CHANGING SPATIAL RELATIONS IN THE BALTIC REGION AND THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA: An Estonian perspective Open Access

The fall of the Iron Curtain and integration with Western political and economic structures has altered the mental landscapes of the people in Eastern and Central Europe. Enlargement of the EU in 2004 has further facilitated restructuring of European social space, bringing together previously separated systems of interaction and meaning in Eastern and Western parts of Europe. This process is clearly visible in the Baltic Rim, the northeastern corner of Europe, which consists of three groups of countries of different sizes and different levels of political, economic and social development. The first group represents ‘old’ Europe and comprises the very advanced Nordic countries and northern Germany. The second group represents new EU members: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The third part of Baltic region is outside of the EU, formed by north-western Russia (St Petersburg, Karelia, Leningrad and Kaliningrad Oblasts). Several years ago the Baltic region was characterized as ‘the biggest, most complicated and most promising piece of the new Europe’ (The Economist, 16.04.1998). This characterization is even more relevant today as the Baltic Sea region has the highest economic growth in the whole of Europe. The aim of the present study is to analyse how the processes of post-communist transition and European integration have changed spatial patterns of international interactions in the Baltic Sea region, particularly in those interactions between Estonia and its neighbours.

The theoretical background of the present research is related to the spatial turn in communication studies (Falkheimer and Jansson 2006), which is bringing together human geographers and media researchers in efforts to understand the spatial dimension of direct and mediated social practices. The spatial approach allows a unique interpretation of post-communist transition, which uses not only time-related phrases like ‘catching up’ or ‘lagging behind’, but also brings into focus the changes in the post-communist world as the process of opening the previously closed and deformed spaces of social and cultural interactions and, inter alia, as a reconstruction of East–West relations in Europe.

The present analysis departs from an understanding of spatial relations as inter-subjective social constructs that constitute the basic dimensions of social reality (Schutz and Luckmann 1973: 36–41). Individual and collective actors, who in their practical relations with others establish the distances and mutual locations within their physical and social environment, construct social space. Social distances are identified through the amount of interaction between social actors (Johnston et al. 2000: 771). This approach is very close to Lefebvre's model of spatial production, which includes three dimensions: representations of space, spatial practices and spaces of representation (Jansson and Falkheimer 2006: 19).

The focus of the present research is on the spatial practices, on the production of spatial relations in the Baltic Sea area (Vihalemm 1997, 1999). Spatial relations refer to the set of mutual practical links and/or imagined social and cultural distances between one's own nation and other nations in the world. This set of distances (the international social space of a given nation) can be characterized, on the practical side, by the density of political, economic, and cultural relationships between nations and from the theoretical as mental constructs that include mediated images of other countries or mental maps and landscapes.Mediatization of interrelations between countries is also reflected in people's interest toward representations and images of these particular countries in the media content (Bolin 2006).

The changes in the international social space of the Baltic countries, particularly Estonia, are described on two levels: the macro and the micro level. The macro level includes economic exchange, tourism, institutionalized cultural exchange and media content. The micro level of international social space is created by individual's everyday contact with other countries, including consumption of imported goods, travelling, professional co-operation, personal communications, etc. These real or mediatized cross-national interactions constitute the personal social space (Vihalemm 1998, 1999).

The analysis is focused on the following questions:

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  How has Estonia restructured its international space in the process of post-communist transformation and access to the European Union? What changes have occurred in the social distances between the three Baltic neighbours, compared to the Nordic countries, to the other countries in the region (Germany, Russia, Poland) and those outside the region (USA, UK, France, Italy)?

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  How have changes in social distances between countries related to the micro level of social space, measured by personal foreign contacts and preferences?

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  What type of spatial pattern is emerging from a mediated representation of the other countries in the Estonian media?

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  What is the role of access to the global media, including the Internet, compared to the practical exchanges between countries in the production of new spatial relations for both natural Estonians and the Russian speaking minority in Estonia?

