Media, Interaction and Integration

Media, Interaction and Integration Media, Interaction and Integration: Cross-Cultural Dialogues in the Baltic Sea Area Edited by Heli Hyvönen, Tuomas Räsänen and Janne Tunturi The Family Federation of Finland, The Population Research Institute, Working Papers E36/2009 Publications of the Graduate School on Integration and Interaction in the Baltic Sea Region, 10 Turku 2009 The Population Research Institute, Working papers E 36/2009 Publications of The Graduate School on Integration and Interaction in The Baltic Sea Region, 10 ISBN 978-942-226-030-7 (paperback) ISBN 978-952-226-031-4 (PDF) The Graduate School on Integration and Interaction in the Baltic Sea Region Cultural History 20014 University of Turku www.hum.utu.fi/tutkijakoulut/balticsea/ Cover photos: View over the River Aurajoki towards Turku Cathedral. Photo: Turku Touring Warsaw, entrance to the Centrum subway station. ©2006 Ministry of For- eign Affairs of the Rebublic of Poland,Department of Promotion Cover layout Mika Takoja Printed by Uniprint, University of Turku 2009 CONTENTS Preface by Keijo Virtanen 7 Introduction 9 I Building regions Borderless form or bounded substance: Media images of cultural cooperation in the Polish-Ukrainian borderland 17 Karri Kiiskinen Engendering an Environmental Crisis: The Finnish Mass Media and the Baltic Sea Environment in the Early 1970s 45 Tuomas Räsänen Regional Lobbying and the Role of Media 65 Tapio Peltomaa Narrowing the alternatives: Regional aspects in the Estonian discussion of European unification during the interwar period 93 Pauli Heikkilä II Exchange of people and ideas Imagining America, Building Helsinki 117 Silja Laine Refugees’ Right to Family Reunification under EU law: Universally Accepted? 136 Sari Sirva “Cold War Exiles and American Radios: Psychological Warfare During the Cold War and its Impact on Media Outlets in the Baltic Republics” 154 Jonathan H. L’Hommedieu Gender and journalistic culture in Finland during the late 1940s 172 Heidi Kurvinen Mistress and maid: Multifarious processes of contemporary female immigration in the light of historical theories 194 Heli Hyvönen Contributors 212 PREFACE Media, Interaction and Integration. Cross-cultural Dialogues in the Baltic Sea Region is a fruit of collaboration between The Doctoral Programme on Integration and Interaction in the Baltic Sea Region and the Family Fed- eration of Finland. This is the second time the two organisations combine their interests in a form of a book, the first one being the volume of articles concentrating on the themes of power and control in 2004 (Power and Control. Perspectives on Integration and Multiculturalism in Europe). For the Doctoral programme this is already the 10th book, which proves that the questions of cultural integration and interaction have not lost their relevance. Indeed, new researchers have continued to emerge in this im- portant field of scholarship. I would like to thank the Family Federation of Finland and its director, Dr Ismo Söderling, for the co-operation, which made the publication of this book such a pleasant undertaking. Finally, it is of course our own doctoral students that have made this book possible by contributing their articles. Doctoral students Heli Hyvönen and Tuomas Räsänen, and Janne Tunturi, the coordinator of the Doctoral programme, have done a great job in editing the book. We have good reason to be grateful to all of them. Turku 10th of June 2009 Keijo Virtanen Director of the Graduate School Professor of Cultural History (University of Turku) Media, Interaction and Integration INTRODUCTION Since the end of the Cold War, the Baltic Sea area has witnessed many rapid social and economic changes. Some of these have reflected global trends, while others have been of a more local nature. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 changed northern Europe: in wiping away the border between East and West, it once again allowed us to see the Baltic Sea as a sea of cooperation and interaction; of disagreement as well, but in any case as an entity. Now, twenty years later, people living around the Baltic Sea have been able to observe the area by travelling to nearly every corner. At the same time, the media – the Internet, newspapers, television, film and radio – transmit news and information within seconds, thus influenc- ing our awareness of events around us. Whether the media have challenged or supported our own observa- tions, their role has been vital in creating the modern conception of the Baltic Sea Region. The media have shown us how circum-Baltic societies resemble each other and face the same problems. The media have also con- structed boundaries and borders of different kinds, enabled communica- tion between the citizens of various nations, and participated in the social, cultural and intellectual revolutions of the 1990s and 2000s. The articles in this book illuminate the role of the media in unmasking and creating a present and past reality in the Baltic world of the twenti- eth and twenty-first century. The first section of the book addresses the involvement