Making sense of the COVID-19 crisis: information-seeking practices and attitudes towards information providers among Baltic audiences

Abstract

Drawing on a comparative cross-country survey and qualitative interview data, this article explores audiences’ information-seeking practices and sentiments related to news media and other information providers in Estonia and Latvia during the COVID-19 crisis. It concludes that members of both the ethno-linguistic majority and the Russian-speaking minority relied primarily on their social network and local experts to make sense of the pandemic, with media playing a rather moderate role. Russian speakers reoriented their news media repertoires away from Russian television toward local news providers. Despite popular sentiments of media skepticism in both countries, audiences in Estonia express more confidence in local news media. Alongside ethno-linguistic divides, the study illuminates socio-economic rifts in media-society relations.