In order to measure macro and micro level structures of international social space, objective statistical data have been combined with subjective data collected using content analysis of the mass media and surveys.

The empirical analysis used three types of data, including: (1) on the macro level, statistical data that reflects trade, tourism and cultural exchange between Estonia and other countries; (2) a content analysis of the leading Estonian newspapers in order to identify the presence of foreign countries in longer news stories and articles was applied as an indication of political orientations; and (3) on the micro level, data have been extracted from national surveys that explore personal contacts with other countries, and also people's interest in news from different countries.

National surveys results from three time-periods were used in order to explore social distances from different countries: initially on the basis of data from the mid-1990s, the second time in 2002, and the third time after EU enlargement, in 2005.

The data concerning direct personal contacts and preferences were the following: accommodated foreign tourists (general statistics); outgoing phone calls (data of Estonian Telecom); outward mail (data of Estonian Post); the countries visited by people or where they have personal contacts – relatives, friends, business partners (survey data).

The mediated contacts with the other countries were measured through interest in news from other countries (survey data); preferred countries to move to (survey data); exposure to foreign and global TV channels (survey data); attention paid to different countries in the opinions, columns and articles published in the three leading Estonian dailies.

Cultural exchange was represented by the data about translated books, guest performances, and imported films and TV-programmes, obtained from the National Library, the Ministry of Culture, and national TV stations, respectively. Unfortunately, none of these indicators of cultural contacts have been available in national statistics in either Estonia or in the other countries.

Economic relations were represented by three indicators from general statistics – exports, imports, and stock of direct foreign investments at the end of the year.

Triangulation between the data of such different characteristics is a special problem, which has been overcome by the creation of a ranking order of countries based on each indicator, giving ten points to the first rank, nine points to the second, and so on until the tenth rank which received one point; countries ranking below the tenth did not receive any points. Indices of economic, cultural and personal relations between the countries have been calculated on the basis of the above-mentioned data.¹

Freedom of movement as a basic human right seems self-evident for people who have grown up in democratic societies, whereas for people locked behind the Iron Curtain, the physical inaccessibility of the world outside had become one of the most frustrating experiences. Travelling abroad was a privilege that was not available to the vast majority of people. The fall of the Berlin wall and the opening up of the borders between East and West Europe was for them the benchmark of liberation.

The results of earlier surveys, made by the Department of Journalism at Tartu University in the beginning of 1980s, revealed that only 16 per cent of Estonians had ever been abroad, and only half of them ever had the opportunity to see Finland or any other Western country (Vihalemm 1997: 149–50). Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, this situation started to change swiftly and by 1994, according to the data collected as part of the Swedish–Estonian research project Balticom (Rosengren and Weibull 1997), the number of people who had been abroad had more than doubled: 34 per cent of the Estonian adult population had visited countries outside the former Soviet Union at least once during their lifetime. On the other hand, 46 per cent had still only visited the former Soviet republics, and 20 per cent had never been outside Estonia (Vihalemm 1997: 149–51). For comparison – in 1991 only 8 per cent of Swedes have never been abroad (Weibull and Rosengren 1997: 334).

The Statistical Office of Estonia data (Statistical Yearbook of Estonia 1992–2006) indicates that the number of outgoing visitors served by Estonian travel agencies increased rapidly throughout the 1990s and the beginning of the new century (38,800 in 1993, 359,200 in 2000 and 454,800 in 2005). The survey carried out by the Department of Journalism and Communication at Tartu University in 2005² shows that during the previous five years 38 per cent of the population had been abroad more than once, and 33 per cent had not been abroad at all. Although the barriers between East and West are no longer political, many people cannot use these new freedoms because of economic constraints. The wealthy, the so-called ‘winners of transition’, enjoy more opportunities to travel and indeed the prosperous part of the population is visiting an increasing number of foreign countries, for business and pleasure.

Finland has been the preferred country for tourism, private and business travel since the late 1980s, followed by Sweden, Russia, Germany and Latvia. The dominant travel routes to and from Estonia, due to their proximity, are those around the Baltic Sea; however, new trends have emerged in recent years with the rapidly growing holiday tourism flows to Egypt, Spain, Turkey and Italy.