of the media in building regions and human networks in the Baltic Sea area. The second section focuses on immigration and the exchange of ideas, and how they have been presented and negotiated in the media. ** The Baltic Sea area is far too diverse and scattered to be recognized as a genuine region. No-one identifies themselves as being a ‘Baltician’. If one uses the word ‘Baltic’, the reference will not be to the sea but to the 9 Media, Interaction and Integration three Baltic states. During the past century there has been no shortage of attempts, by political and cultural elites, to build the Baltic Sea area as a region. Any real and shared political commitment to regionalism, however, has so far been lacking and initiatives have remained vague if not artificial. On the one hand, regionalism within the Baltic Sea area has been suppressed by the long-term goal of all-European unification. This has been counterbalanced by a strong and growing tendency towards decen- tralization, most visibly expressed in the strengthening and re-establishing of historical regions. These conflicting ideas and concepts of regionalism, however, do not necessarily rule each other out. Rather, regions can and do overlap: the Baltic Sea area is today a rich mosaic of regions and human networks, and has been such for decades if not centuries. The media are powerful allies for those who wish to advance regional- ization processes and lobby regions to the outside world. At the same time, irrespective of changing political currents the media strengthen the sense of togetherness among those who receive them. Thus it can be said that the media contribute to consolidating existing regions and creating new ones. The close connection between the media and regionalism is highlighted, as Tapio Peltomaa’s article demonstrates, at the local and provincial level. The local newspapers are often amongst the most visible regional actors and symbols, and even their area of circulation may correspond with regional borders. Nevertheless the media also familiarize wider communities and even people with each other, and by so doing are in position to illustrate the possible benefits of closer interaction. Although in the context of this book it is possible to present only fragmented case studies on the theme in question, we hope that the articles in the first section prove that in building regions the media matter; in fact, they matter a great deal. Karri Kiiskinen focuses on the media images of EU-funded cross- border cultural cooperation in the Polish-Ukrainian borderland, an area with a very specific past and present cultural diversity and heritage. By pre- senting two examples of Polish border localities and cross-border actors, Kiiskinen shows how the media have contributed, by situating culture in cross-border interactions and cooperating with the projects, in transform- ing these localities and framing transnational flows and agency. In terms of the quality of cross-border relations, in these images the materiality of cultural flows implies the boundedness of culture (the possibility of being out of place; cross-border cultural non-sharing), while immateriality rather 10 Media, Interaction and Integration suggests borderlessness (locality as the interconnected, global, symbolic presence of a shared culture). Tuomas Räsänen examines the coverage of Baltic Sea environmental problems in the Finnish media in the early 1970s. Räsänen argues that the media contributed significantly to creating an awareness in Finnish society of the environmental crisis, which in turn pushed Finnish politicians to initiate environmental cooperation among the Baltic Sea states. During the Cold War, environmental cooperation was the first concrete sign of a re-emerging regionalism in the Baltic Sea area; for the first time since the 1930s, all the Baltic Sea states participated as equal partners in interna- tional cooperation. Tapio Peltomaa examines the role of the media in regional lobbying in three administrative and economic regions in the Baltic Sea area (South- west Finland and the Tampere Region in Finland, the Skåne Region in Sweden). The traditional news media have served as effective lobbying fo- rums for regions, as well as strategic allies. Peltomaa argues, however, that regional lobbyists have not employed all the potential the media could provide. The use of new internet-based media applications, for example, might lead to wider attention to regional interests and thus a better re- sult. Pauli Heikkilä looks at the history of European integration during the interwar period from the Estonian point of view. His analysis of the pub- lic discourse on foreign policy compares cooperation among immediate neighbors by the Baltic Sea to aspirations for a continental union. These two regions could be seen as complementary alternatives; eventually, however, on the eve of an unprecedented economic depression, the pleasant language of solidarity and brotherhood was easily dismissed and a commitment was made to narrow, short-sighted national interests.

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