journalists view on the public and their related roles and responsibilities. During Spring 2007 I conducted 13 semi-structured interviews with long term active public journalists to describe their understanding of associations between the public, journalism and journalists. The fact that there is not much research on this topic and that journalists play a significant role in creating our public opinion makes the topic relevant. It is important to know journalists cognition and view on the public. As a theoretical base I defined the concept of the public and explained the involving characters and roles system. I also looked at the purpose of the public journalism and the development of Estonian public in last couple decades. The second paragraph describes the purpose of my research and the method which it was followed with the main results and conclusions. The purpose of my thesis was to let journalists describe their opinions and views about the public, discuss their subjective role and their experience in context. Outcomes and analysis of the conducted semi-structured interviews are described below: About 1/3 of journalists are not interested in defining the public: they either don’t want to or they see the public as equal to the term “society”. Half of the questioned journalists saw the public as the means for working society and characterised it as being active. The question of how the public works got two kinds of answers: one half thought it is up to people to make the public work when the other half think it just works with no particular input. Most of the interviewees feel that Estonian public is dominated by politics and there is not enough coverage from other opinion leaders. Journalists see themselves as ideals. Journalism is “yellow”, superficial, too political and all about money, but they, the public journalists, are working on basic values and see themselves as the servants of the public. In general these journalists feel their work is influential – in a sense of trustworthiness, education and helping to make peoples lives better. Although most of the questioned journalists feel that Estonian public is dominated by politics they still use it as a main topic themselves. Newsroom journalists see trustworthiness, objectivity and fact accuracy as main assets. About half of the interviewed journalists say it is important to use moral values like family values and tolerance for another human being. The beginning of democratic public in Estonia (the beginning of 1990s) is seen as a really positive and important time for the development of Estonian society. The journalists think that the public was more active and enthusiastic. The media however was less professional at this time. Some journalist say that the public has not changed but the answers varied a lot. The public is not as manipulative, there are less lies and malevolence, people are more self-centered and the public is more tolerant. The general thought is that values were more settled. This is a qualitative study therefore it focuses on understanding, describing and interpretation and there can’t be wider generalisation on the results. The outcome is only the opinion of those 13 public journalists who were interviewed and may show a tendency of views of public journalists. It is important to keep studying this topic because better understanding on the public and the views of people who influence it helps with understanding the society. In foregoing research it would be good to involve different channels in media. For example to compare private and public journalists opinions and views.

Keywords

H Social Sciences (General), bakalaureusetööd, avalikkus, ajakirjanikud, raadioajakirjandus, teleajakirjandus

Citation