Personal interaction with people from other cultures is also expanding due to the opening of Estonia to international tourism. Nowadays, Estonia receives 3–4 million tourist visits each year (the population of Estonia is 1.35 million). The majority of these visitors are Finns (80 per cent of all visitors and 55 per cent of accommodated visitors in 2005). The traffic between Tallinn and Helsinki has now reached the regularity and speed of local transport services: it takes only 25 minutes to fly and ninety by boat. The density of mutual travel binds the spaces of Finns and Estonians very closely.

The social context of Estonian contact with Finland, Sweden, UK, Germany and Ireland changed after entry to EU and the consequent accessibility to the EU labour market. The social meaning of free movement, besides tourism, business or study trips, gained practical importance for poorer families: many blue collar workers, for example, nurses and bus drivers, discovered the world outside Estonia due to the need to find employment. The social distances between Estonia and EU countries had, in spatial terms, considerably diminished. The circle of countries within actual reach (Schutz and Luckmann 1973: 36–41) for ‘ordinary people’ expanded immensely. The stories in the media of people working abroad contributed to the social imaginary of Europe as a ‘common space’ where people share their needs and destinies (Taylor 2004). However, Estonian labour movement to the West is occurring at half the rate of Latvia and a third of the rate of Lithuania (World Bank 2006: 22).

A common cultural space between nations could be created by a shared symbolic environment related to language, folklore, religion, arts, architecture, artefacts, and the media. Common historical memories, shared collective narratives, and institutionalized cultural events that enhance contacts and exchanges have an important role as well. Estonia's closest cultural relative, taking into account language and folklore, is Finland. Traces of the seven centuries of German cultural legacy are evident in Estonia (as well as in Latvia), represented by the Protestant Church, monuments of mediaeval architecture, eminent cultural traditions such as song festivals, and some other cultural forms of modern times. Two hundred years of Russian rule in the 1700s and 1800s have been less influential in all spheres of life than the continuing relationship with Germany. However, remnants of Tsarist Russia's influence are still visible, e.g., in the nineteenth-century's classical architecture and in the presence, in some regions of Estonia, of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Overwhelmingly negative cultural traces have been left by the last 50 years of Soviet occupation, which imposed a distorted, politicized, and isolationist Soviet version of Russian culture as the official ‘common Soviet culture’ upon all parts of the Soviet Union. All international contacts with contemporary Western culture were either severed or filtered; cultural borders were closed and protected against the influence of the ‘capitalist West’.

These artificial constraints were removed after the restoration of independence in 1991 and the scope of Estonia's international cultural contacts immediately expanded and diversified. For instance, the publication of book titles translated into Estonian doubled in the period 1990–1999, although the average number of copies of a publication has decreased by a factor of five, and the proportions of languages most often translated into Estonian have changed. The number of translations from Russian rapidly decreased (47 per cent of titles in 1985, 4 per cent in 2003), while many more translations were made from English (65 per cent in 2003), as well as from German and French, 10 and 6 per cent, respectively. A notable number of translations have also been made from Swedish and Finnish, 4 per cent of titles for both countries in 2003 (40–45 books). For comparison it is useful to know that in Sweden, during the early 1990s, almost 75 per cent of translations were from English titles (Vihalemm 1997: 144, 324).

Indicators of the density of cultural exchange demonstrate the dominance of Germany, the USA, Russia, France, Finland and Sweden in the cultural space of Estonia. Examination of these indicators reveal how different countries have different profiles in Estonian cultural space: the leaders in the book market, for example, are American and British authors, while Russian and Swedish stage productions have maintained a strong presence in Estonian theatre (as well as Estonian stage productions in Sweden and Russia), whereas the USA is clearly dominant in TV programmes (Vihalemm 2005: 88).

