Although not solely internet research, I will still send it to here as well hoping to attract interest Feel free to distribute! Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, PhD University of Tartu Estonia --------- *Stories of a Bronze Soldier: An internationally comparative analysis of the media coverage of the Estonian-Russian conflict over the relocation of a WWII memorial. * Before April 26, 2007, nobody expected that the relocation of one bronze soldier in Tallinn, Estonia, would escalate into a major crisis. Russians within and outside Estonia took the relocation of the monument commemorating the victorious Red army soldiers of WWII as the stone of contention. Peaceful protests grew and turned violent, leading to looting and fighting, with one dead and many injured. The protest was picked up by the Russian government, bringing the crisis to an international level. Hostilities unloaded into physical threats against Estonian officials, and denial of service attacks of a magnitude that surprised even NATO. The sudden escalation of the seemingly local conflict received coverage in most of Europe. By the time of the victory day celebrations in Russia, eyes of most of European media were turned on Estonia, expecting „interesting“ coverage, and supplying a broad range of interpretations of the events in Tallinn. We are hoping to quickly set up an research team to conduct a comparative analysis of the international media coverage on the crisis around the bronze soldier. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis, we hope to use this focal event to illuminate the variety of stories told about the events. *Project plan:* - data collection – 2-3 major daily/weekly newspapers from each participating country and 2-3 online news sites/blogs – probably from period 26/4-26/5 (depending on the further developments of the conflict) - qualitative reading of the media coverage - develop analysis categories in co-operation - develop analytical framework for international comparison - do systematic content analysis - juxtapose the cases and stories told Possible theoretical frameworks: media war, agenda setting, framing, crisis news, European public sphere etc The aim is to get bigger research project going, so that different analyses could be published as one or more international comparative publications. Interested researchers are invited to send their contact and statement of interest to bronze.soldier.research@gmail.com Dr. Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt (University of Tartu) Christian Baden (University of Amsterdam) Pille Runnel (University of Tartu)