Representations of Transitional Estonia in Finnish Newspapers

The research studies the representations of transitional Estonia in Finnish newspapers. The purpose of the study is to examine the production and reproduction of nationality. Following the tradition of the school of cultural studies, national identities and representations are understood as constructed, dynamic and heterogeneous. The empirical data consists of 309 articles concerning Estonia. The data is collected from three Finnish newspapers: Helsingin Sanomat, Iltalehti and Ilkka. The data covers texts from years 1992 and 2002, three months each. The research is presented in chapters that mix theoretical discussion and data analysis. The different chapters approach the data from different points of view: there is a brief quantitative analysis of the data; a study of the actors and photographs in the articles; a study of the rhetoric in the articles; and a study of the gender images. The study concludes that all the newspapers were greatly interested in the dramatic events in Estonia during the early 1990s. The emphasis was then on domestic politics. However, when the sensations ended and the Estonian society became more stabilized, the interest faded and fewer reports were published. Estonia was increasingly represented in the context of entertainment and through the winners of the transition period. The negative outcomes of the transition received less attention. It can be argued that the fading interest was also due to a lack of resources ever since the recession of early 1990s and a trend where Finnish interests were concentrating on Western European issues -before and after joining the European Union in 1995. Thus not only the volume of writing, but also the quality of writing, is very much affected by the economic reality. The data demonstrates a biased representation of Estonian women. Estonian women are represented in contexts of prostitution or erotic entertainment. Few women are represented outside these discourses in contexts of business, politics or culture. Asiasanat: Viro, murroskausi, kansallisuus, identiteetti, sukupuol