Representation of death culture in the Estonian press/Surmakultuuri representatsioon Eesti ajalehtedes.
Harro-Loit, Halliki ; Ugur, Kadri
Introduction
Death is an omnipresent part of daily life and evokes both personal
and public reactions. In the news media, themes of death and remembrance
are woven together in hard news, features, pictures and obituaries.
Traditionally transport and industrial accidents (with multiple
victims), murder cases, as well as major natural disasters and war news
are considered newsworthy because the role of the news is not to mirror
the world but to highlight problems and extraordinary situations.
Journalistic coverage is different when reporting about the death of
hundreds and thousands (in case of natural disasters, war or industrial
accidents) or one person; nevertheless this dimension is usually in
correlation to geographical distance and proximity (Adams 1986).
Death imagery pushes journalists into the debate over whether,
where and how they should publish images of death and corpses. Indeed,
the issue of how to use images of death has never been entirely
clarified. Although we do not focus, in this paper, on these dilemmas it
should be taken into consideration that the Estonian media do not
usually represent corpses in an identifiable way.
In national tragedies, such as accidents causing many injuries and
deaths, natural disasters and the death of people representing the
national elite, etc., the aspect of death and the subsequent mediated
(public) mourning rituals are likely to become media events (Dayan &
Katz 1992; Pantti & Sumiala 2009). Indeed, coverage of a funeral and
public mourning can be so intensive that it interrupts everyday life and
broadcasting programs (e.g. funeral of a president or mourning of
Princess Diana). In addition to media event the journalism studies
provide more or less elaborated concepts for different types of
intensive coverage where the media plays a significant role in framing
and social amplification of a certain event or topic: mediated scandal,
media hype, news waves of smaller amplitude than media event (Paimre
& Harro-Loit 2011). However, such death-related intensively reported
cases should be analysed separately from the daily news flow that is the
focus of the present research.
The general death-related media context is broad and varied,
ranging from the individual (death of a hundred years old person) and
private funerals to national and international news reports about the
victims of wars, catastrophes, accidents and murders. These reportages
represent cultural ideas about the many meanings of death but it is also
valuable to notice what is not reported concerning the death-theme.
Regardless of their specific topic and circumstances--natural disaster,
workplace accident, murder or the natural passing of the elderly--the
stories told about death in journalism are ultimately about grief. News
stories of the dead are about the living far more so than about the dead
(Kitch & Hume 2008, 187) and they focus in particular on the
emotions of survivors (Walter et al. 1995).
The goal of this study is to analyse how Estonian daily newspapers
represent death in everyday news flows and find the elements of death
culture in the news stories. Consequently, we analyse neither the
representation of grief and death-related rituals such as funerals,
public mourning and commemoration nor the discussions about the cause
and guilt concerning violent deaths, etc. We exclude obituaries as
"it is widely accepted that the emphasis in obituary composition
should be on capturing life rather than describing the death"
(Starck 2007, 373).
In mapping the variety of ways that the media cover death, we aim
to create a model for qualitative content analysis that helps to define
the elements of death coverage in newspapers and enables seeing which
parts of the death discourse are included or excluded. We propose a
seven-dimensional model for analysis that partly comes from theoretical
news value theory and partly from studies concerning death coverage in
news media. In order to test this model we conducted qualitative content
analysis on three Estonian dailies and three of the most prominent
weeklies over a six week period, on one day for each of the six weeks.
Our research focused on news discourse that included news, editorials
and columns, but did not take into consideration any of the other
formats that are used in media; fictional genres, reviews and classified
announcements were omitted.
Death-related daily news flow
Society's orientation on youth, health, happiness, success,
strength and growth marks death as a failure, loss or error, not as a
normal conclusion of all life. This situation has been described as a
lack of death culture before the era of antibiotics and chemical weapons
(Kubler-Ross 1969).
It has been widely debated whether death as an issue has been
absent, marginalized or appears quite regularly in the media (Aries
1974; Traber 1992; Walter et al. 1995; Hanusch 2008). We would claim
that while the processes inherent in dying and death appear relatively
seldom in the news media, death-related items appear often in one or
another news story.
An event or theme may be selected for reporting because it has
certain qualities (news factors, newsworthiness). The amount of damage,
the social status of people, the geographical and cultural distance
between the events and the place where the recipients of the news story
live, relevance and proximity of the event to the news audience's
lives and experiences are all equally important (Allan 1999, 62 f.;
Keppinger & Ehmig 2006, 27).
Dying as a closure is an important news factor, because it is
relevant to all of us. As people naturally pay attention to things that
are dangerous or threatening (Shoemaker 2006, 107), violent and
unexpected death-related events are more likely to be selected for
publication. In German and Australian newspapers, most frequent coverage
of death in the foreign news sections was of violent death (Hanusch
2008, 345). It should be kept in mind that we conceptualize violence and
therefore violent death differently depending on social, cultural and
historical circumstances. For example without any feelings of compassion
from people, an elderly woman could be burned to death at a witch trial
several hundred years ago in Scandinavia (Hoijer 2004, 516 f.).
