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This MA thesis „E-Estonia 2000-2012 in the comparison of foreign media and experts“ provides an overview of e-Estonia’s representation in foreign media in comparison with the view of experts. Under my observation is the period 2000-2012 because in 2000 Estonia, being the first country in the world, launched a project of paperless government office called “e-government”. The aim of this master’s thesis is to analyse how foreign media have depicted Estonia’s efforts in the development of an e-state and which developments and projects have been under the media’s attention during the period. My focus is addressed towards the comparison of media coverage and experts who have been involved in making Estonia well-known for its e-government. In order to achieve my goal I conducted a media content analysis based on “The Washington Post”, “The New York Times”, “The Guardian” and “The Economist”. I also carried out 9 expert- informant interviews with experts who have been engaged in the history of e-Estonia beginning with Estonia’s president Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Expert interviews were analysed using qualitative data research. Foreign media and experts share different opinions about e-Estonia. While most media coverage is drawn on bringing out certain projects concerning Estonia’s e-government, experts put their attention on systematical change in Estonia’s society as a whole which made possible for Estonia to become an e-state. The qualitative data research brings out schemes, similarities, reasons and features of e-Estonia’s history and current situation. Findings also involved insufficiency in communication related to e-Estonia. The image about e-Estonia has evolved spontaneously without any central coordination from Estonia’s institutions. Estonia is known as the spokesman of cyber defence issues, but based on the media coverage, Estonia has lost her popularity as one of the most developed e-countries in the world. This opens up questions about the necessity of maintaining the image of an e-state. Experts share the opinion that such an image is essential for generating positive attention to a small country like Estonia. This attention can provide us with beneficial relations, security and advantages in economical growth. As most of the interviewed experts share the opinion that e-government is a characteristic success story related to Estonia, some find that this success story has never existed or is on the verge of a collapse. This brings out the idea that based on a person’s belonging to a certain community, experts see the success story differently. While media might not distinguish Estonia’s success story as an IT-tiger, the success story actually has developed and still continues to exist in different communities such as start-up communities or political-communities. In order to continue developing e-government and solutions characteristic to an e-state, Estonia must define its targets for the coming years. The success story of e-Estonia will depend on the cooperation of different institutions, spokespersons and a central coordination of communication which must also include national and international communication of e-Estonia., http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b2612110~S1*est

The practical goal of this bachelor’s thesis is to test the website www.eesti.ee navigation, usability and general satisfaction with the existing information. Webapplications usability is most effectively explained with ISO 9241-11 standard. According to that standard it has to count on the prior firmed and assigned goals and criterias that the goaloriented protcedures has to correspond. Based to the theory of a website usabilty, creation and testing and from the statistical data about goverment e-services usability that was ordered by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communication and results of the experimental analysis I searched for answers to the following research questions and to prove or to object the following hypothesis in my paper: Research questions: 1. How to the test users rate the usability of the state portal www.eesti.ee? 2. How are the test users satisfied with the information on the website eesti.ee? 3. How does the Think-aloud method qualify to test usability on the www.eesti.ee? Hypothesis : Accessibilities to the e-services are quite complicated and the journalism and public relation students are not aware of their existence. The use of e-services is too complicated for the journalism and public relation students The journalism and public relation students think that the e-services are not useful and trustful. To find answers for the research questions and to control the hypothesis validity I used one of the most popular usability testing methods that is Think-Aloud method combined with the semi-structured interview. The goal of the Think-Aloud method was to observe the student while he is surfing on the website andto find the obstacles for the user in the process of the experiment. The aim of the semi-structured interview was to examine what is the attidude towards to the public e-services and what kind of thoughts, emotions and assesments after testusing the portal www.eesti.ee. The selection was constituted from the 10 students of the journalism and public relation department. They were divided equally between first and third courses of university and sexual distribution was that there is 5 male and 5 female student. Testusers were not using exactly this public portal before and in this case I can say that all students were firsttime users, so there was detected lots of problems how to rebuild this portal to more comfortable. Students were forced to learn the basics about this portal to gain their goals and thesis. They could not use the moves that they were familiar to. To analyse the research results i used qualitative content analyse and achieved the next generalized answers to my research