| Abstract [eng] |
Presenting of national minorities in mass media is a sufficiently urgent problem that is poorly explored in Lithuania. Links between mass media, ethnical minorities and public spirit remain behind limits of social and cultural studies. Mass media, as one of the means of communication, can successfully disseminate, support and consolidate the stereotypes and opinions constructed by the everyday consciousness. The urgency of the Paper is based on the fact that presenting of interests of national minorities in mass media of Lithuania never was investigated. The object of the Paper is presenting of interests of national minorities in mass media of Lithuania. The goal of the Paper – to analyze presenting of interests of national minorities in national newspapers as one of the cases of protest in the 1st half of the year 2006. For implementation of the goal, the following tasks were set: 1. To review the present situation and the composition of the national minorities; 2. To provide a definition of national minorities and to disclose a specific character of the minorities; 3. To review the legal base for the rights and freedoms of national minorities; 4. To disclose the role of mass media in making representations of national minorities; 5. To arrange a surveying interview and to provide the attitude of an expert engaged in a newspaper towards presenting national minorities; 6. To analyse reflecting of interests of national minorities in national press applying the method of qualitative analysis of the contents and to compare the results achieved by different newspapers. In the Paper, some of the most important scientific research methods, such as analysis of scientific references, interviewing and qualitative analysis of the contents, were applied. For the investigation, two large and most popular daily newspapers of Republic of Lithuania – “Lietuvos rytas” and “Respublika” were chosen. For analysis of the said newspapers, the period of the 1st half of the year 2006 was chosen. The carried out analysis of presenting national minorities in Lithuanian daily newspapers allows concluding that the level of intolerance in our society is sufficiently high, particularly in respect of national minorities. National minorities are presented in press negatively, their interests are ignored, the information provided is one-directional and overweighed. It became clear during the investigation that on presenting national minorities, information providers violate the key principles of public informing – impartiality and provision of correct, precise and all-round information. The hypotheses formulated on the investigation of presenting national minorities in mass media were confirmed. The qualitative analysis of the contents allows stating that presenting national minorities in Lithuanian press is not objective, because certain other interests supported by the ideological position of the newspapers are pursued. It was found that non-objective presenting causes reducing the moral criterion of the state – the responsibility is transferred to conflicts “between” the minorities thus forming their images as of persons culpable for their own problems. |