Several studies stress the way the news media covers conflicts
(war), and catastrophes have a significant impact on the public
reaction. Wolfsfeld et al. (2005; 2008), for example, describe various
techniques journalists use in order to raise the level of emotionalism
associated with the conflict event: "close-ups of the wounded or
dead, /.../ personalization of victims" (Wolfsfeld et al. 2008,
403). Elmasry (2009) demonstrates how certain framing mechanisms allow
newspapers to construct the legitimation of killings for the public. In
the context of emotionalism, the about-to-die image freezes a
particularly memorable moment in the process of death and thereby
generates an emotional identification with the person facing impending
death (Zelizer 2005, 34).
Portrayals of death and dying might serve symbolic functions of
social typing and control. McGill et al. (2007) contend that in the
instance of mainstream media ignoring a genocidal event (e.g. the
massacre of the Anuak tribe by the Ethiopian military), the journalists
do not fulfil their primary purpose of informing society. News
organizations tend not to show photographs of human devastation on the
"other" side, military casualties, wounded or captured
soldiers, etc. (Zelizer 2005, 31). This raises the critical issue of
whether or not journalists ought to accurately depict the horrors of the
war, even if this would be offensive to the audience or the government
(see e.g. Konstantinidou 2008; Silcock & Schwalbe 2008; Borah 2009).
Arguments about our dead versus their dead; about civilian versus
military dead; about showing the faces of the dead, etc., inevitably
draw in news editors, media ombudsmen and readers (Zelizer 2005, 27).
Western journalism has usually less of a problem using words in
news to verbally recount the stories of death in wartime, but it has
many problems using news pictures showing those who have died (Zelizer
2005, 27). The mediation of visual images of corpses and the portrayal
of dead people has raised continuing journalism ethics debates
concerning the extent to which news media can reproduce images of
corpses. Should the bodies be unrecognizable in order to show respect
towards the dead and their families? This question should be discussed
separately for visual and print media, since besides ethical issues
there are many technical and technological issues: can the image be
accessed again, what kind of information and attitudes are mediated
through focus, background, colours, graphics, cut, etc. In our study, we
focus primarily on verbal expressions of death and of death culture.
Another important aspect concerning the public privacy of the dead
and death is related to the daily information people get about the death
of strangers from the media. The mediated sharing of the stories of
strangers' deaths may be the more common death experience in modern
culture than the personal experience of losing close family and loved
ones (Kitch & Hume 2008, xvii).
Since everyone dies, whose death is worthy of media coverage? Death
and funerals of influential people are usually intensively covered by
national and international media. Mourning rituals, like other secular
or religious rituals can be defined as a context for affirmation,
negotiation and contestation of social bonds and authority (Pantti &
Sumiala 2009, 122). This type of commemorative journalism reaffirms
rather than informs (Kitch 2000) and the ritual of mourning is a
symbolic moment that inspires reflection on societal norms, hopes and
fears (Kitch 2003; Pantti & Sumiala 2009). This is true not only for
political figures but also of popular cultural figures (Kitch 2000,
173). At the same time, research indicates that in instances of national
tragedies changes occur in the representation of the general public with
media presenting photographs of and quotes from victims, survivors and
mourners (Kitch 2003, 220; Pannti & Sumiala 2009, 129).
By taking into consideration the variety of journalistic framing of
death-related items (e.g. victims of natural and man-made disasters and
accidents, the deaths of 'enemy' soldiers, post-event
hospitalization reports of victims), we found that another important
issue concerning death culture representations in media is linked to the
time-scale of the process of dying, the eventuality and remembrance of
the dead. Although news stories primarily focus on causes, the moment of
death and grief, they also report on the eventuality of an earlier than
expected death in the future by offering warnings and prescriptions in
the context of health promotion, safety instructions, etc. In the
context of 'death in the future', the focus is on avoiding or
postponing an earlier than expected death. This form of death reportage
implicitly addresses the fear of death that many people share by making
death seem to be manageable. In the context of death that has already
happened, the focus may be on the concrete incident or the circumstances
of death. Equally the focus may be the person that died or on the
broader meaning of situation (e.g. on traffic death seems more
meaningful if it is put on the context of traffic safety in the
country). If death has already taken place, news journalism may also
seek out those responsible or guilty the event. In brief, time as a
perspective influences both the ways of coverage and representation.
Death representation in newspapers: seven-scale analysis model
In order to map the wide spectrum of death coverage in our everyday
news flow we created a seven-scale analysis model (Table 1). Although
this model is based on news factors and newsworthiness theory our aim,
parallel to news criteria, was to capture the specific nature of death
(inevitable, unexpected, final, violent, etc.).
By coding all death-related articles according to the model we can
provide an approximate map of the areas, which journalism covers more
intensively and which areas the coverage is more subtle. Thus one news
article could meet several categories. Each scale is divided into four
categories: two extreme (A and B) categories at either end of the
spectrum and two central categories at either side of the median. The
seven scales are as follows:
1. Elaborated accounts that detail how or why an individual died
(or is dying) and stories of death without details versus short reports
about the dead or the cause of death without full identification of the
dead; mentioning the death (e.g. death statistics as a background) or
announcement of a death in ordinary news text.
