For more than two decades, the Estonian Integration Monitoring has helped gauge progress in integration in Estonia. The recent iteration of the report also includes a qualitative media study.

We interviewed 60 people (a little over half of them Russian-speakers) long and thoroughly for its purposes. We asked them which media channels and what kind of information they trust. Understanding the sphere of information people next to you inhabit is key to both security and safety.

During the interview phase, we met, for example, with Tatjana (the names of respondents have been changed) who is in her fifties, does not trust a single Estonian institution or media channel and who asked us after the interview whether she can be sure her answers will not be forwarded to the Internal Security Service (ISS). She was concerned because she is not sure which topics are safe to discuss in Estonia. We assured her that the interview would not be going to the ISS and went over the data protection principles of the process.

We also spoke to Aleksei, soon in his sixties, who has spent his life following Russian state media channels and still does, despite the latter being restricted in Estonia. He believes Estonian and the rest of the world's media channels to be a joke as they are incapable of producing decent entertainment and are spreading hostile anti-Russian propaganda. Moreover, if something is banned – like Russian media channels in Estonia – it makes Aleksei feel that is where the truth lies.

But we also met with Andrei, who is in his twenties, speaks fluent Estonian, English and Russian and gets most of his information from the international media, YouTube channels covering the war in Ukraine and social media. He said that there is a lot of false information going around and one needs to be careful about what to believe. That is why it's necessary to analyze the information yourself.

We could paint such short portraits of everyone we interviewed, but we rather wanted to know what could be the takeaway on the media use and needs of people in Estonia, and especially the Russian-speaking community.

Fragmented auditorium

Talking about the sphere of information and media use of people in Estonia, it would be a big mistake to generalize and suggest that the Estonian-speaking part of the population is this way and the Russian-speaking that way. It would be like looking at the countryside from an airplane window, trying to describe the flora. We would get nowhere.

Both the Estonian and Russian-speaking communities make for multicolored mosaics when it comes to their media habits. There are many different media practices, based on people's ideology, interests, education, technical skills etc.

New media technologies, such as on-demand viewing and streaming platforms, are allowing greater individuality in media use. This trend toward audience fragmentation is confirmed by pollster Kantar Emor's international media studies, whereas engaging a fragmented audience constitutes a major challenge for media houses and communication experts.

Russian media channels necessary (at least for the time being)

The question is often critically posed whether we even need Russian-language media in Estonia, including the public broadcaster's channels. If we replace the question of "whether" with "who" and "why," this need becomes clearer.

Estonians said in their interviews that Russian channels are needed for the local Russian-speaking and Ukrainian populations to make sure they are not isolated due to the language barrier.

Russian-speaking respondents, those who keep an eye on Estonian media, said that Russian-speaking media is especially necessary during anxious times. For example, they turned to the [local] Russian-speaking media to stay up to date on restrictions and whether their kids could go to school the next day during the coronavirus pandemic. There was no other way to find that information. Several respondents mentioned ETV+ programs "Kofe+" and "Aktuaalne kaamera" [in Russian] as being crucial.

Of course, there are also Russian-speaking people who care not for Estonian channels even in a crisis situation. It is very unlikely that anything could change the media habits of this group of people, shaped over many decades. Therefore, while we may grumble that Estonian Russian-speaking channels might reach too few people, having them is much better than the alternative.

Ukraine war affecting media habits

The war in Ukraine has affected the media habits of both Estonian and Russian-speaking people in many ways. It has brought a part of the Russian-speaking audience closer to Estonian society, while it has pushed others further away.

For example, Maria (in her sixties) said: "I used to love listening to Raadio 4 when cooking, had it turned on at all times. But this changed at some point, and now I only listen to it when driving perhaps. I just don't want to tune in lately, because there were these moments... I don't want to listen to this kind of instigation..."

Maria, who says she is on the side of peace, noted that she is bothered by how the Estonian media covers the war in Ukraine. Such behavior is characterized by the so-called ostrich effect where people prefer to avoid information that clashes with their viewpoint and rather search for opinions to reinforce existing attitudes.

At the same time, the Ukraine war has also motivated some Estonian and Russian-speaking respondents to stop following Russian state media. While they used to tune in with a mix of irony and curiosity, knowing there would be propaganda, war news delivered an overload of the latter. "From February 24, 2022 it has been a full stop. I don't want to hear anything else from there. It is hostile propaganda and I just don't want it," Alekseid (in his forties) said in Estonian.

Both Estonian and Russian interviews betrayed a clear measure of war news fatigue. This does not mean that people in Estonia no longer care about what is happening in Ukraine, but they have learned to spare themselves.

While people used to have detailed knowledge of the situation on the front line and battles, scoured foreign media, YouTube, social media and other sources for more info themselves, they have stopped actively following the war by now.

Several interviewees said it is enough to read Teet Kalmus, Rainer Saks and Igor Taro's overviews and/or watch "Aktuaalne kaamera" news. People in Estonian-speaking groups said that they are immediately worried if "Aktuaalne kaamera" fails to mention the war, in terms of "whether the media is becoming weary of the war," to give the account of a person in their early twenties.

Early start

People's media practices are strongly habitual and shaped at a young age. As past studies tell us that the media supports informal learning, offering Russian-speaking children content in Estonia is important.

For example, a mother said that she does not speak Estonian and that her child also hears very little of the language living in Ida-Viru County. That is why she would gladly show her child children's programs in Estonian, but they are difficult to come across. At the same time, she did not mention ETV2 or ERR's Lasteekraan, both of which offer versatile content for children. It seems that these channels are largely unknown among the Russian-speaking audience and need to be brought to the attention of parents, but also kindergarten teachers in Russian-speaking areas.

It is a small but necessary part of integration where children in Estonia, irrespective of their native language, would tune in to the same childhood programs, which everyone will have seen and can think back to with nostalgia in adulthood. Whether we're talking about such classics as "Tipp ja Täpp" or "Hunt Kriimsilm" or modern shows like "Luise ja Oliver." The same goes for literature and texts in general, while visual media often makes for a simpler first contact with Estonian culture.

If there are two recommendations to be made based on the media study of the 2023 Integration Monitoring, the first would be not to generalize too much. There are no uniform audiences based solely on whether someone speaks Estonian, Russian or another language as their first. Every person's media habits make for a world unto itself. Secondly, let us start as young as possible and make use of the media's influence for informal learning, including cultural and linguistic lessons.

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