Helsingin Sanomat Research Articles

Shaping discourses of multilingualism through a language ideological debate

The ideological (re)construction of the position of Swedish in Finland is examined as it took shape during a major year-long debate about the role of Swedish in Finnish education. Data were collected through archival research of the leading national newspapers in the two official languages of Finland:Helsingin Sanomat(Finnish) andHufvudstadsbladet(Swedish). Circulating and intersecting discourses in newspaper texts are traced in order to examine how these discourses facilitate the negotiation of tensions about the status of Swedish in Finland. Analysis demonstrates how ideological space was opened for destabilizing dominant perspectives about the relative value of languages in Finland. Moreover, it is shown that (re)interpretations of the discourse of ‘Swedish as mandatory’ in education became a fulcrum for leveraging a wider debate about the ‘Finland as bilingual nation’ discourse, which has long been part of the national consciousness.

Fighting Fat: The Role of ‘Field Experts’ in Mediating Science and Biological Citizenship

Diet, fitness, and healthy living have become popular topics of media coverage and public health campaigns. Stories about the health hazards of fat draw heavily on scientific knowledge, the expertise of scientists and medical doctors, and increasingly on new field experts such as nutrition consultants and personal health trainers. A case study of an anti-fat campaign—the Fat Rebellion—run by Finland's biggest daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, shows that field experts have become important mediators of scientific expertise. Nutrition therapists, personal fitness trainers, lifestyle coaches, and other field experts were the most cited actors in the campaign. The field experts promoted dietary foods, guidance, measurement technologies, and health training. The field experts in the Fat Rebellion also acted as mediators of biological citizenship: participants of the campaign were encouraged to take a greater responsibility for their health and vitality. Compared to scientific experts, field experts did not appear so much as sources of scientific information, but instead as authorised users of that information and specialists of employing commercial health technologies. They give advice and encourage citizens to record their weight and offer detailed prescriptions of healthy lifestyles. This combination of theoretical and practical knowledge as well as their daily or weekly face-to-face relationship with people in quest of healthy lifestyles makes them powerful mediators of biological citizenship.

No news is good news? Making the Finnish public image of Russia

Finland and the Russian Federation share significant overlaps in history. With the exception of a couple of conflicts, the relationship between the two is commonly described as friendly. With a common border of more than 1,300 km, Finland has always been closely tied to its eastern neighbor. Despite the physical proximity, the Cold War era closure of the border increased the mental distance between the two sides, and fostered an image of the other colored largely by attitudinal stereotypes. For a long time, the tightly secured border was deemed as a necessary construction, which allowed cross-border flows and influence to be managed and filtered. The resulting ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality etched in the minds of many has proven to be far more deeply rooted and harder to erase than the political border per se. In an attempt to trace the development of the portrayed image of Russia, this article analyzes the opinion columns featured in the main Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat during 1990–2010. The analysis suggests that little effort has been made to improve the popular geopolitical image of Russia. While understanding the potential of having Russia as a neighbor, many Finns continue to actively reconfirm the elements in the neighbor, which should be let go in order move beyond stereotypes. This tendency is only reinforced by the load of the language used, which seems to inhibit people from critically evaluating the opinions and views that they hold.

Seeing and not seeing the Syrian crisis: New visibility and the visual framing of the Syrian conflict in seven newspapers and their online editions

This cross-national study analyzes the visual construction of the Syrian crisis in the quality press of seven countries. The crisis has held the world’s attention for over two and a half years and provides a compelling case study due to the difficulties professional journalists have in covering its events as well as the Syrian opposition’s innovative social media strategies, which focus on the dissemination of eyewitness images. Moreover, there are stark divisions in the political discussion about how to respond to the mounting crisis – a discussion fueled by footage uploaded to social media sites by opposition activists. There is however little empirical evidence of how the conflict has been made visible in the international media, or how Syrian activists’ images figure in this mediated<br />visibility. The study compares the use of visual imagery in The Guardian (UK), Helsingin Sanomat (Finland), La Repubblica (Italy), Romania Libera (Romania), El País (Spain), Kommersant (Russia), and Hürriyet (Turkey). It asks how mainstream newspapers visually construct a conflict when the access of professional media to the conflict zone is restricted, but an abundance of non-traditional visual source material is being made available by activists.