Contrary to the widespread idea of the Baltic countries as a common cultural and historical entity, cultural contacts between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are quite modest. Only three Latvian and two Lithuanian books were translated in Estonia in 2003. The imported programmes of Estonian TV stations in October 2003 and 2004 did not include any Latvian or Lithuanian productions; although in October 1991 there were two broadcasts from Latvia and one from Lithuania, but none in October 1996 (Vihalemm 1997). Despite high levels of Estonian interest in developments in Latvia and Lithuania, forged during the common fight for freedom and retained during the first years of post-communist independence, there is no common Baltic cultural space beyond the customary exchange of theatre productions and musicians.

There are significant differences between the cultural orientations of public and commercial television broadcasting in Estonia – the latter mainly broadcasts non-European productions (USA, Latin America, Japan, Canada and Australia), whereas public television is mainly oriented towards Europe. In October 2003, 22 per cent of imported programmes aired on public television and 46 per cent of the two national commercial channel's output originated in the USA; whereas the shares of European productions were 73 and 23 per cent, respectively (Suurevälja 2005). A year later, the difference was even greater; 13 per cent of imported programmes aired on public television were from the USA and 80 per cent originated in Europe (among which British and French productions dominated) (Suurevälja 2005).

But the role of television in formation of the shared symbolic environment between nations cannot be restricted to the output of national channels. The domination of Finland, Germany and Russia in Estonian cultural space is also related to direct access to Finnish, German and Russian TV channels. Estonians have had direct access to Finnish television since the early 1960s, which made the Soviet control over Estonian cultural space less ‘perfect’ than it was in other Soviet republics. This accessibility to the ‘Finnish gate’ has played a very important role in the formation of the Estonian alternative vision of the world, compared to the official Soviet version (Paasilinna 1995: 160–61). Following the restoration of independence, Estonian access to the world through imported audiovisual production and global TV channels was a kind of a cultural explosion. Our survey data from November 2005 (see Table 1) demonstrate that countries like the USA, France and the UK are known to people in Estonia mainly through the media – TV, films, books and the press. These three countries are dominant in the imported programmes of Estonian national TV stations, and alongside Germany, they also dominate translated book imports. Currently about two-thirds of the Estonian population have access to global TV channels via cable or satellite. The cultural space of global TV, split between commercial and national broadcasters is characterized on the one hand by the strong position of popular German commercial channels, and on the other, by the massive presence of channels in Russian, represented not only by the Russian national TV production, but also by Russian translations of popular global channels such as Discovery, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Viasat History etc. Channels representing European cultural space, such as the BBC or Arte, have a much more limited impact.

There are differences in the importance of politics in the output of television and newspapers; the exchange of international cultural productions (films, music, entertainment, etc.) plays a more significant role than political programmes and the news in television output; whereas the attention paid to different countries in national dailies is more affected by key actors in international politics.

An analysis of the representation of international social space in different Estonian dailies (the quality paper Postimees and the yellow SL Õhtuleht in Estonian, the quality paper Molodjozh Estonii in Russian) from July 2003 to February 2004, demonstrated a clear dominance of political affairs in internationally focused news and stories. The proportion of all articles given over to political events and interactions, including military conflicts, was 40 per cent in the two quality papers and 37 per cent in the yellow paper, whereas the share of topics connected with human interests and entertainment were 17 and 40 per cent, and economics – 13 and 2 per cent, respectively (Kase 2004; Rucheikov 2004).

A comparative content analysis of internationally focused news and stories of The Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung (SDZ) and Estonian leading daily Postimees in 2004–2005 (Rucheikov 2005) has been used in order to compare the geopolitical orientation of Estonian news flows with the ‘old’ members of EU. The proportion of political events and interactions was equal (54 per cent) in SDZ and Postimees, and a slightly less (41 per cent) in The Times. At the same time, the geographical horizon of Postimees was much more European (67 per cent of all internationally focused news and stories were connected with European countries) than that of the globally oriented papers, SDZ (44 per cent) and The Times (34 per cent). Postimees was also writing more about EU members and the EU in general – 37 per cent of all international matters were connected with EU, but in SDZ and The Times, the corresponding figures were 26 and 21 per cent, respectively. New EU members, especially, received significantly more representation in Postimees than in SDZ and The Times (Rucheikov 2005). The same tendency towards Eurocentrism and strong regionalization of the international news in the Estonian press was also revealed in 1998 in a study comparing Estonian news content with the more globally oriented Finnish newspapers (Seimann 1998).