2. Natural death versus violent death. On this scale the end of
natural death is populated by old age and diseases, and the other end,
violent death is populated by accidents and homicide. In this analysis
it is relevant to detect whether the violent death has been justified
or, on the contrary, tied to searching for the culprit. Mapping the
intensity of violent death coverage in the media enables asking to what
extent in the context of violent death is the focus on death, the
individual, guilt or punishment. Research, as previously mentioned,
indicates that violent deaths dominate media coverage. Suicide
constitutes a particular aspect of deaths (the coverage of which is
subordinated to specific media ethical norms).
3. Possible death in the future, impending death, versus dying and
death that has already happened. This scale indicates the hidden
elements of death culture, e.g. understanding of what kind of death is
'acceptable' or when death is premature. Many lifestyle-based
suggestions are made in order to prevent unwanted ways of dying. In some
cases, statistics are interpreted in a way that frightens or warns the
audience away from certain kinds of hazard or risk (e.g. being male,
being obese, having certain socio-economical status, etc.). This kind of
coverage indicates that both writers and readers feel that they have
some power over death, if not over mortality. The actual moment of death
creates a border in media coverage as it does in emotions: prior to
death there is mostly willingness to prevent death and fear of loss,
after death there is sadness, shock and often hope that something
similar will not happen again (fear of death in the future). The closer
death is to the present, the greater the intensity of emotions.
4. One death versus multiple deaths. The function of this scale is
to identify the ways in which the number of casualties is covered in
news flows.
5. Emotional and/or geographical proximity of death versus distance
of death. Usually death that occurs closer gets more attention than
death in distant places. But it depends on the variety of factors
according to which national dailies report about large numbers of deaths
(e.g. access and use of foreign sources, presence of national
correspondents in conflict zones, etc.) The function of this scale in
the present study is to map those deaths that happened in Estonia (as we
studied national dailies) or those news which created emotionalism and
pity towards the dead.
6. Historical (generations ago) deaths and deaths that happened
years or months ago versus recent death (yesterday and today). In some
cases death becomes the object of commemoration or even part of
canonical history (e.g. anniversaries). The difference between the scale
on 'impending and already happened death' and the present
scale is that in this case news recalls and reassesses the past
(symbolic) deaths. The function of this scale is to reflect how often
news recalls 'historic deaths'.
7. Death of the prominent person versus death of an animal. The
purpose of this scale is to show how the status of the dead influences
news texts. At one extreme of the scale is the death of an influential
person with the death of an animal or bird at the other extreme, and in
between are locally famous people and the general public. The function
of this scale is to map how the balance between the elite and the
general public is represented concerning death-related news items.
Method and sample
Our research examines how many newspaper news stories are related
to death-items. We expect that death exposure is bigger in television,
especially if we take fiction into consideration. But we specifically
addressed the research question to the ordinary daily news flow of the
Estonian newspaper organizations (paper and online versions together)
that are still major news producers (Balcytiene & Harro-Loit 2009,
521), which are the most suitable medium.
The first step of the study investigated Estonian newspapers during
the period of six weeks (17 March-20 April 2010) in order to minimize
the influence of an individual event. Our sample included six issues of
three most prominent dailies of Estonia (Postimees, Eesti Paevaleht and
Ohtuleht), and one issue of three weeklies (Eesti Ekspress, Maaleht,
Sirp). One day from every week was selected and coded, producing an
aggregate of 21 newspaper issues and 85 articles. We catalogued all the
depictions of death that occurred in any news item. In this study we did
not need to identify the stories that would have a bigger impact,
therefore the genre, the length and place of publishing of the article
was unimportant.
Our research was conducted in the period that included the Easter
week since we assumed that this prominent Christian festivity may
indicate some coverage of death in the news media, and we did indeed
find one article in Eesti Paevaleht (Why do I believe that?, EPL, 3
April 2010). Unexpectedly, our sample period included the tragic
aircraft accident on 10 April 2010, which killed 96 prominent leaders of
Poland. This had clear influence on the number of articles (see Table
2).
All the classified advertisements were excluded from the sample and
the rest of the texts coded. As our purpose was to reveal death-related
themes also in underlying structures in media texts, we had to elaborate
the categories as data was being collected. On the other hand, in order
to employ the systematic nature of content analysis we combined the
quantitative and the qualitative content analysis. Every text that
mentioned death or was based on some event including death was
investigated using the seven scales of the model. All the scales were
described as a tension between two extremes and were divided into four
categories. Depending on the event and text, we were able in most cases
to make an instant decision on the coding. For example, the coding for
the article "Elton's ex-boyfriend threw himself under a
car" (OL, 17 March 2010) was as shown in Table 3. On some occasions
the news text was very short or focused in a way that made the coding of
all factors by categories impossible. Consequently, the aggregate of the
categories does not exactly match the number of articles.
Results
Mapping general tendencies
To answer the research question of how death is represented in
everyday news flow the major finding is that except for media events and
a few other intensively covered items (involving a large number of
casualties), the daily news does mention death but mostly writes about
the accident, police action, feelings of relatives, etc. The news
discourse only refers to the death of individual personas as a reminder
of safety for the living.
