The topic of this bachelor’s thesis is The Framing of Russia-Georgia War in Eesti Päevaleht and Helsingin Sanomat. The research was conducted between 7 August 2008 and 15 August 2008. In the course of the process altogether 45 articles from the print newspaper edition were analyzed – 24 from Eesti Päevaleht and 21 from Helsingin Sanomat. Using the framing approach as the research method, the aim was to investigate public opinion of the Russia- Georgia War in Estonian and Finnish media. Regarding the framing definition, the author of this research followed Robert Entman. According to him, frames have four main functions: problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and treatment recommendation. Based on this, the analyze of the articles was carried out. Comparing the framing in Eesti Päevaleht and Helsingin Sanomat showed that the main difference is in moral evaluation. In the Estonian newspaper, more emphasis was put on bringing forth the offender and victim whereas in the Finnish newspaper the conflict was put into a wider context. This shows that the Eesti Päevaleht frames were more critical and emotional. Regarding the functions of causal interpretation and treatment recommendation, Estonian and Finnish media frames were similar. Although, it can be said that some of the Eesti Päevaleht recommendations were more radical than the Finnish ones. The author of this thesis also put forth a wider research question: do different attitudes towards collective memory and security policy show in the media? Since Russia is the biggest factor in Estonian and Finnish collective memory and security policy planning, the conflict in Georgia put forth many questions about history and security. That also influenced the framing of the conflict. The war was framed more professionally by the Finnish journalists, politicians and specialists because they are not influenced by collective memory. Finnish citizens, Estonian journalists and specialists had a more national frame because they tend to hold on to the past. Security policy issues were discussed in both newspapers because of the fact that Russia is the biggest security policy planning factor in Estonia and Finland. In conclusion, the given results of this research show that the framing of the Russia-Georgia war in Eesti Päevaleht and Helsingin Sanomat differed. Therefore different attitudes towards collective memory and security policy do show in the media.

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