| Abstract [eng] |
Personalisation of Politics in Lithuania: Image of President Dalia Grybauskaitė in the National Press Changes in both social sphere and technologies impacted a transformation of political communication. Here a new phenomenon has born in the 20th century called personalisation a theory which says that the focus of news coverage has shifted from parties and organizations to candidates and leaders and that, in addition, those individual politicians are increasingly portrayed as private persons. President Dalia Grybauskaitė has been ruling the polls as a favourite person for almost a decade yet she is hardly known for common people. She rarely speaks of her private life, much of her young days are a mystery and she is not related to any lifestyle groups – it seems she tries to deny the global trend. In Lithuania we lack of such researches as none of local politicians have ever been analysed according to personalisation theory. This Master’s thesis is the first full-spectre work on a politician’s personality, and it tries to understand how our national press present Ms. Grybauskaitė during both of her election campaigns. Three hypothesis have been raised: 1. There have been more political than non-political traits described in the newspapers; 2. The media presents D. Grybauskaitė as a cold, not sensitive, closed person; 3. Media portrays different personalities of the President when compared the year 2009 to 2014. Object – publications in the daily papers mentioning D. Grybauskaitė, published in the months of April-May in 2009 and 2014. Tasks: 1. To analyse definitions of personalisation, its indicators, and ways to research; 2. Selection of printed newspapers and periods of analysed time; 3. Preparation of Methodology for the empirical research; 4. Collection of the material and its codification; 5. Systemisation and analysis of the data collected, and presentation of how the media depicts the President; 6. Evaluation of the personalization in the press and comparison to similar works. Using various models every 351 item found were analysed. Firstly, quantitative content analysis was performed followed by qualitative content analysis. Indicators for such criteria were selected: leadership, quotation, private life, character, competence, attitude, relation to others, and appearance. During the second reading the famous Big Five theory was used to analyse the traits mentioned and evaluated in the publications; also main topics of private life and biography were chosen and analysed separately, followed by the analysis of referential words and epithets. Although the amount of personalised text decreased in 5 years, it is not advised to make such short-seeking generalizations. During her first electoral campaign, one of newspapers analysed depicted Ms. Grybauskaitė very negatively, one positively, and one was more neutral. In 2014 already two papers were negative, one remained positive. It is visible looking at the general tone of the article, when speaking of personal traits or discussing her past and family life. The first and the third hypothesis were proved, while second – partially proved. Also, it is noted that in many texts analysed, political and non-political traits were mixed and tried to prove each other – it makes such researchers more difficult to conduct. The instruments used here were an original system to analyse the media presentation of a politician. It can be used in other mediums as well (since newspaper as a genre is slowly dying), but best suited for written texts. Following this thesis, other scientists could analyse other politicians and try to compare the results, also a research of D. Grybauskaitė’s presentation in the news websites could be looked on compared how (if) internet changes the tone and semantics. |