The domestication of foreign news: news stories related to the 2011 Egyptian revolution in British, Finnish and Pakistani newspapers

The article studies the domestication of foreign news by identifying the different ways in which the Egyptian revolt was reported and discussed in Britain, Finland and Pakistan. The data comprise the press coverage of the 2011 events in three newspapers: The Times in Britain, Helsingin Sanomat ( HS) in Finland, and the Daily Times in Pakistan. We argue that, in addition to journalists, there are other agents who contribute to domesticating foreign news items. This makes understandable the unexpected differences between the three newspapers. One might assume that coverage of the Arab Spring would have been more impartial and less emotional in Britain and Finland than in Pakistan, which is culturally closer to Egypt. The opposite was true, however. The coverage of the events in Daily Times primarily consisted of hard news. The Times and HS, on the other hand, sent their reporters onsite, and the news stories used several discursive means to bring the events experientially closer to their readers. Yet, the Egypt uprising was used as a lever in domestic politics more forcefully in Pakistan. That is because the uprising was domesticated to local politics by other actors than just journalists.

‘Power Investigation’ Neglected: The Case of the Finnish Newspaper Helsingin Sanomat

A media and communications study conducted within the Finnish research programme on power represents one of the Nordic power investigations. In analysing the discourse of globalisation in the editorials of the largest newspaper of the Nordic countries, Helsingin Sanomat, journalism is studied in one of its most significant societal function: investigating the exercise of power. The understanding of power and those tasked with providing public perspectives on it is seen to be a topic that exceeds the analysis of temporary state commissions. Rather, it concerns the essence of the media system and thus becomes an issue of general relevance.

A climate for reduction? Futures imagined in newspaper coverage of UN climate summits

This article studies how futures were imagined in newspaper coverage of the UN climate summits in Bali (2007), Copenhagen (2009) and Cancún (2010) in the Finnish newspapers Helsingin Sanomat (HS) and Ilta-Sanomat (IS). The study employs a discourse-theoretical perspective to highlight the contingency of representations and the process of meaning-making. Articulations of futures are studied in relation to the argument that in climate change debates a sense of predestination, in the form of predictions inferred from climate models, prevails over ways of imagining futures that allow more room for human agency and social change. The “prestige paper” (HS) rated the summits high on its news agenda and covered climate treaty negotiations extensively while the “tabloid” (IS) provided more sporadic, often celebrity or scandal driven coverage. In both papers, futures were articulated in relation to the climate treaty which functioned as a nodal point in a binary dichotomy between a desired future articulated through emission reductions and an undesired future articulated through consequences of climate change. Beyond the immediate summit context other articulations of futures, relating to uncertainty (HS) and the probability of concrete climate change consequences (IS), emerged.

Emergence of emotional management: changing manager ideals in Finnish job advertisements from 1949 to 2009

This article analyses the increasing emphasis on emotions in management ideals by examining the changing qualities of the ideal manager in Finland in the post-Second World War era. We examined 1425 manager position job advertisements in the major Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat between 1949 and 2009. Our results show that emotional requirements were rather uncommon during the post-war era but that they became key characteristics in job advertisements towards the end of the century. Feminine management ideals emerged from the 1960s onwards in line with the changing nature of work, organizational developments and increasing equality of social relations. However, the economic slowdown of the 1970s was followed by a new emphasis on masculine qualities. We argue that the emergence of emotional management reflects the changes in the cultural, social and economic order, in which social codes stressing equality became a rule, and emotional qualities were recognized as tools for increasing productivity.

Psychological management: changing qualities of the ideal manager in Finland 1949‐2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the historical emergence of psychological management in Finnish working life from the viewpoint of recruitment process by examining the changing qualities of the ideal manager in Finland in the post‐Second World War era.Design/methodology/approachThe study is conducted through an analysis of 1,305 manager position job advertisements in the major Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat between 1949 and 2009.FindingsThe average number of references to personal skills and traits in manager position job advertisements grew from 0.7 to 3.8 between 1949 and 2009, and by the end of the 1990s exceeded the average number of references to technical and cognitive skills. During the same period, intrinsic job benefits largely replaced extrinsic benefits in job advertisements. The results suggest that the anthropocentric management of personalities and subjectivities was gradually introduced to Finnish organizations over a period of several decades. The complex historical process, deeply interlinked with organizational and societal developments, resulted in a highly multi‐dimensional ideal manager of 2009.Originality/valueThe study offers original knowledge regarding the emergence of psychological management, and sharpens the picture of changing management ideals in a national context.