The level of attention paid by the leading Estonian dailies to different countries also indicates, besides the general trends of geopolitical restructuring, the political importance of different countries in the particular period under review. The political importance of Russia for Estonia, in 2004–2005 for instance, had increased again after several years of decline. The cause of this reversal was an increase in the tensions in Russia's relations with the Baltic countries and was reflected in the growth of attention paid by the media to Russia. Postimees, in July 2004–February 2005, published almost twice as many stories about Russia as it had in the same period a year earlier (Rucheikov 2005).

The Estonian three leading dailies³ are, according to the data received from the Estonian National Library, still constructing the political space of international relations in a manner reminiscent of the bi-polar world of the Cold War period with the USA and Russia as the main counterparts (see Table 2). Together, the USA and Russia had until EU enlargement, constantly dominated the foreign affairs coverage in Estonian dailies. The change was mainly related to Russia's loss of status as an influential superpower and the increasingly influential role of the USA. The attention paid by the leading Estonian dailies to the USA increased from 10 per cent in 1993–1994 to 29 per cent in 2002–2003; by contrast the proportion of articles about Russia decreased from 39 per cent in 1993–1994 to 15 per cent in 2002–2003.

The geographical horizon of the leading Estonian dailies started to diversify with the process of Estonian integration into the EU. The share of articles focused on the USA or Russia decreased, while coverage of EU ‘core countries’ is increasing. Russia or USA were the subject of 40–50 per cent of all foreign news stories in Estonian dailies during the period 1993–2003; but after accession to EU, the summarized share in 2004–2006 had dropped to 32 per cent. Articles related to the UK had increased from 2 per cent in 1993 to 10 per cent in 2005, and the attention to the other core countries of EU, France, Italy and Spain is also growing (see Figure 1). At the same time, attention to the Nordic neighbours, Finland, Sweden and Denmark remains constantly quite high throughout the whole period, compared to the Baltic neighbours, Latvia and Lithuania.

The top three countries, according to the proportion of Estonians who were very or rather interested in obtaining news from them were, in 2002 as well as in 2005, Russia, Finland and Sweden. The level of interest in getting news from Finland, Sweden and Germany has increased whereas, as mentioned above, interest in developments in Latvia and Lithuania has decreased.

On the basis that the Estonian population currently consists of two culturally different groups – the native Estonian majority (68 per cent) and the Russian-speaking non-Estonian minority (31 per cent) – one could wonder whether there are differences in their personal contacts with other countries. The ‘taken for granted’ difference, related to the ethnic identities embedded in the countries of origin for all immigrant populations, is that Estonians have a much stronger Nordic orientation and Russophones have more contacts with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Nevertheless, our survey data indicate that the differences between the two groups in the rank orders of foreign countries by density of contacts and interest in news are relatively small. When comparing our data from 1991, 1994, 2002 and 2005 (see Table 3), it becomes apparent that stereotypes inherited from the Soviet past that stress difference between the ‘Western’ orientation of Estonians and the ‘Eastern’ orientation of the Russophones are losing their force. As expected, Russia, together with Ukraine and Belarus, are a dominant source of personal contacts for the Russophone population, but interestingly Russia, after Finland and Sweden also remains a significant for native Estonians (see Tables 1 and 3). The level of personal contacts with Germany is according to some indicators even higher among Russian-speaking people than among Estonians.