questions: Usability of the public portal website was not rated very high, according to students estimation , learning the interface takes a bit time, but is still quite learnable. Multitide of information is a bit irritating and confusing In my opinion the think-aloud method mixed with semi-structured interview was kind a good mode to test the usability of the website www.eesti.ee The results of hypothesis control was following: - The e-services are not hard to gettable, but students do not know what this eservices portal offers and mostly it was complicated due the lack of the knowledge. - Finding adequate e-services on that website was hard in many ways but the implemention or realizing the services was easy to do. The problem was, that the information that was given on website was mostly daily or was imperfect. - The students of journalism and public relation found that mostly those public eservices are useful and also there is a chance to save some money and time and plus it is making our lives more effective and easier and the students are thinking that e-services are kind a trustful. Main rule of E-Commerce: „ if the user cannot find the product, then they cannot buy it” (Nielsen, 2003). Website must consider the ursers goals and expectations, that why hei s using certain website and the creator of the website should count on that the procedures and movement on that website is easy and comfortable. There is no common rule that defines the usability about the websolution construct. But there is some statements and aspects that consider while creating the website. How easy it is to find the information on the website and how logically it is arranged. Is it comfortable to the customer to find the information and move from site to site Friendly solution is the reason of good thinkin, winning new clients and keeping the old ones. Present bachelor’s paper will give some advice to the website creator how to raise the usability of the website according to epirical researches results and analysis, that was consisntent about information overbundance, the logical arrengement of the links and menus, quick search system repairing and also some visual appearance. Also I hope that all these advices and suggestions are useful to the Estonian Informatic Centre., http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b2451263~S1*est

This MA thesis titled European public sphere and emerging EU publics in Estonia is based in the broader context of EU communication and focuses around the concept of European public sphere (EPS). The most important theoretical concepts informing the empirical construction are Koopmans’s Europeanization of national media and Taylor’s social imaginaries. So far the literature and research on EPS focus on the role of media whereas this thesis also attempts to bring in the different dispositions and resources of the audience for participating in the EPS. The empirical construction of this thesis assumes the following: 1) increased attention to EU related news is a sign of Europeanization of media; 2) social imaginaries that are produced and reproduced in public communication play an important role in constituting a EPS; 3) the process of social differentiation requires that the media interpret various issues and phenomena to wider audiences; 4) public spheres depend not only on media but also the communicative actions of citizens; and therefore focuses on three objects of empirical research – EU related media content, journalists’ perceptions of EU news and the audience’s interest in EU news. The main findings are as follows: • The main sources of EU news are national dailies and public broadcast television, more entertainment oriented media such as tabloid and commercial television newscast have less EU content. • EU is mentioned in the news often as just background, for example the argument of Estonia as EU member is important in Estonia-Russian relationships related news coverage • Journalists perceive the audience as disinterested in EU news and politically passive, which is one of the main obstacles for EU coverage. • Journalists’ perceptions can be described as three different lines of thought – the classical professional discourse which views the audience as politically active citizens and focuses the EU coverage around national interest; the secular discourse which views the audience as consumers and focuses the EU coverage around everyday issues, especially practical and economic matters; the cosmopolitan discourse which views EU topics from a transnational perspective and is to some extent characteristic to Brussels correspondents. • There are groups of different resources and dispositions among the audience who might benefit from different styles of EU coverage. • About 40% of Estonian audiences claim that they are interested in the EU. The three dimensions that EU interest depends on are trust of public institutions, including trust and positive attitudes towards EU; general interest in politics and other public affairs; social and cultural resources such as personal contacts outside Estonia, use of new media etc. The strongest predictors of EU interest are positive attitudes towards EU and general interest in politics and other public affairs. These empirical findings do not suggest a strong Europeanization of public sphere, but there is clearly an emerging European dimension present in the public communication, which also seems to be interesting and important to parts of the audience. The more the media acknowledge Estonia in the context of EU, the more Estonian people will see themselves also as European citizens. As suggested by Craig Calhoun (2003) - if Europe is not merely a place, but a space in which distinctively European relations are forged and European visions of the future enacted, then it depends on communication in public, as much as on distinctively European culture, or political institutions, or economy, or social networks., http://www.ester.ee/record=b3675372*est