Transformation of Newspapers’ Thematic Structure in the 20th Century

This article focuses on the thematic structure and contextualisation of the future in the main daily newspapers of the three neighbouring countries of Finland, Estonia and Russia throughout the 20th century. We mapped the content of 2079 Finnish, 2242 Estonian and 1723 Russian daily newspaper articles. The Finnish Helsingin Sanomat concentrated on the issue of “state and legislation”; the second most common topic in the Finnish sample was economics, at about 20 percent of the articles, with the exception of the 1910s and 1930s. In Estonia we did not find any dominant topic during the 20th century; there were many different topics related to the agenda. Politics and governance and related issues were particularly dominant during the periods of independence. Economy-related issues were more or less dominant during the period of Soviet occupation. The topics of economics and human relations and values were dominant in the Russian Pravda throughout the 20th century. The analysis reveals that Finnish media were more diverse than Estonian and Russian, which displayed a lack of diversity especially during the Communist period.

Avian Flu and Embodied Global Imagery: A Study of Pandemic Geopolitics in the Media

Avian influenza is caused by viruses adapted to birds. The causative agents can, in rare cases, spread to humans, although no human-to-human transmission has been demonstrated. However, the mere possibility of mutation into a human form allowed for media, states and international organizations to speculate about the meaning of the disease's movement across species and localities. The hypothetical scenarios focused on national preparedness and resilience. Such imageries of elastic and shock absorbing communities offer insights into how diseases are used to contain and border in an age of vanishing boundaries and interconnected global reaches. This study tracks the historical trajectory of public cognitions regarding avian flu as it turned from an ordinary livestock disease into a hyperbolic mutable ‘killer disease’. Excerpts from articles carried in The New York Times and Helsingin Sanomat, a Finnish mainstream daily, are used to map how the disease turned into a register of the hostilities inherent in the world. In the American public cognition, the tangible disease threat was triggered when the dangers of mutation were associated with China. For the small peripheral Finland, the pandemic scare instigated public imaginaries of a resilient and efficient Nordic society. La influenza aviar es causada por virus adaptados a los pájaros. En casos raros, los agentes causativos pueden propagarse a humanos, aunque no se ha demostrado ninguna transmisión entre humanos. Sin embargo, la simple posibilidad de mutación a una forma humana, permitió a los medios, estados y organizaciones internacionales especular sobre el sentido del movimiento de la enfermedad entre las especies y localidades. Los escenarios hipotéticos se enfocaron en la preparación y resistencia nacionales. Tales imágenes de comunidades elásticas y absorbentes de impactos ayudan a comprender mejor cómo se usan las enfermedades para contener y colindar fronteras en una época que están desapareciendo y de extensa interconexión global. Este estudio sigue la trayectoria histórica de conocimiento público respecto a la gripa aviar cuando pasó de una enfermedad ordinaria de ganado a una ‘enfermedad mortal’ hiperbólica mutable. Extractos de artículos publicados en el New York Times y el Helsinki Sanomat, un diario finlandés predominante, se usaron para representar cómo la enfermedad se convirtió en un registro de las hostilidades inherentes en el mundo. En el conocimiento americano, la amenaza tangible de la enfermedad se desencadenó cuando los peligros de la mutación fueron asociados con China. Para la pequeña Finlandia, el susto pandémico instigó la imaginación pública de una resistente y eficiente sociedad nórdica. 禽流感是由鸟类携带的病毒引起的。尽管目前还未发现人到人传播的案例，但在某些罕见的情况下，这些病原体可以传染给人类。尽管如此，仅仅是能变异为人类病毒的可能性就足以让媒体、国家和国际组织思考这种跨物种和地域的病毒传播的后果。这种假想关注国家的准备情况和应变能力。这种关于具有弹性和能吸收震荡的社会的意象让我们能够洞察，在一个边界正在消失、各领域相互联系的时代中，疾病可以如何被用来阻止国家边界的消失并界定国家边界。禽流感已经从一种普通的家畜疾病变为一种夸张的可变异的致命疾病。本文追踪了这一公众认知变化的历史轨迹。通过刊登在《纽约时报》和芬兰主流日报《赫尔辛基新闻》上的文章节选，本文表明了禽流感是如何变为各国固有敌意的记录器的。在美国的公众认知中，禽流感在中国的变异危险导致了这场有形的疾病威胁。对于处于边缘的小国芬兰而言，这种禽流感大流行的恐慌驱使公众想象一个灵活高效的北欧社会。 조류 독감은 새들에 적응된 바이러스가 원인이다. 사람을 통한 전염은 밝혀지지 않았지만, 드믈게 바이러스는 인간에게 전파된다. 그러나, 인간 내에서 이루어지는 돌연변이의 가능성은 매체, 국가와 국제기구로 하여금 생물 종과 지역을 넘어서는 전염병 이동의 의미에 대해서 생각하게 한다. 가상 시나리오는 국가의 준비 상태와 회복력에 초점을 맞춘다. 탄력있고, 충격을 흡수하는 커뮤니티들의 이미지는 국경이 사라지고 지구적으로 서로 연결되어 있는 시대에 어떻게 질병들이 차단되었는지를 이해하게 한다. 이 연구는 보통 가축 질병에서 과장된 돌연변이가 가능한 ‘살인 질병’으로 바뀐 조류 독감에 대한 대중적 인식의 역사적 궤적을 추적한다. 뉴욕 타임즈와 핀란드 주류 신문인 헬싱인 사그노마트에서 기사들에서 발췌한 글들은 어떻게 질병이 세계에 내재된 적대적인 것으로 되는지를 그리는데 사용된다. 미국의 대중적 인식에서 발견되는 질병 위협은 돌연변이의 의험성이 중국과 연루되었을 때 유발되었다. 작은 주변국인 핀란드에서 전염병 공포는 즐겁고 효율적인 북유럽 사회의 대중적 상상을 부추겼다.