Another important finding is that reportage of the deaths of
influential people and the general public in Estonian news flows is
almost equal. There is however a clear distinction in that the deaths of
elite people are reported more intensively (a larger number of stories)
while the overall number of the general public who are killed, die or
are about to die is bigger (Fig. 1, Table 4).
Qualitative analysis: examples of representation of death in news
stories
Detailed portrayal of death
In Estonian newspapers death is seldom the major item. News reports
tend to focus on collateral contexts rather than death or dying.
Explicit discussions on death are represented in two opinion
articles. "Why do I believe this?" ("Miks ma seda
usun?", EPL, 3 April 2010) is written by a foreign author who makes
connections between the death of Jesus and the perception of death in
the modern world. Two articles deal with death statistics "Death by
accidents is decreasing, death by cancer is increasing"
("Onnetussurmade arv vaheneb, vahisurmad sagenevad", PM, 9
April 2010) and "Last season one eighth of the population suffered
from influenza" ("Loppeval hooajal podes grippi kaheksandik
elanikkonnast", PM, 9 April 2010). The last article had the by-line
of a short note that 21 people died because of influenza this year.
Hence we can conclude that death statistics and religious way of
thinking could make the topic of death as the primary angle of the
story.
Violent death and natural death
Media, especially visual media enables the audience to witness the
most violent way of dying: executions. For example, one widely reported
execution that created a lot of debate in the mass media was Saddam
Hussein's execution in 2006, because one witness used a
mobile-phone to video the entire hanging process, which then surfaced on
the Internet (Dimitrova & Lee 2009, 537, 543). In contrast to the
explicit reporting practice of violent death in international media, our
sample represented violent death in a variety of ways, sometimes
(verbally) saying very little. If the person who is to be executed is a
common criminal, then the execution itself is usually not the main angle
of the story. Our sample includes a news story that mainly focuses on
the question of capital punishment and the right to life as a possible
absolute human right:
The international organisation of human rights, Amnesty
International (AI) announced, according to Yle Uutiset that at the end
of last week two people sentenced to death were secretly executed by the
state of Belarus. /.../ The director of AI emphasised that "the
death penalty is a final, cruel and inhuman punishment. It violates the
right to life". No death penalties were carried out in Europe in
the last year. Andrei Zuk and Vassili Juzepsuk were both convicted in
2009. The first committed an armed robbery, killing a man and a woman.
The other was sentenced to death for killing six older women. Both
petitioned for amnesty. The message that no mercy would be shown was
given to the men only a few minutes prior to the execution (OL, 25 March
2010 p. 7, column World).
The example above shows, primarily, how the main focus of the story
(capital punishment as a condemnable penalty, which no European country
carries out, but Belarus does) dictates the death-related ideology in
the story. That in turn is expressed in the choice of words. For example
instead of the word criminal the expression men sentenced to death is
used in this article. Also the word execution is used while the murders
committed by the felons are called by a gentler word killing. In
addition, this example includes the violent death of a man and seven
women, but these deaths are only mentioned as background facts. These
dead people remain unidentified to the reader.
From the perspective of violent deaths it is important if the story
focuses on the killing (including the circumstances and motives), the
victim or the killer. For example, in Postimees (13 March 2010) a
whole-page article was published with the headline "Soldiers in
Afghanistan are not killing machines". The article mentioned
'death' in only three sentences. The first: "So we have
lost one man and another is recovering from life threatening wounds, one
more got hit pretty bad." In this statement, instead of the phrase
"one man was killed" the wording "we have lost one
man" is used. This indicates that the death is reported from the
survivors' point of view. The second sentence "Our soldiers
are not detached murderers!" is positioned at end of the article
and provides the answer to the problem announced at the beginning:
"While on vacation I saw a large headline of an Estonian newspaper
stating that soldiers who have been to Afghanistan become killing
machines ..." The third sentence "If a former or current
serviceman does something stupid it doesn't mean that the whole
army is full of blood-thirsty murderers. There are far more man-killers
on the Tallinn-Tartu road for example" (PM, 13 March 2010).
Although the headline denotes the fundamental discourse of
"soldiers, war and killing, and death", the majority of the
story is dedicated to the variety of other problems, such as the
soldiers' mission against the nation state, social guarantees and
pensions of soldiers, public opinion about the mission of Estonian
soldiers in Afghanistan, etc. As the author of the story is a lieutenant
in the Estonian army, the article clearly represents the war and the
army's ideology towards death, although it is not explicitly
expressed.
Three weeks later the tabloid daily Ohtuleht published an editorial
in response to Postimees' article (of 13 March 2010), which was
titled "Estonian sniper gives no warning nor shows any mercy".
When an Estonian lieutenant was made to write for the paper that
Estonian soldiers are no killing machines, the brave sniper Ullar, who
is afraid to publish his last name, avers to the contrary--their
philosophy is said to be: no warning, no mercy. Any personal killing
experience the sergeant wisely refuses to confirm. In the interest of
truth the army should, in addition to our fallen troops, also publish
the numbers of enemies destroyed (OL, 9 April 2010).