Our survey data from 2005 demonstrate that due to Russian translations of global television channels, the Russophone population is much more connected to the international media space than Estonians. Fifty-eight per cent of Russophones regularly watch channels like Discovery, National Geographic, Animal Planet, etc, whereas the share of regular viewers of these among Estonians is 17 per cent. Euronews in Russian is regularly watched by 42 per cent of Russophones whereas Euronews, in English or Russian, attracts only 11 per cent of Estonians. Thus, whilst Russophones access Russian language versions of global TV channels, most Estonians watch the three national Estonian-language TV channels.

Even when focusing on representational dimensions of spatial production, one cannot neglect the role of economic relations as the basic source of changes in international social space. Re-orientation of financial flows and changing trade relations has also played a crucial role in opening up the post-communist countries to the West. Enlargement of EU to the East has further contributed to the spatial re-orientation of the former Soviet bloc countries, expanding their economic ties with the European countries far beyond the traditional regional borders. The introduction of the Euro as a common currency, trade and business relations, foreign ownership of domestic companies, all have not only practical but also symbolic value. We can analyse internationalization of economies as a major factor changing everyday social imageries of people even more profoundly than exposure to the global media. The results of this process have, on one hand, been criticized for the growing sense of ‘placelessness’, the replacement of local and national representations and relations by a ‘pseudo-world of pseudo-places’ full of standardized imagery of global brands (Stöber 2006). On the other hand, the policy of the EU to promote economic cooperation and exchange between new and old member states, together with the rapidly growing East–West mobility of students and labour, has an indispensable role in creating European common identity and building the fundamentals for development of the European public sphere.

The reorientation of the Estonian economy from the east and south to the west and north happened very fast during 1991–1993. Estonia had by the beginning of 1995, successfully passed the first stage of transition to a market economy and acquired a primary macroeconomic stability (de Melo et al. 1996: 420). At the same time, Estonian exports to the West started to grow and Estonian economic space was fully open for the inflow of Western investments, technologies and market products. The directions of these flows are similar, but not completely the same as the described patterns of mediated spatial relations. Finland has, since 1993, been the main trading partner of Estonia. Sweden and Germany have been the other leading trading partners over last decade. The prominent role of Russia in the Estonian economy fell very quickly in early 1990s and has significantly diminished further in recent years due to the impact of the Russian economic crisis of 1998. The share of exports to Russia decreased from 19 per cent in 1997 to 6.5 per cent in 2005 and the share of imports from 14 to 9 per cent, respectively (Estonian Statistical Yearbooks 1992–2006).

Estonia's leading partner in foreign trade is Finland (27 per cent of exports in 2005, followed by Sweden 13 per cent). Sweden is the clear leader in investments (53 per cent of the stock of foreign direct investments at the end of 2005, followed by Finland 21 per cent).

When comparing the share of different groups of countries in Estonian foreign trade in 2001 and 2005 we see the increase of importance of other Baltic countries, especially in imports from Latvia and Lithuania. We can presume that the EU enlargement brought about increasing diversity of economic relations and has promoted regional economic cooperation (Table 4).

Latvia's and Lithuania's economic relations differ from that of Estonia. There is not, according to 2005 data about exports, imports and foreign investments, a clearly dominant partner in Latvia's economic relations; although the most important are Germany, Estonia, Russia, Lithuania and Sweden (data of Statistics Latvia – www.csb.gov.lv). Russia and Germany are still dominant in Lithuania's economic relations (data of Statistics Lithuania – www.std.lt). Until EU enlargement none of the Baltic neighbours appeared in the top five summarised rankings of Estonia's export, import and foreign investments. We can suppose that following EU enlargement the diversification of foreign trade and the strengthening of regional economic relations within the Baltic region has given rise to signs of an emerging Baltic common market. Estonia's aggregate foreign trade with Latvia and Lithuania have grown significantly; even more pronounced is the increase of Estonia's share in Latvia's and Lithuania's foreign trade. When comparing the economic role of the Nordic countries and other EU countries, we can see a clear difference between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Nordic countries (especially Finland and Sweden) are more important for Estonia than the rest of the EU, this is indicated by Nordic countries receiving 46 per cent of Estonia's exports in 2005, and providing 32 per cent of imports, and 75 per cent of the stock of inward foreign investments. Nordic countries account for a smaller share in trade and investments in Latvia and Lithuania than other EU countries (according to Latvian and Lithuanian Statistics, see websites above).

