Generational Use of News Media in Estonia Contemporary media research highlights the importance of empirically analysing the relationships between media and age; changing user patterns over the life course; and generational experiences within media discourse beyond the widely-hyped buzz terms such as the ‘digital natives’, ‘Google generation’, etc. The Generational Use doctoral thesis seeks to define the ‘repertoires’ of news media that different generations use to obtain topical information and create of News Media their ‘media space’. The thesis contributes to the development of in Estonia a framework within which to analyse generational features in news audiences by putting the main focus on the cultural view of generations. This perspective was first introduced by Karl Mannheim in 1928. Departing from his legacy, generations can be better conceived of as social formations that are built on self- identification, rather than equally distributed cohorts. With the purpose of discussing the emergence of various ‘audiencing’ patterns from the perspectives of age, life course and generational identity, the thesis centres on Estonia – a post-Soviet Baltic state – as an empirical example of a transforming society with a dynamic media landscape that is witnessing the expanding impact of new media and a shift to digitisation, which should have consequences for the process of ‘generationing’. The thesis is based on data from nationally representative cross- section surveys on media use and media attitudes (conducted 2002–2012). In addition to that focus group discussions are used to map similarities and differences between five generation cohorts born 1932–1997 with regard to the access and use of established news media, thematic preferences and spatial orientations of Signe Opermann Signe Opermann media use, and a discursive approach to news formats. Distribution: Södertörns högskola Library www.sh.se/publications SE-141 89 Huddinge [email protected] Generational Use of News Media in Estonia Media access, spatial orientations and discursive characteristics of the news media Signe Opermann Södertörns högskola Södertörns högskola SE-141 89 Huddinge www.sh.se/publications © Signe Opermann 2014 Cover photos: Toomas Liivamägi Cover design: Olcay Yalcin and Jonathan Robson Layout and graphic design: Jonathan Robson and Per Lindblom Printed by Elanders, Stockholm 2014 Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations 96 ISSN 1652-7399 ISBN 978-91-87843-06-8 (print) ISBN 978-91-87843-07-5 (digital) Abstract Contemporary media research highlights the importance of empirically analysing the relationships between media and age, changing user patterns over the life course, and generational experiences within media discourse beyond the widely hyped buzz terms such as the ‘digital natives’, ‘Google generation’, and other digitally and technologically capable generation groups. This doctoral thesis seeks to define the ‘repertoires’ of news media that different generations use to obtain topical information and create their ‘media space’. It contributes to the development of a framework within which to analyse generational features in news audiences by putting the main focus on the cultural view of generations. This perspective was first introduced by Karl Mannheim in 1928. Departing from his legacy, gen- erations can be better conceived as social formations that are built on self- identification, rather than equally distributed cohorts. With the purpose of discussing the emergence of various ‘audiencing’ patterns from the per- spectives of age, life course and generational identity, the thesis presents Estonia – a post-Soviet Baltic state – as an empirical example of a transfor- ming society with a dynamic media landscape which is witnessing the expanding impact of new media and a shift to digitisation. The thesis is based on data from two nationally representative cross- section surveys on media use and media attitudes (conducted during the 2002–2012 period) and focus group discussions, that are used to map similarities and differences among five generation cohorts born between 1932 and 1997 with regard to the access and use of the established news media, thematic preferences and spatial orientations of media use, and discursive approach to news formats. The findings demonstrate remarkable differences between the cohorts, suggesting that they could be merged into three main groups that represent the prevailing types of relations with the news media. Yet, the study also reveals that attitudes and behaviour (including media behaviour), are not necessarily divided by year of birth, but are more and more dispersed along individualised interests and preferences. Keywords: age, life course, generation, media use, media repertoires, media landscapes, news consumption, social space, Estonia. Signe Opermann, School of Culture and Education Södertörn University, SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden, [email