Research: "The Role of Mass Media in (Re)distribution of Power"

Pētījums analizē, kā sievietes un vīrieša dzimte tiek konstruēta masu medijos, kā dzimtes stereotipi ietekmē varas pārdali politikā un kā dzimtes stereotipus caurvij etniskais aspekts, kā arī sniedz rekomendācijas situācijas izmaiņām.

Pētījumā analizēts mediju diskurss 2002.gada Saeimas un 2003.gada prezidenta vēlēšanu kampaņu laikā, apskatot laikarsktus “Diena”, “Lauku Avīze”, “Vakara Ziņas”, “Čas” un “Vesti Segodņa”, kā arī Latvijas Radio 1, Latvijas Radio 4, un LTV 1 raidījumi.

Pētnieki konstatējuši, ka medijos vīrieši un sievietes tiek stereotipizēti, turklāt vīrieši tiek atspoguļoti kā “pareizais” dzimums politikā un varas sfērā, līdz ar to politiķu dzimte tiek uzskatīta par pašsaprotamu un netiek problematizēta. Sieviešu portrets medijos ir neprecīzs, aizspriedumains un neiecietīgs, viņu sasniegumi medijos tika stereotipizēti kā izņēmumi. Mediji sievietes politiķes gadījumā pievērš uzmanību viņas personiskajām īpašībām un izskatam, nevis spējām, bet vīrieša politiķa gadījumā koncentrējās uz politikas idejām.

Pētījumā identificētas vairākas būtiskākās sfēras, kurās nepieciešamas izmaiņas vai tālāks darbs:

• palielināt sieviešu līdzdalību un iespēju izpausties medijos, kā arī pieņemt lēmumus, izmantojot mediju palīdzību;
• veicināt līdzsvarotu un nestereotipisku sieviešu attēlojumu medijos;
• uzsākt plašāku diskusiju par komunikāciju un demokrātiju, kā arī apspriest nepieciešamību indivīdiem un institūcijām pievērst arvien lielāku uzmanību dzimtes aspektam jau no bērnības;
• veikt izmaiņas mediju likumdošanā, integrējot tajā dzimumu līdztiesības aspektu;
• veidot politiku, kas radītu konkurējošāku un uz sabiedrības interesēm vairāk orientētu mediju sistēmu ar spēcīgu bezpeļņas un nekomerciālo sektoru.

Plašāk par pētījumu šeit.

What media and politics relations should be... ?

Look, I have found!

It is really good video about media and politics interaction in America. I regard, it is a useful to comprehend media significance in informational flow in nowadays.

http://www.echochamberproject.com/node

Political campaigns in Internet

This summer I had an honour to participate in research work about political campaigns in Internet, based on the case of the 2006 Latvian Parliamentary elections.

My responsibility was to analyse and to expound research foundings. Look, there is one of the results I wondered and I want to share :

In order to examine the relationship between the Internet use and political participation patterns respondents were asked about their political engagement before the elections, such as attending meetings with politicians, canvassing, donating funds.

Despite of one could not observe a statistically significant correlation between the use of the Internet and different forms of political participation to establish causality between the variables.

We established, as seen in table, that regular Internet users, and those who used the Internet for acquiring political information showed slightly higher levels of political participation than non-users.

		Regular Internet users		Internet non-users		Used the Internet to acquire political information
		Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
	Participated in elections	71.2%	28.5%	64.7%	35.3%	82.8%	16.8%
	Attended a meeting with politicians	21.9%	86.7%	5.9%	94.1%	19.5%	79.4%
	Donated funds to a political party	0.9%	97.9%	5.9%	94.1%	1.9%	95.7%
	Called others to go voting	2.6%	96.1%	0%	100%	5.1%	93%
	Canvassed at people’s homes	1.5%	97.2%	0%	100%	1.9%	96.1%

My first conclusions about media and politics interaction

Last year I made out my research work "The role of largest daily newspapers in integration and tolerance promotion in Latvia”. My aim was to obtain answers on following questions: Does expressed opinion in newspapers about race and sexual minorities promote a tolerance in society and Who order the opinion expressed in daily newspapers – commentators, editor, the owners of newspapers or political parties, which are interested in it?

Significant social life factor is interrelation, which is based on understanding and tolerance to those who are different. As in media expressed opinion is important factor which affects a public opinion, it is relevant to realize under whose dictate opinion of newspaper is.

I used five newspapers and commentaries about race and sexual minorities in it. But the information was collected analyzing content and data was processed with descriptive statistics and conclusive statistics computer programme SPSS.

In research I established an issues that affect the content of commentary and what descriptions are used to describe above-mentioned minorities. I tried also paid attention on political that directly concern on rights of minorities and the links between in newspaper’s opinion and in partie’s opinion in draft law voting were set out.

On of the conclusion I figured out, the media (newspapers) content often depends on editors and owners, and political parties they favour.