Comparing these two passages from the two articles it becomes clear
that the selection of words and expressions is not occasional. The two
ideologies concerning death are contrasted but without any dialogue. The
discourse of death and killing in war is put together with the debate
concerning the mission in Afghanistan, hence the fundamental questions
such as: is killing enemies the same as killing civilians? How should
soldiers think about life and death in a war situation? These and other
similar issues remain superficial and are tackled only briefly.
These three examples illustrate the important substance of news
discourse concerning violent death: the discourse of legitimate (e.g.
enforcement of death sentence, killing the enemy at war) or illegal
death (murder) are represented in complex contexts and consequently the
fundamental questions are marginalised rather than discussed. The
presence of different discourses becomes most visible via the analysis
on vocabulary. The news concerning violent deaths is highly
intertextual: news are interpreted from foreign newspapers, there are
several references to the previous news and discussions in these news.
Our sample also included the violent deaths of animals, but we
shall handle these deaths in a sub-section that discusses the
'status of the dead'.
According to Figure 1, natural deaths were less represented than
the opposite extreme of violent deaths. Natural death was covered in a
few articles that were rather distant like "The Actor of
'Dynasty', Cazenove died", or targeted to preventing a
future death ("Men swoop to see cardiologists") or originated
from statistics. It remains debatable whether death as a result of
disease counts as a natural death, as we coded it, or should chronic
diseases be looked separately from epidemic infections.
Impending death or death that has already occurred
News discourses mostly deal with casualties that took place in the
near past: within the last few days or weeks. However, our sample
included many articles that were oriented towards the future. After the
fact of death is announced, the writer's attention quickly turns to
future. The long analytical article, "Between life and death"
(Maaleht, 25 March 2010), analyses the effect of euthanasia on society
from the legal point of view, while also mentioning the financial
consequences of ageing on society. This article belongs to the news
discourse but needs some context. In March 2010 there was a discussion
in Estonia about the need to raise the retirement age from 63 years to
65 or 67 years. One article in our sample ("You had better die on
time", PM, 25 March 2010) goes one step further, using possible
death in the future as a tool of manipulation. Raising the retirement
age seems to the author (Harri Taliga, leader of Estonian trade unions)
so extreme that he seems to suggest dying before one becomes a burden on
society's limited resources. Taliga characterizes this suggestion
as an example of extreme political cynicism, which should "in the
more developed countries lead to the political suicide, but got almost
no attention here". Manipulation with the 'right time' of
death indicates hidden elements of death culture, but the link to the
culture of life is even more evident: any individual is entitled to live
until the natural limits, while economic limits are experienced as
unnatural and violent.
Some deaths that actually took place are used in the news media as
warnings: what to do to prevent death in the deep waters or on weak ice
("Police warn people from going onto the ice", EPL, 3 April
2010; "Water may swallow the hiker on carelessly prepared
trip", EPL, 20 April 2010). Even statistical data is used as a
warning or caution, reflecting the belief that humans have significant
power over death.
One and many dead
The most common news that notifies us of the death of hundreds and
even thousands of people is foreign news from a conflict area. For
example the news story "Power in Kyrgyzstan changed"
("Voim Korgostanis vahetus", OL, 9 April 2010) includes the
following sentence: "Preliminary reports indicate 75 killed and
over a thousand wounded in riots." Further news text is about the
decisions and activities of politicians of Kyrgyzstan. Hence, the number
of the dead designates here the seriousness of the event, not the end of
life of individuals. In other words--emotionalization is entirely
missing in this death-related news story.
Although the next example represents an impending and future death,
the example illustrates how the topic of extinction (dying out) could be
presented in a short news story. The short news story with the headline
"The Russians will die out?" ("Venelased surevad
valja?", OL, 25 March 2010) predominantly focuses on statistics
about the average lifetime of the Russian population and particularly
the problem of men dying too young. The overstated headline brings to
the agenda the topic of fading or slow death of a whole nation by using
a few numbers from statistics.
Death of a single person (except the death of a President) was
reported mainly in short news. One article entitled "Colleague:
'He believed that he will recover'" ("Kolleeg:
"Ta uskus kindlalt, et saab terveks"", OL, 3 April 2010)
provides a short news about the death (as a consequence of severe
illness) of a young man who became known in Estonian media as a
participant in a reality show. The news is illustrated by the photo of
the deceased, and his death is presented as unfair and unexpected. Other
one-person death news are also presented as short announcements without
specific details. The newsworthiness basically comes from the status of
the person or the cause of death (e.g. fire accident).
Proximate and distant deaths
The proximity of death is rather difficult to detect in the
globalized world. People can be equally touched by casualties that
happen in their immediate surroundings, but also in cases when someone
with whom they are emotionally related dies in a distant location. This,
however, is more relevant for the reception of news than in our
research. However, in the process of selecting and producing news, acute
emotionalization takes place: either or both the writer and editor try
to find elements that may bring an event closer to the potential reader.
For example, two articles on 12 April, two days after the air crash,
were devoted to the aircraft used by the Polish leaders. The title in
Ohtuleht asked "Did Lech Walesa visit Tartu with the same
aircraft?"--the location of Tartu was used as an element to bring
the tragedy even closer to Estonian readers. Postimees states that
"The Estonian president has travelled on the crashed
aircraft". The title brings the dangers of air travelling even
closer and possibly increases the shock.
