| Abstract [eng] |
As the importance of the internet grows in everyday life, online media and news portals are increasingly becoming primary tools and sources of information. Scientists argue that media has been acting not only as an informational tool for society but also as a tool that shapes the worldview, perception, and critical thinking of the information recipient, in this case, the voter (Horvath and Machyniak, 2014). There is a lot of research made worldwide analyzing political communication in the media and seeking to explore differences between countries, such as the peculiarities of political communication in the media in Sweden or United States of America (Strömbäck ir Dimitrova, 2006, Nesbitt-Larking, 2010). The most abundant research on the topic of political communication in Lithuania has been conducted by Ramonaitė (2014, 2021), Šuminas (2022, 2019), and Jastramskis (2016, 2018). However, in Lithuania, researchers more often analyze the common factors influencing voter behavior or the disclosure of political party programs during political communication process, with the most analyzes object usually being the presidential elections of the Republic of Lithuania. There is almost no research done analyzing communication about different parties in the Lithuanian media during the pre-election period to the Seimas elections and its possible influence on the final election results. For this reason, the object of this research is the communication about the Lithuanian Green Party (LŽP) and the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) in the Lithuanian media during the pre-election period to the 2020 Seimas elections. The aim of the research is to determine how the Lithuanian media communicates about the Lithuanian Green Party (LŽP) and the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) during the pre-election period of the 2020 Seimas elections and to compare the characteristics of communication with the final election results. The project sets out 4 objectives: 1) to conduct a critical theoretical literature review on political communication theories, the influence of media on political communication, and factors influencing voter behavior; 2) to evaluate the characteristics of public communication about parties in the media by performing a content analysis of media reports; 3) to identify the correlations between the content of part election programs and the characteristics of communication about parties in the media; 4) to compare the content analysis of communication and the final results of the 2020 Lithuanian Parliamentary elections. Research methods include quantitative and qualitative content analysis (of media articles). Content analysis revealed differences in communication about the parties, as well as how communication about party leaders differs, and the most communicated topics during the pre-election period to the 2020 Seimas elections. The work consists of an abstract, introduction, theoretical analysis of scientific literature, methodological part, research part, conclusions, and appendices. |
