The two-day conference Interaction of Media and Politics in the Baltic States ends today. The conference was hosted by Institute of Journalism of Vilnius University and co-organized by Department of Communication studies of Riga Stradins University and Institute of Journalism of Tartu University. It focused on media policy, political and investigative journalism, political communication and propaganda, information wars and media audience.

Here is our take on three interesting abstracts from the conference.

Epp Lauk of University of Jyväskylä writes about disconnect between ideals and reality in media’s self-regulation in Estonia and in Finland, emphasizing the journalist perspective. She concludes that even though journalists in both countries value the importance of self-regulation highly, in practice they can ignore the rules if they so please. Differences between the two countries arise when looking at peer control and observance of the rules of journalists. In Finland these are routine, whereas in Estonia reflexivity and transparency are not yet components of media culture.

Anda Rožukalne of Riga Stradiņš University looks at extremely topical issue of Internet news about Ukraine. The abstract focuses on themes such as participation, gate keeping and engagement in Latvian and Russian news portals. Rožukalne measures audience behaviour by looking at the quantity of aggressive keywords, by analyzing the most aggressive commented news articles and by comparing proportion of aggressive commentators to all commentators.

Viktor Denisenko of Vilnius University has studied the aspects of the image of Baltic states in Russian media. Denisenko outlines an evolution in Russian press that seems to follow political and geopolitical changes processes in the post-Soviet nations. This outline is especially important now, Denisenko argues, as the region is facing new political challenges it need to overcome.

All abstracts can be found in the abstract book of the conference, here. More information about the conference itself here.