Death that is experienced closely often raises many questions that
seek not only to attach blame ("Russian investigators blame the
pilot", PM, 12 April), but also try to find a meaning ("God,
why did you let that happen?" on the front page of OL, 12 April).
Historical death or recent death
Commemorations of deaths that happened a long time ago are often
used in the news discourse as a historical context that helps to
interpret the current event by evoking the collective memory, adding new
evidence, revising a once-agreed-upon past or imparting lessons and
values. Nostalgia, analogies and values are key aspects of historical
references (Winfield et al. 2002, 289) and in reporting some death cases
newspapers build up analogies using memory politics, as well as
emotional and implicit connections.
When newspapers were reporting the death of the President of Poland
and 95 other people from Poland's political and military elite, the
connection to Katyn massacre was represented explicitly as this extract
in an opinion story reveals:
In the spring of 1940, NKVD murdered over 20 000 Polish war
prisoners in the woods of Katyn, ca 20 km from the town of Smolensk.
Among them were Polish intellectuals, engineers, policemen and over 8000
Polish officers. The systematic eradication of the Polish elite took
place. On Saturday morning, two days ago, the plane of the president of
Poland Lech Kaczynski crashed near the Smolensk airport. In addition to
the president, the plane carried his wife, several politicians and
virtually the whole Polish army command, members of the church,
historians. /... / History repeats itself... In a cruel and tragic form.
The symbolism of the event is terrible (EPL, 12 April 2010).
Historical parallels provide connections to the place and status of
the victims, and several articles discussed the meaning of this tragedy
to the Polish state. For example, the article entitled "Even
commemorating the mass murder of Katyn brings death" (EPL, 12 April
2010) includes this sentence: "Even in the year 2008, some
Kremlin-sympathizing newspapers tried /.../ to claim that the massacre
of Katyn was carried out by the Germans." The political
interpretation of the Katyn massacre is dominant.
The intensive coverage (the plane crash tragedy became a media
event) of the death of the President of Poland provided space for
bringing the topic closer to the Estonian audience. The media turned to
past events and published news like: "The Estonian President had
also flown in the plane that crashed" ("Alla kukkunud
lennukiga on reisinud ka Eesti president", PM, 12 April 2010);
"Lech Walesa visited Tartu in the crashed plane?" ("Lech
Walesa kais alla kukkunud lennukiga Tartus?", OL, 12 April 2010).
The news media actualized the events of 1994 (the President of Estonia
flying in the same plane to Poland) and 2008 (Lech Walesa's visit
to Tartu) without any straightforward connection to the catastrophe. The
article concerning Walesa landing at Tartu was illustrated with
photomontage about the wreckage of the aircraft and the current
photographs of Walesa. This could illustrate the variety of ways history
could be used in intensive coverage of important death stories.
Status of the dead person
As the death of the Polish president was already examined in
previous sections, it should also be noted that the death and funeral
rituals of influential people might become a media event, which
interrupts the routine of broadcast programs and news flow.
Media also covers the death of people who were considered
newsworthy because of another odd aspect other than influence. For
example, "The worlds shortest man died during a TV-show recording
in Rome" ("Maailma luhim mees suri Roomas telesou
lindistusel", OL, 17 March 2010). Although the larger part of the
story covers the activities of the Guinness Book of World Records
concerning the world's shortest man, there is a short paragraph
telling of the man's death at the end of the article:
During the recording the dwarf suddenly felt a strong pain in his
chest. The TV-producers took him to a nearby clinic, but unfortunately
the doctors could not save He Pingping's life. Preliminary reports
claim that the little man's heart gave out. It is possible that the
health problem was caused by a bad habit. Namely, the world's
shortest man was a passionate smoker (OL, 17.03.2010).
Even though death is stressed in the headlines, the paragraph on
the death is a laconic narrative and forms only a small part of the news
story. The death provides a reason to talk about the Guinness Book of
World Records (the shortest man and the woman with the world's
longest legs). It is important that the future consequences of the death
are also covered, a new candidate for the position of the world's
shortest man has already been found.
As mentioned before, the death of members of the general public is
only covered in the case of an extraordinary aspect. Fire accidents that
cause death are usually newsworthy items in Estonian media: "One
person died in a house fire on Saaremaa" ("Saaremaal hukkus
eile elamupolengus inimene", EPL, 12 April 2010).
The fire that claimed a human life started at 8.35 am in a house
with a mansard floor, in Torgu parish, Laadla village. A 90 year old man
who was woken by the fire escaped from the house, his son who had a
physical disability perished. The house had a working smoke alarm.
Concerning the representation of death attitudes to the death the
implicit attitude (underlined sentence) in this news story could be that
children should not die before their parents.
In our sample three news stories were about the death of animals.
The article "Shocking find--owner disposed of dead puppies in a
garbage container" (OL, 25 March 2010) is unusual as this is
illustrated with a photo of the corpses of dead puppies. This is the
only photo that contains images of corpses in our sample. In this
article the discussion concerning the death culture is explicit:
Valner (director of Estonian Animal Protection Society--authors)
says that unfortunately it is quite common in our culture to throw dead
animals into the garbage bin. It shows the attitude towards the
animal--it is a thing that, when expired, can be thrown away.
