Pilk ajalehemeediumi elukäigule esikülgede kaudu

Abstract

History of Estonian Newspapers as Seen on the Front Pages

This article is based on the materials of the exhibition „Life on the Front Page”, shown at the UT Library from 12 October 2021 to 13 February 2022. The exhibition was put together of 231 front pages of newspapers published in Estonia, Russia, the USA, Sweden and Australia in 1821–2020. The article examines
how the front page changed through time and analyses the emergence and development of newspapers as a media in Estonia. Changes in the front page are observed chronologically, starting from the page design and noting its components – texts, different types of advertisements and images. Ultimately, we can see a spiral revealing in the changes in the front page (and in the newspaper as a whole). During
the two centuries, the front page of Estonian newspapers has evolved in a winding circle. At the beginning, its design looked like a page of a book, showing only text; it evolved into a newspaper-specific arena for news, displaying both texts and images; it regressed for a while during the Soviet occupation; it continued its arrested development in the 1990s and it is by now incorporating the visual features of a magazine, an advertisement and a poster.