The post-communist transition in Estonia has, in spatial terms, meant a clear about-turn from the East to the West. Western partners, led by Finland, Germany, Sweden and the United States, have replaced the role played by Russia as the dominant power in all spheres of life. Finland has preserved the leading role in terms of economic relations and personal contacts, but its role in shaping Estonian cultural space has started to diminish, whereas the significance of Germany and France in cultural exchange has notably increased (Vihalemm 2005). This trend could be interpreted as a sign of cultural ‘Europeanization’ of Estonia in the process of the EU accession. A similar ‘European’ trend is indicated by the increasing frequency of Estonian's contacts with Germany, Spain and Italy. Despite its decreasing economic influence, Russia has maintained a strong position in the shaping of Estonian cultural and social contacts. With regards to Estonian cultural space, the role of the two other Baltic neighbours is quite modest, and other post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe are practically invisible. Unfortunately, the same could be true for the practical non-existence of Estonia in the international space of other countries in Europe.

A comparison of the cultural distances between different countries in the mid-1990s and in 2001–2003 reveals a trend of diversification – while the importance of neighbouring Finland has decreased, the cultural role of EU core countries has increased. During the first stage of Estonia's transition, Finland clearly dominated, being ‘undoubtedly Estonia's greatest partner in cultural exchange’ (Lagerspetz and Raud 1995: 107). However, since Estonia's economic and social stabilization from 1995 onwards, active cultural contact and exchanges have developed throughout the whole world.

The role of different factors in the formation of national and personal patterns of spatial relations needs further investigation. However, reflecting upon the empirical data presented above one can make some suggestions about the most significant factors that have brought Nordic countries closer to Estonia's social space of personal interactions and economic relations compared to Russia or other Baltic countries, or caused the dominance of USA and Russia in media output compared to the ‘core’ European Union countries. An analysis of those differences in the regional context is especially challenging considering that all countries in the region share centuries of common history. They share many traditions, memories of historical events and people and have had, throughout history, extended networks of interpersonal contacts. Nevertheless, we can see how changes in political regimes and power centres played a decisive role in re-shaping spatial relations in this region, as in many others. The changes in the roles of Russia, Germany and USA, but also increasing contacts with France, Italy and UK after EU enlargement, indicate the importance of the politics in the formation of spatial relations.

Nowadays the role of increased opportunities for travel cannot be neglected, especially between very close neighbours such as Finland and Estonia. Ease of travel is not only a matter of geographical distance: both Finland and Latvia are close neighbours of Estonia, but the state of the infrastructure and the economy strongly favour Estonian–Finnish contacts, making Estonian–Latvian contacts less attractive. The same could be said when comparing Sweden and Lithuania. Last but not least, the role of the media in creating the shared imaginary about the EU and the ability to bring people closer together culturally, cannot be underestimated. Global audiovisual channels and the Internet are bringing down communication barriers. At the same time, language continues to make a difference; as is demonstrated in the active usage of the global channels in Russian by the Russophone minority in Estonia, compared to the low usage of the same channels in English by non-English speakers.

The accession to the EU has initiated a new phase of spatial restructuring in the Baltic countries. A limited circle of countries has started to open up to other regions of Europe. An expansion of the borders of life-worlds, making the European Union not only a common economic and political area, but also the world of shared social imaginary is an important role for the media in Europe.

The research was partly supported by the grants from the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science (0181774s01 and 0180017s07) and a grant from the Estonian Science Foundation (6526).

Peeter Vihalemm is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia. His work has been focused on political and cultural aspects of postcommunist transformation, especially on development of media system and media use, and changing spatial relations in the Baltic Sea region as on macro, as well on micro level.