Media Coverage and Solidarity after Tragedies: The Reporting of School Shootings in Two Nations

Abstract Although considerable research analyzes the media coverage of school shootings, there is a lack of cross-national comparative studies. Yet, a cross-national comparison of the media coverage of school shootings can provide insight into how this coverage can affect communities. Our research focuses on the reporting of the school shootings at Virginia Tech in the U.S. and Jokela and Kauhajoki in Finland. Using 491 articles from the New York Times and Helsingin Sanomat published within a month of each shooting we investigate how reports vary between the nations and among the tragedies. We investigate if one style of framing a tragedy, the use of a “tragic frame,” may contribute to differences in the communities’ response to the events.

From aesthetes to reporters: The paradigm shift in arts journalism in Finland

The crisis of cultural journalism has recently been a topical issue in many countries. In Finland, too, it has been claimed that arts pages, previously dominated by aesthetically oriented critics, have been shrinking and become more news oriented and entertaining. In this article, we explore the change of structures, values and ideals of arts reporting as friction between two opposing paradigms, the aesthetic and the journalistic, and analyse how the changes are reflected in the contents of the cultural pages and in the self-image of arts journalists. The research data of this case study consist of the arts pages of the biggest national newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, and of various internal planning documents related to its management. In addition to a longitudinal content analysis, we also employed theme interviews with and observation of cultural journalists. The results show a change of paradigm in arts journalism, with the consequence that the previously autonomous department has become an inseparable part of the news organization, increasingly adapted to meet the challenges of news journalism.

Representations of energy policy and technology in British and Finnish newspaper media: A comparative perspective

This article analyses media representations of the strengthening technological energy policy orientation in the UK and Finland. Drawing from over 1200 newspaper articles from 1991 to 2006, it scrutinises how energy policy in general and energy technologies in particular have been discussed by the media in these two countries, and how the media representations have changed over time. The results point to the importance of national political, economic and cultural features in shaping media discussions. At the same time, international political events and ideas of technology-driven economic growth have transformed media perceptions of energy technologies. While the British media have been rather critical towards national policies throughout the period of analysis, the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat has supported successive national governments. In both countries, energy technologies have increasingly become linked to global societal and political questions.

Slow initial β-lactam infusion and oral paracetamol to treat childhood bacterial meningitis: a randomised, controlled trial