protected] Contents Figures and tables 9 Acknowledgements 11 Introduction 15 CHAPTER 1 Concerns, aims, questions 23 1.1 Setting the scene 23 1.2 The Estonian news media landscape in focus 25 1.3 The aim of the thesis and research questions 29 1.4 Methodological choices 31 1.5 Structure of the thesis 32 CHAPTER 2 Theoretical approach to generations and news audiences 35 2.1 Conceptual aspects of time and space; age, life course and generation 35 2.2 Transforming audiences 55 2.3 News as a form of public discourse 62 2.4 Generations from the point of view of audience studies 71 Summary 73 CHAPTER 3 Justification for the choice of analytical focus. Methodological issues 75 3.1 Historical insights into the development of the Estonian media landscape 75 3.2 Composition of five generation cohorts 89 3.4 Method and data 96 3.5 Potential shortcomings in methods and data 106 Summary 108 CHAPTER 4 Media access and news usage between 2002 and 2012 109 4.1 Access to various media and information sources 109 4.2 Usage of various channels and formats 113 4.3 Trends in news consumption 120 4.4 Interest in media topics 126 4.5 Preferences in media use and generational differences and similarities 136 Summary 139 CHAPTER 5 Spatial orientations and clusters of news media use 141 5.1. The construction of spatial dimensions at the personal level 143 5.2 Methodological considerations 144 5.3 Mapping the determinants of spatial horizons in media use 146 5.4 Clusters of individuals with different news media use 170 5.5 Changing personal social space and patterns of audience fragmentation 180 Summary 185 CHAPTER 6 News media discursive features across the generation cohorts 187 6.1 The analytical framework: critical text analysis 188 6.2 Growing into a news audience 192 6.3 Current news media repertoires 200 6.4. A discursive review of how generations talk about news media 207 6.5 Reflections of generations: understanding the changing news media landscape 219 Summary 223 CHAPTER 7 The ambiguous problem of generations in the changing news media landscape 225 7.1 Summary of the research problems 226 7.2 Portraits of generations in the mirror of media use 229 7.3 Problems with ‘the problem of generations’ in the research on audiences 237 7.4 Critical reflections on the thesis 243 7.5 Implications for future research 245 References 247 Appendices 275 Figures and tables Figures 2.1 Conceptualisation of generation cohorts as news audiences in a cross-media environment. (p. 73) 3.1 Composition of five generation cohorts. (p. 94) 3.2 Timeline of the two survey projects, Variable Media Landscapes and Me. The World. The Media, conducted between 2002 and 2012. (p. 97) 3.3 Regular reading of daily and weekly printed newspapers and online editions and news portals across all years of birth (Appendix 2). 4.1 The index of the regular use of different media channels across four generations in 2002 and 2012. (p. 119) 4.2 Reading of printed newspapers in 2002 and 2011. (p. 123) 4.3 Reading of online newspapers in 2002 and 2011. (p. 124) 4.4 Regular news consumption across various media platforms in 2005–2011. (p. 125) 4.5 Daily news consumption across various media platforms in 2005–2011. (p. 126) 4.6 Thematic interests in media use by generation cohort. (p. 135) 5.1 Level of trust in different media channels for Estonian-speaking respondents. (p. 166) 5.2 Level of trust in different media channels for Russian-speaking respondents. (p. 167) 5.3 Sum index of the trust of media for the Estonian- and Russian-speaking res- pondents. (p. 169) 6.1 Dimensions of discourse and discourse analysis. (p. 190) 9 GENERATIONAL USE OF NEWS MEDIA IN ESTONIA Tables 3.1 Sample structure of the two survey projects. (p. 98) 3.2 A summary of the methods used to perform several statistical analyses. (p. 102) 4.1 Access to various media and information sources. (p. 110) 4.2 Generational differences as predicted by the preferences of media channels and attitudes towards the Internet. (p. 116) 4.3 Usage of different media on the Internet. (p.121) 4.4 Rankings of media topics in the list of preferences. (p. 128) 4.5 Results of the factor analysis of thematic interests. (p. 132) 5.1 Level of interest in obtaining news from different countries and regions. (p. 147) 5.2 Rankings of the level of interest in obtaining news from different countries and regions. (p. 152) 5.2 a The level of interest in obtaining news from different countries and regions (Appendix 3). 5.3 Rankings of the self-reported cultural proximity to different cultural regions. (p. 155) 5.3 a The self-reported cultural proximity to different cultural regions (Appendix 3). 5.4 Self-evaluated level of informedness about events in different geographical regions. (p. 158) 5.5 Spatial orientations of media use, by generations of Estonian- and Russian- language respondents. (p. 162) 5.6 Various usages of media channels among Estonian- an Russian-language respondents across the five generation cohorts. (p.