The news story also contains a discussion of reasons why the owner
did so (frozen ground and lots of snow) and why putting the corpses of
animals into garbage bins is prohibited by the laws about disease
control and ethics. The article presents details and discussion without
mitigation. Normative framing is dominant, what is prohibited and what
should be done.
A slightly similar article is entitled "Homeless dogs kill
many roe-deer" ("Hulkurkoerad murravad massiliselt
metskitsi", EPL, 25 March 2010). Part of the article covers
instructions about what people should do when they find corpses of
animals. This article also includes the discourse of legal and illegal
killing of animals.
The third article on the death of animals is about some swans which
starved to death ("Mere aarest leitud luiki tabas naljasurm",
EPL, 17 March 2010). This article was slightly different as people are
blamed for trapping the swans in one location when they feed them. Swans
are a species of migratory birds; therefore people should not feed them,
although the environmental office cannot prohibit this activity.
Hence, the status of the person is important but the death of
animals is also represented quite intensively.
Conclusions
Mainly on the basis of academic studies on the subject of covering
death-related subjects, we created a seven-scale model. This enables us
to analyse the variety of aspects of death-related news reporting that
is usually left unnoticed: the complexity of discourses in death-related
news texts, lack of absorption, relatively intensive coverage of
war-related deaths and deaths of animals. Meanwhile, lexical analysis
indicates that even if the aspect of death is handled superficially in
most news stories, the text represents the existing attitudes and
relates to the 'major discourses' on related topics and
dilemmas.
Three major conclusions should be emphasised when we sum up the
results of the present study, since they relate to the nature of the
news discourse and therefore might have long-term consequences on how
the public perceives death.
1. In the majority of reported cases death-related reporting is
more focused on the influence that death has on the living. There seems
to be a silent acceptance of death as an end of every life: death is the
main angle of the story only if there is an aspect, which is either
particularly frightening or ambiguous.
2. As there are hardly any in-depth or explicit discussions
concerning death culture the news discourses still represent the
existing (and conflicting) views concerning violent deaths, the
impending death of a single person or of the whole nation. The everyday
news flow incorporates small elements of the whole spectrum concerning
the various aspects of death.
3. The representation of death culture in Estonian newspapers is
mainly influenced by the news values--the most humane and emotional
aspect of death culture like the process of mourning, funeral rituals,
expressing condolences, etc. are usually missing or well hidden.
The seven-scale model enables to provide a more complex
'map' of death-related issues in mass media than one may
notice while following, for example, the daily television programme. The
content of television programming also includes fictional films, in
which (violent) death is often represented differently from the way the
news discourse constructs death and death-related issues. The need to
distinguish the news media and traditional journalistic content from
fictional entertainment and virtual obituaries, virtual mourning and
other Internet-related communications, is therefore essential. Secondly,
the news discourse constructs death and death-related issues in many
configurations, so it would be difficult to grasp the whole spectrum in
the daily news flow. The seven-scale analysis model is one possibility
of mapping the multidimensionality of the discourse. It is the question
of further (qualitative) analysis how these different dimensions are
related to the existing death culture outside the news discourse.
As a result of this study, one phenomenon of news journalism
constructing the death-discourse appeared: moral and existential
death-related topics are sometimes represented by a few sentences in a
short news story (e.g. death penalty) or mentioned amongst other
political issues (is the soldier a murderer in war?). The Estonian news
media handles death as an event and consequently the coverage is
occasionally rather instrumental. On the one hand this comes from the
intertextual nature of journalism: one news-story is linked or refers to
other texts (meetings, speeches, protocols, traditions, books,
conversations, etc.) where the morals and existential aspects of death
might get more attention. On the other hand it should be always taken
into consideration that the news value and other news processing methods
influence the construction of any topic, on which the media report.
Nevertheless, it would also be reasonable to take into consideration
that to some extent the everyday news flow reflects the perception of
death-related issues in culture, particularly the aspect of absent
discourses.
The present research allows us to underline some features of
Estonian public perception of death. First, the secular nature of
Estonian society is well reflected in media's representation of the
death issue. Death is perceived as a defect or misery (and part of this
comes from the nature of the newsworthiness), or it is only mentioned
and not given a meaning. Secondly, by taking into consideration the
time-scale of death-related news, we can conclude that the
representation of death is primarily oriented to its recent nature,
while the time-distant reflection of death is presented.
doi: 10.3176/arch.2011.2.05
Acknowledgements
The research was supported by the European Union through the
European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence of Cultural
Theory) and by the Estonian Ministry of Education on Research (project
SF018002s07).
