Media's role in poverty reduction policy: case of Lithuania's internet dailies during economic crisis of 2008

In the communication of policies, media presents the main source of public information, providing explanation and assessment of current social and political developments along with daily news reports. Media's role becomes especially prominent during periods of crises, which lead to social insecurity. Lithuania has seen a period of the growth in significance of the role of media in 2008, during the economic crisis, when a transformation in public policy took place. It impacted rise of poverty. At the same time the structural changes of media themselves were gaining momentum. The question of what the role of the newly emerged internet dailies is, as the significance of communication in public policy processes under late capitalism grows, becomes particularly relevant with regard to poverty reduction policies, whose task is to absorb the possible consequences of economic crisis and transformations of public policy. Within the paradigm of Critical Realism, which refuses to recognize democratising media’s role in public policy making as self-evident, the study of framing of poverty using critical discourse analysis was conducted. It is concluded that Lithuanian internet dailies act rather as facilitators of policy changes which during crisis were directed towards minimising state's role in securing well-being of citizens. At the same time media's interest in journalistic professionalism was overridden by market concerns. And also the effects of online media's global character are quite obvious. There is clear tendency to decontextualise news which means that the geographical proximity no longer serves as a criterion for news selection — or at least that it is not as relevant as it used to be..