CHAIR OF COMMUNICATION

The Chair of Communication, established in September 2003, is the youngest in the Institute of Journalism and Communication. The Chair holder is Professor Triin Vihalemm. The staff members are Professor Marju Lauristin, Senior Research Fellow Margit Keller, Research Fellow Kristina Reinsalu and Assistants Maie Kiisel, Age Rosenberg, Triin Visnapuu and Tiiu Taur.

The mission of the Chair is to develop communication culture in Estonian society and to educate communication managers to the highest standard and enrich international Social Sciences with original studies in the communication field.

There are three primary goals:

• A clearer development of a research area that synthesizes different approaches. The focus of interest is on the communication practices of different spheres of life and on political, organizational and consumer cultures.

• To develop a research and study centre that analyses different communication practices. In addition to enriching Estonian social science and educating experts, the task is to spread knowledge in the society on a larger scale. This is achieved via various publications, public presentations, training and collaboration projects.

• To strengthen the professional identity of communication management as a specialized field, the main characteristics of which are social scientific analysis and self-reflection, as well as high ethical standards.

Teaching

The Chair runs and develops the post-graduate programme of Communication Management. To see the programme, go to:

Communication_Management_Curriculum.pdf

The programme is has been developed with the aim of preparing top level specialists, who are equipped to manage communication in pubic, business and third sector organizations or to act as communication consultants and researchers. People who graduate from the master's programme of Communication Management are skilled to use state-of-the-art research methods in order to diagnose and solve communication problems of organizations, plan and implement communication strategies and projects and are knowledgeable about contemporary information, communication and media society. Master's students are offered opportunities to take part in research projects.

Research

The staff members are involved in several R&D projects and professional organizations such as European Sociological Association (ESA), European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA), International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) etc.

Collective identities in Estonia in the changed political and economic context (ETF8347)

Principal Investigator: Triin Vihalemm, see CV at:

https://www.etis.ee/portaal/isikuCV.aspx...spx

The grant project focuses on the analysis of collective identities as an important resource of sustainability in the context of the economic recession. The theoretical framework of the project is based on the concepts of cultural transformation of late-industrial welfare societies, that is empirically analyzed through the prism of social identities. The project aims to explore patterns of creation and communication of collective identities, their methodological operationalization and theoretical interpretation. The main focus is on the ethno-cultural and linguistic identities, but also the professional, medical and community identities are discussed.

Change communication and social practices (ETF9017)

Principal Investigator: Margit Keller see CV at:

https://www.etis.ee/portaal/isikuCV.aspx...spx

The grant project proceeds from the practice-theory approach, which is used to bridge consumption and organization studies. The objective is to analyze how and why communicative interventions bring about change in domestic consumption practices and workplace practices or fail to do so. We focus on the following areas of practice transformation: consumer literacy (e.g. sustainable consumption, financial literacy and health related issues etc.) and organizational change (e.g. ICT innovation, introduction of new pro-environmental practices at workplaces, etc). We aim at generalizing the role of communication in different practice change settings into models that can complement the existing models, because the communication element has not been sufficiently studied in the practice change research. These models can also be applied in planning further practice change oriented communication both within organizations and targeted at larger audiences outside organizations. Information on how communication messages are appropriated into everyday lives of people can raise communicative literacy of both the communicators and audiences.

Changing cultural dispositions of Estonians through the four decades: from the 1970s to the present time (ETF8329)

 

Principal investigator: Marju Lauristin, see CV at:

https://www.etis.ee/portaal/isikuCV.aspx...spx

The study is dealing with the analysis of the cultural dispositions and patterns of cultural consumption among Estonian population in the context of political, economic and social changes in Estonia during the last four decades. The aim of the project is to re-construct the dynamics of cultural consumption related to the political, economic and technological changes in Estonian society. Based on this empirical analysis, the project would try to develop a theoretical model explaining the changes in the patterns of cultural activities and preferences, particularly the changing role of the traditional forms of cultural participation in the course of the structural transformations in Estonian society.

The staff members participate also in the research project comprising the whole institute:

Estonia as an Emerging Information and Consumer Society: Social Sustainability and Quality of Life (SF0180017s07).

Principal investigator: Peeter Vihalemm

The focus of the project is on the further empirical exploration and theoretical analysis of the transformation trends of Estonian society into information and consumer society, which were found during previous research project in 2001-2005. Main objective of the planned research is to reveal the role of social and cultural factors for sustainability of Estonian development in conditions of global integration. Empirical focus of research is on human capital, incl self-realisation and coping of different generations in the new technological and social environment. Comparative analysis of trends in economic, political and cultural activities, lifestyles, media use, values and identities of different social groups will be based on representative sociological surveys done in 2002 and 2005, and planned for 2008 and 2011.