New antimicrobials or adjunctive treatments have not substantially reduced mortality from acute childhood bacterial meningitis. Paracetamol seems to have beneficial effects in bacteraemic adults and some experts recommend initial slow β-lactam infusion. We investigated whether these treatments had benefits in children with bacterial meningitis. We did a prospective, double-blind, single-centre study with a two-by-two factorial design in Luanda, Angola. 723 participants aged 2 months to 13 years were randomly assigned two 12 h intravenous infusions, without loading doses, of 125 mg/kg bodyweight cefotaxime (total dose 250 mg/kg) given over 24 h, or 250 mg/kg bodyweight cefotaxime given as four boluses, one every 6 h over 24 h. Patients also received oral paracetamol at an initial dose of 30 mg/kg then 20 mg/kg every 6 h for 48 h or placebo. Two primary endpoints, death or severe neurological sequelae and deafness, were analysed by intention to treat. The study was registered as ISRCTN62824827. 183 patients were assigned cefotaxime infusion plus paracetamol and 180 patients to each of the other three treatment groups. Causative agents were identified in 63% of cases and were mostly Haemophilus influenzae type b, Streptococcus pneumoniae, or Neisseria meningitidis. Death or severe neurological sequelae were seen in 340 (47%) of 723 children and deafness in 45 (12%) of 374 tested, both distributed similarly across treatment groups. In a predefined subgroup analysis of death or any sequelae, by causative agent, a benefit was seen in favour of infusion over bolus in children with pneumococcal meningitis (infusion plus placebo, odds ratio 0·18, 95% CI 0·03-0·90, p=0·04). A similar effect was seen for children receiving cefotaxime infusion plus paracetamol, but the difference was not significant (OR 0·22, 95% CI 0·04-1·09, p=0·06). A post-hoc analysis suggested that cefotaxime infusion plus paracetamol lowered mortality at least during the first 3 days, irrespective of cause. Although no tested regimen improved the final outcomes of these very ill children, studies of longer courses of β-lactam infusion plus paracetamol seem warranted. The Päivikki and Sakari Sohlberg, the Sigrid Jusélius, and the Paediatric Research Foundations, and the daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.

Circulating Communities Online: The Case of the Kauhajoki School Shooting

Circulating Communities Online: The Case of the Kauhajoki School Shooting

Gendering violence in the school shootings in Finland

Within barely a year, two school shootings shook Finland. The school shootings shocked Finnish society, forcing media, academics and experts, police and politicians alike to search for reasons behind the violent incidents. Focusing their analysis on the two main Finnish newspapers, Helsingin Sanomat and Hufvudstadsbladet , authoritative sources of information for Finland’s two language communities, the authors maintain that the Finnish case contributes to research on school shootings by evidencing the intimate linkages between the state, gender and violence. The authors argue that violence is to be understood through different discourses about the Finnish state. In particular, they discern three discourses about the state that produce gendered discourses of violence: the welfare state, the realist state and the neoliberal state. The authors conclude that these discourses produce different notions of rational and irrational violence thereby providing different legitimizations for male-embodied/masculine violence.

TIME AND SPACE IN THE CONTENT OF ESTONIAN DAILY NEWSPAPERS IN THE 20TH CENTURY

The present study aims to describe the dynamics of spatial-temporal relations in daily newspaper texts. This includes agreements on what constitutes the 'present', the extent of the 'past' and the 'future', and where the reader's hypothetical place in space is. The temporal dimensions that emerged in Estonian newspapers (Paevaleht, Rahva Haal, Eesti Paevaleht) were strongly future-oriented. This was a characteristic tendency through- out the 20th century and it can be noted even today. The orientation towards future is notable in comparison with Finnish (Helsingin Sanomat) and Russian (Pravda) newspaper texts.

Visions of Finland in the Age of Globalization

Abstract It seems that in the current era of globalization, the national discourse has not lost its appeal in Finnish public discussion. Somewhat paradoxically, it is as strong as ever when the challenge of globalization is being debated in the Finnish press. A closer investigation of the national arena Helsingin Sanomat (HS) shows a coalition of powerful societal actors in the centre, building up a national consensus and a vision of Finland’s future as a competition state. Different interest groups are divided in their attitudes towards globalization and its implications for Finnish society. Less powerful actors see it as a threat and try to bring forward a vision of Finland as a fair and responsible nation. At the same time, mainstream journalism seems to be afraid of political conflict and of stirring things up. Instead, the paper holds on to the traditional consensus-oriented public discussion culture. The present article discusses the Finnish globalization discussion from the 1990s until 2004.

The Finnish public discussion of giftedness and gifted children

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of research in which the Finnish public discussion of giftedness and gifted children, and conceptions of giftedness and gifted children presented in it, were examined. The research was conducted by analyzing articles from the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and the teachers’ periodical Opettaja, using the content analysis method. The results show that giftedness is seen as multidimensional, and both intrapersonal and environmental contributions are recognized as essential in talent development. The conceptions of gifted children were quite diverse, and gifted children’s possible problems were frequently discussed. Moreover, misunderstandings were revealed as well as areas that have not been adequately addressed.