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Halliki Harro-Loit, Institute of Journalism and Communication,
University of Tartu, 18 Ulikooli St., 50090 Tartu, Estonia;
Halliki.Harro@ut.ee
Kadri Ugur, Institute of Journalism and Communication, University
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Table 1. Scales and categories of the 7-scale model
Extreme A
Category 1
Scale 1
Detailed Identified dead
portrayal of person,
death and/or detailed
the deceased deceased, some
individual pictures,
descriptions of
the process of
dying and/or
its reasons
Scale 2
Natural death Death in old
age without any
factors that
directly caused
the death
Scale 3
Impending Mortality,
death inevitability
of death
Scale 4
One death One individual
died
Scale 5
Death is Death that is
emotionally or emotionally or
geographically geographically
very close close
Scale 6
Death occurred Writings about
long ago causalities in
history,
ancient wars
Scale 7
Death of a Death of a
prominent well-known but
and influential not influential
person person
Extreme A Median
Category 2 Category 3
Scale 1
Detailed Identified Unidentified
portrayal of details of the deceased
death and/or situation; no
the deceased pictures
individual
Scale 2
Natural death Death in old Death caused by
age as a result nature
of illness or disasters or
life caused by war;
environment accidents
Scale 3
Impending Lifestyle Prevention of
death choices that death in
may postpone or certain
induce death hazardous
situations
Scale 4
One death Several Many
individuals individuals
died (1-5) died (up to
100)
Scale 5
Death is Death with the Geographically
emotionally or hint of distant, but
geographically closeness reporting
very close includes
emotionalization
Scale 6
Death occurred Death occurred Analytical
long ago some time ago; writings about
new information casualties
concerning within several
casualties; months;
commemorative information
material about
investigating
or trials
Scale 7
Death of a Death of a Death of
prominent locally well- ordinary
and influential known person people
person
Extreme A Extreme B
Category 4
Scale 1
Detailed Deaths as part Indirect
portrayal of of statistics, mentioning
death and/or no
the deceased identification,
individual no
circumstances
of death
described,
no visuals
Scale 2
Natural death Death willingly Violent death
another human
being
Scale 3
Impending Real casualty Death that
death already took
place
Scale 4
One death More than 100 A great many
individuals deaths
died
Scale 5
Death is Europe and Death is
emotionally or countries geographically
geographically supposed to distant, no
very close be culturally emotionalization
meaningful
Scale 6
Death occurred Death occurred Recent death
long ago within the past
few days
Scale 7
Death of a Death of Death of other
prominent animals than human
and influential
person
Table 2. Sample of analysed national Estonian dailies
Day Date Names of coded Number of
papers coded
articles
Monday 12 April Postimees (PM) 13
Eesti Paevaleht (EPL) 16
Ohtuleht (OL) 6
Tuesday 20 April Postimees (PM) 5
Eesti Paevaleht (EPL) 1
Ohtuleht (OL) 3
Wednesday 17 March Postimees (PM) 2
Eesti Paevaleht (EPL) 1
Ohtuleht (OL) 5
Thursday 25 March Postimees (PM) 3
Eesti Paevaleht (EPL) 1
Ohtuleht (OL) 4
Eesti Ekspress 0
Maaleht 1
Friday 9 April Postimees (PM) 6
Eesti Paevaleht (EPL) 0
Ohtuleht (OL) 4
Sirp 0
Saturday 3 April Postimees (PM) 6
Eesti Paevaleht (EPL) 2
Ohtuleht (OL) 3
Total 82
Table 3. Example of coding according to the four categories
of the 7-scale model
Article Scale Category Description
Elton's Detailed 2 Identified deceased, some
ex- versus details of the situation,
boyfriend indirect no picture
threw
himself Natural vs 4 Alleged suicide
under a violent
car death
Impending 4 Real casualty took place
versus
happened
death
One death 1 One individual died
versus
many
Proximity 3 Death is distant, but
emotionalized during
reporting
Death long 2 Death occurred some
ago versus time ago
recent
death
Death of 3 Death of member of the
an general public
influential
person
versus
death of
other than
human
Table 4. Amount of articles representing death
in sample of Estonian dailies
Extreme A Median
Category 1 Category 2 Category 3
Scale 1 1 1 12
Detailed
portrayal
of death
Scale 2 8 11 41
Natural
death
Scale 3 21 20 21
Impending
death
Scale 4 23 9 8
One death
Scale 5 10 22 32
Death is
emotionally
or
geographically
very close
Scale 6 7 1 5
Death
occurred
long ago
Scale 7 31 8 5
Death of
prominent
or
influential
person
Extreme B
Category 4
Scale 1 70 Indirect
Detailed mentioning
portrayal
of death
Scale 2 25 Violent
Natural death
death
Scale 3 35 Death that
Impending already
death took place
Scale 4 44 Many
One death deaths
Scale 5 16 Death is
Death is geographically
emotionally distant,
or no
geographically emotionalization
very close
Scale 6 51 Recent
Death death
occurred
long ago
Scale 7 31 Death of
Death of other than
prominent human
or
influential
person
Fig. 1. Representation of death in Estonian dailies according to
the extremes of the 7-scale model.
Strongly Rather Rather Strongly
first first latter latter
than than
latter first
Detailed portrayal of death or
indirect mentioning of death 1 12 70
Natural death or violent death 8 11 41 25
Impending death or death that
already took place 21 20 21 35
One death or many deaths 23 9 8 44
Death is emotionally or
geographically very close or
very distant 10 22 32 16
Death occurred long ago or
recent death 7 1 5 51
Death of prominent or
influential person or death
of other than human 31 8 5 31
Note: Table made from bar graph.
