Browsing by Author "Julku, Susanna"

Objectives: The purpose of this master's thesis is to study the everyday life of homes, based on the articles published in Helsingin Sanomat. The articles were published in 2005-2015. The focus for the research was the "Kodin arki" article collection (Janhunen-Abruquah [ed.] 2009. It was decided to analyse the articles in Helsingin Sanomat (HS) because it is the widest newspaper by its circulation in Finland and the articles were also available as digital material. The theoretical part of this thesis is focused on everyday life, on the changes of it within society and on the research done on the subject. The research questions are the following: 1. In which style is the everyday life of homes written about? 2. Which themes of everyday life are brought up in the articles? 3. Which common factors can be found from the themes brought up from the writings of the everyday life at home? The study consisted of 33 articles from Helsingin Sanomat and were intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the image created by one media representative regarding the everyday life. By analysing an overview of the individual articles, a more reliable description of the media style becomes visible and the result may also differ from the type of image the random may form. Methodology: The methodology used in this research is of qualitative and descriptive. The method used in analysing the data is content analysis. Since the content of the articles always represents a wide range of perspectives and the different connections between various matters, it is important to remember that in this type of research these matters are described as accurately as possible and interpreted in a variety of ways. People's experiences of the data vary and consequently the causes and consequences are of diverse nature. In contrast to qualitative research which does not aim at statistical generalizations but instead aims at describing phenomena or events, in understanding a particular activity or in giving a theoretical interpretation of a phenomenon. Results and conclusions: Home and everyday life are much analysed subjects in the media, including the press. HS writings also deal with these topics from many different perspectives. Everyone has one's own experiences and opinions on the topic in question. The topics which HS and other media chooses to write on modifies the opinions of the citizens, raising certain issues and topics which are being discussed in different contexts in the society. The everyday life at homes is reflected in HS articles as a busy and effective activity or as a continuous struggle on everyday basis, such as social or interpersonal relationships. The readers are told of everyday experiences which are familiar to many working adults. Eleven articles were discovered out of the data and four of them were summed up. These were as follows: skills, the endurance, the actions and the environment. These themes appeared in all articles with a slightly different emphasis on the type of writing and could be seen as aggregating factors in the context of everyday life in HS.