"Dream job," "new car," "healthy child," "my home," "good time" are phrases that describe the dreams of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian residents in the media, shows study commissioned by Luminor Bank. Three nations of the Baltic States indeed have both typical desires and considerable differences - Lithuanian dreams in public space are primarily associated with work, Latvians with life, and Estonians with time.
For the first time, a media survey commissioned by Luminor Bank has analyzed how the most popular online news portals, entertainment media, regional and business publications in the Baltic States portray dreams and happiness. Several hundred thousand publications and reports were studied, which were published last year by about 650 media outlets in Lithuania, 450 in Estonia, and about 600 in Latvia.
It turned out that the word "dream" in Lithuanian media was mentioned on average 2700 times, Estonia - 1220, Latvia - 2000 times per month last year. The term "happiness" in the Lithuanian media was mentioned on average 1350 times a month, Estonian media - 1700, and Latvian - 1300 times a month.
"It seems that Lithuanian and Latvian media more often use the term "dreams," while Estonian media prefers "happiness." The research revealed an interesting picture of the most common dream recipes covered in Baltic states media - the Lithuanian dream is usually associated with work and the Latvian dream with life. In the Estonian media, both the word "dream" and "happiness" were mentioned together with the word "year" or another word, describing time, as well as "human",
- commented Indrė Baltrušaitienė, Luminor Bank's Head of Communications in Lithuania.
According to the research results, the dreams of Latvians and Lithuanians are more collective - family, children, and work are mentioned more often than in Estonia. Meanwhile, individuality is more often valued in the Estonian media - next to the words "dream" and "happiness" appeared "man," "leadership," "ideas," and "uniqueness."
In the Lithuanian media, "dream" is usually described together with "work" - research showed 33,000 combinations of these two words mentioned in 2021. "Child" (30 thousand times) "family" (21 thousand) were also often mentioned. On the contrary, in the Latvian and Estonian media, dreams are associated with work much less often - during the year, such phrases as "dream job" or "I dream of working" were mentioned about 5,000 times.
"Comparing the research results of the three countries, we can see that the dream is much more often associated with work in Lithuania than in Estonia or Latvia. There are more differences. In the Estonian and Lithuanian media, the word "child" is considered to be more important - it is among the most frequently mentioned, and in the Latvian media, a broader perception of the family is depicted - priority is given not to the "child" but to the "family," "relationships," said I. Baltrušaitienė.
In neighboring Latvia, "dream" is most often mentioned with "life" - more than 8,000 combinations have been found. Almost the same results were in Estonia - word compounds with "dream" and "life" were used around 8 thousand times. However, "dream" and "life" were not linked in Lithuanian news portals.
Latvians often associate dream with home - the combinations of these two words were used about 7,000 times last year. Estonia's news portals most frequently mentioned "dream" together with "year" - the survey found about 14,000 such mentions. The second most popular is "human," who poured more than 10 thousand mentions together with "dream."
This study is part of the Luminor Bank project "For Those Who Care," which encourages people in the Baltics to talk openly about their desires and share the dreams of their parents or grandparents on a website designed specifically for the project. In February, the bank will randomly select and implement three person's dreams in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
On behalf of Luminor, the media research in Lithuania was conducted by Mediaskopas, BMMG in Estonia, and LETA in Latvia. The study covered several hundred thousand publications and reports by about 650 media outlets in Lithuania, 450 Estonia, and about 600 in Latvia.
More information: Agnė Mažeikytė
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