Abstract
The article provides a short theoretical discussion of framing in news and its role in the construction of reality. They present their approach to frame analysis by showcasing the coverage of two concrete events (the explosion in Arkhangelsk Oblast on August 8, 2019; the Eastern Economic Forum, that took place in Vladivostok on 4–6 September 2019) in Russia by the Estonian, German, and Bulgarian online media, with an emphasis on the Estonian news portals. The analysis rests on the assumption that individual members of society base their actions on the meanings that different events have to them; thus, an analysis of media constructions can explain people’s attitudes to specific social phenomena. Journalists play a crucial role in the formation of public attitudes towards the events that take place outside the country borders. Journalistic framing is based on the choices journalists make guided by their professional standards. It is demonstrated that the journalists working for the news portals under discussion generally use a rather narrow scope of frames in picturing Russia. On the one hand, these frames indicate limited access to information, while on the other hand, the use of frames by the journalists indicates their intention to attract the readership’s attention, the need to present the reality in a simplified and easily understandable form, etc. The authors concluded that their findings indicate certain trends in framing Russia in the traditional EU online media, and argue for the necessity to pay more attention to the selection of information in online media newsrooms.
Highlights
According to the theory of social constructionism, reality is socially constructed [1]
The article provides a short theoretical discussion of framing in news and its role in the construction of reality. They present their approach to frame analysis by showcasing the coverage of two concrete events in Russia by the Estonian, German, and Bulgarian online media, with an emphasis on the Estonian news portals
The framing analysis allowed us to see some patterns in how events in Russia are covered by the Estonian and other European news media
Summary
According to the theory of social constructionism, reality is socially constructed [1]. The media play an active role in the process, which can be compared with other sources of social reality [2, p. “mass media do not provide accurate information to create a realistic picture” [3, p. The way the media construct reality obviously depends on the producers of the media content i.e., journalists. News journalists should use relevant and verified information sources and select what to publish and disseminate from the information inflow (press releases, news from news agencies, etc.) in compliance with the standards and ethics of professional journalism (see [5]). Journalists are influenced by various internal and external factors:
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