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Auks BALYTIEN and Aura VINCINIEN

EDITORS INTRODUCTION: HOW TO DEAL WITH UNCERTAINTY IN MODERN COMMUNICATIONS

Auks BALYTIEN and Aura VINCINIEN The primary goal of this issue is to broaden our understanding about the scope and characteristics of diverse challenges that media is facing in rapidly changing economic, technological, social and cultural conditions. The scale, the scope and the speed of change that our societies are going through are indeed striking. We live in the times of diverse transformations, crises, devaluations and disillusionments. Our closest surrounding realities are becoming very ambiguous and uncertain. We do not have adequate social models and metaphors that could explain the consequences of changing economic conditions, technological influences and new social relationships have on how we communicate, whom we trust, what we relate to and who we keep in close touch with. The questions that scholars and professionals encounter in the fields of contemporary media and communications are facing very similar uncertainties. Media and journalism must be prepared to address the requirements of the new modernity. Contemporary media must develop new forms, it must offer audiences individualized access, design and sustain social relations, offer networking experiences and guarantee choices for consumers. At the same time, no matter how inspiring and liberating these new communicative practices may be the consequences and effects of these changes and their impact on the quality of democracy is still questionable.
Editors introduction: How to deal with uncertainty in modern communications

Media Transformations

The prospects for increasing individualization and virtual networking are unclear indeed. The goals, ideals and expectations of being publicly visible in virtual social networks are often not so much of searching for the common causes and principles of life as the desperate need for networking, bonding, socialization and relationship-building. Individualization indeed brings power of experimentation, but it is short lived and gradually disintegrating. Different researchers have sounded the warning bell reminding us that modern societies are at the risk of being divided into too many different niches, into too many ideologically-shaped virtual and physical associations and formations. Participation in such networks and niche associations can be very inspiring and offering solace, but leading to societal fragmentation and social polarization rather than a common space for meeting, discussion and public dialogue. An exceptional attention in this collection of articles is dedicated to contemporary media developments in the countries around the Baltic Sea. Quite a few motives inspired the choice of young Baltic democracies as a comparative example here. First, these countries already have a historical experience of approaching and dealing with very rapid change. Significant changes and transformations that these countries needed to address date back to the early 1990s. They date back to the times when new media structures and business models as well as media regulation policies were designed and their implementation started. These many local transformations in those countries were gradually complemented with new challenges that all actors of modern communications (media professionals, policy makers and audiences) needed to confront. Among those new challenges were the globalization of media markets and ideas, economic fluctuations and other uncertainties associated with questions on how to commercialize the media business, how to approach technological diffusion and how to deal with all the consequences linked to the changing roles and habits of the new audience, especially of young readers, and the evolving culture of participatory and dialogical communication. By addressing developments and fashions in the media of young Baltic democracies, by also comparing and contrasting these with media developments and changes in the West, the chapters of this issue also show that other questions may be at the stake when assessing the value of change (aside to, for example, economic and technological descriptors of one particular country, e.g. its market size or technological awareness of its population). Therefore, it pays a very close attention to the role of journalism culture and communication traditions as well as enduring values and norms in communication practices, which are becoming increasingly significant when approaching uncertain situations and dealing with

Auks BALYTIEN and Aura VINCINIEN

the consequences of a very rapid change in the area of modern communications. The geographies of journalism in all seven chapters of this issue are quite restrictive and move around the boarders of the Baltic Sea. One of the chapters brings social class into the discussion of media representations of social class and their implications in higher media education in Finland. However, suggestions for teachers on how to be more class sensitive without compromising other differences, including gender, race and sexuality, extend well over the national boarders. Another chapter in this issue covers journalism changes in Norway which is a Nordic country, but the reference to changes in this country goes very well in line with the analysis of science communication in the Baltic States. In the first chapter, Finnish researcher Sanna Kivimki questions the role of social class in media studies, arguing that social class marks everyone involved in learning process, both students and teachers, but it remains an invisible issue. Therefore, it is important to be aware of social background of your students, as well as your own position as a teacher, which enables you to explain and interpret different phenomena in media and communication studies. The second chapter in this issue asks a fundamental question in the development of professional journalism tradition. Mykolas Drunga poses a philosophical question and asks whether a picture could be worth a thousand words. The author is interested in the way journalists see and perceive the surrounding reality. He assesses how journalists grasp and report it and how they do it using words as well as pictures and images. From a different perspective, but also addressing very similar concerns that contemporary journalism is facing in young democracies, Ilze ulmane assesses the relationship between the economic, journalistic and political fields in Latvia. Her study confirms the tendency of Latvian media being closely associated with partisan as well as business interests. As this study succinctly shows, in such a complex and clientelist combination of different interests and manipulations, commercialism rules in media and editorial contents is subjected to the power holders as well as direct editorial interests. Ieva Beitika questions the value of public interest in young democracies and seeks to identify possible ways to manage public service broadcasting in Eastern European countries. Three other articles deal with science journalism, environmental and climate change reporting in particular. Vaida Pilibaityt analyses environmental and nuclear discourses in the media of the two neighboring but politically very different countries (Lithuania and Belarus). She argues that such issues as climate change or other environmental concerns are emphasized and addressed in media internationally, while geopolitics is more important on a national level. At the same time and in both countries, the political and corporate interests coupled

Editors introduction: How to deal with uncertainty in modern communications

Media Transformations

with unspecialized reporting have a universally constraining effect on national public discussions on nuclear energy. Discourse analysis performed by Elisabeth Kirkeng Andersen and Harald Hornmoen concentrates on how journalism that covers and uses scientific research has been practiced in major Norwegian newspapers in certain periods of time. Their research results illustrate how representations of scientific research in Norwegian press have changed from resembling sciences own discourses to a more distinct adaption of the research, adjusting it to journalistic requirements of angles and storylines. Finally, in her study Inesa Birbilait gives an in-depth literature review of sampled peer-reviewed articles dealing with climate change communication issues and aims to sketch the past, the present and the future of this particular research area in a broader field of communication studies. And finally, the last article in this issue takes a closer look at the emerging role and increasing public use of social media and networks. In her study, Viktorija Rusinait examines how celebrity culture is sustained online and how celebrity leadership discourse is constructed virtual networks.