Mass media coverage

One of the parts of this research is the digital mass media content analysis conducted by the Sociological Laboratory of Pskov Volny Institute. In the course of this analysis we searched for, selected and actually analyzed news pieces on the Kunichina Gora checkpoint.
The news search tool we chose to use was the Yandex News Service (http://news.yandex.ru). As a search query to look for news postings, we chose to use the phrase ‘Kunichina Gora'.
All the collected data are summarized in MS Office Excel 2003 format spreadsheet. Each news piece is characterized by the heading, the body of text, the URL and the posting date.
The query resulted in over 200 news pieces over the period of 2001 to 2007. The news sources are:

• Business News Agency (http://www.abnews.ru/)
• All about Tourism and Traveling (http://www.travel.ru/)
• Gazeta.ru (http://www.gazeta.ru/)
• Business Petersburg (http://www.dp.ru/spb/news/)
• Daily Information Newspaper for Tourist Business Professionals (http://www.ratanews.ru/)
• Izvestiya (http://www.izvestia.ru)
• Au92 Information Agency (http://www.au92.ru)
• INFOLine Information Agency (http://www.advis.ru)
• Regnum Information Agency (http://www.regnum.ru/)
• VolgaInform Information Agency (http://www.volgainform.ru).
• ROSBALT Information Agency (http://www.rosbalt.ru/)
• SeverInform Information Agency (http://www.severinform.ru/)
• Information Portal of the North-West Media Community (http://www.lenizdat.ru/)
• Kommersant (http://www.kommersant.ru)
• Novaya Gazeta (http://www.novayagazeta.ru/)
• Federation News (http://www.regions.ru/)
• Pskov Information Bureau (http://newspskov.ru/)
• Pskov News Feed (http://www.pln-pskov.ru)
• Pskovskaya Pravda (http://pravda.pskov.ru)
• Pskov Information Agency (http://informpskov.ru/)
• Customs Computer Service (http://www.tks.ru)
• Tamognia.ru (http://www.tamognia.ru)
• Charter97 (http://www.charter97.org)
• Pskov Regional Center of Business Information (http://businesspskov.ru/)

As is mentioned above, the query resulted in over 200 news pieces posted within the period. The news pieces from different sources, describing the same event and having the text similar to the extent of merging, were deleted. The number of unique news pieces reduced threefold finally comprising 66.
To analyze the dynamics of news occurrence, topic classification was done. The algorithm to form the classification is the following:
1.The first news is taken, and based on it the category caption is created;
2.The next news is taken, and if it does not fall within the existent category, a new one is created;
3.The next news is checked against the relatedness to one of the existent categories, and if no such relation is established, a new category is created;
4.The third step is further repeated for all remaining news pieces.
Alongside, one news piece could end up in several categories at ones. Finally, 9 news categories concerning the Kunichina Gora checkpoint were formed:
1.Russian-Estonian political relations
2.Tourist news
3.Border regime violations
4.Customs regime violations
5.Motor traffic delays
6.Russian and Estonian border guards services cooperation
7.Problems of the border district residents
8.Pskov border problems
9.Pskov customs development 

We counted the number of news pieces per category within a certain time interval, which enabled us to assess as to which events are covered by mass media more, and then less intensively.

Having conducted the news analysis, it becomes clear that the number of news pieces related to the fourth category prevails over others - they are 4 times as multiple as the news in other categories. This drives us to conclude that the events related to customs regime violations at the Russian-Estonian border are covered more often draw greater attention from the press. Alongside, the violations mostly involve attempts of transferring cargos across the border illegally. Mass media mention attempts of illegal trafficking across the border of hydro-massage bathtubs, clothes, money and cultural valuables. Reading such news, the reader must have a very ‘proper' - in terms of economic security - notion formed that it is virtually impossible to transfer anything across the border illegally at Kunichina Gora.
The second position frequency-wise is occupied by the news related to categories 8 (Pskov border problems) and 9 (Pskov customs development). These issues can directly relate to the interests of the people crossing the border, e.g. possibility of digital cargo declaration, as well as they generally form a positive image of the checkpoint with the reader.
10 news pieces relate to category 5. This category touches on one of the important problems, namely motor traffic delays at the border. It is important as such delays paralyze freight traffic from Estonia to Russia and back. It results in losses for trade companies, and people have to queue for many hours at the border. If we remember the interviews with the travelers, we will see that it is this topic that is the most urgent for people crossing the border. However, judging by the mentioning frequency, it hardly is the most topical for digital mass media.
Category 2 follows with 9 news pieces. These news pieces spotlight the information useful to tourists going to the Pskov Region, and to the people going to Estonia. This category includes such news as opening of new bus lines between Estonia and Russia, simplification of visa regime etc.
Category 7 follows with 7 news pieces. These news pieces contain information on cooperation between the border guards of Russia and Estonia. Possibly, the attention paid to these issues by digital mass media is sufficient, since from the point of view of a regular citizen, interested in border-crossing practicalities, this topic is hardly of any interest.
7 news pieces relate to category 1. It speaks of political relations between Estonia and Russia. These made it into the sample, as Russian-Estonian relations directly impact the work of the border guard and customs services (visa regime, border trade etc.), and, consequently, the quality of the service the travelers get at the Kunichina Gora checkpoint.
Category 3 news relate to violations of the border regime, i.e. attempts at illegal crossing of the state borders. The press coverage of such events is fairly torpid: one news piece in 2007, one in 2006 and one in 2005.
Let us look into news dynamics time-wise. Most news pieces come in 2007 - 17, then followed by 2005 - 15 pieces, then 2006 - 12, and then 2003 and 2002 - 8 pieces a year, in 2004 - 5 pieces, and finally 2001 with 1 news piece. Possibly, such dynamics maybe conditioned by several reasons; but the main reason, apparently, is the development of the Internet. Every year more and more digital media open up on the Internet, and subsequently, every new event taking place in the world is covered by the growing number of media.

Let us look at the picture on the Kunichina Gora checkpoint that is formed with a person who has never been there, but is monitoring the news on the Internet. This person would hardly estimate the overall work of the checkpoint as positive, as - judging by the postings - problems and difficulties there arise continuously, and remain unsolved for long periods of time.
If we consider a tourist going to cross the border and reading the news to familiarize with the situation at the checkpoint, his/her opinion must be bent positively, as there is the positive dynamics in problem-solving.

The person monitoring the news on the Internet most probably will be well aware as regards the news on the work of the customs at the Russian-Estonian border, as these events are covered best in the press.
Judging by the event coverage dynamics in 2001 - 2007, the perception of the border zone by the reader changed for the better, meaning that the person monitoring the news for a number of years would be receiving broader information on the Kunichina Gora checkpoint, hence broader awareness of the border zone status, which facilitates a better perception of the regional image.
A person for the first time crossing the border via the Kunichina Gora checkpoint would hardly rest assured of smooth and unproblematic border-crossing, as having read the news on the Pskov border one gets the information implying that emergencies and complications are fairly often here.
We conducted news content analysis of the coverage of emergencies at the Kunichina Gora checkpoint. The analysis resulted in statistics of emergency-based news occurrence in 2001 - 2007.
In future, content analysis could be used to thoroughly research events and emergencies concerning tourism in the border region.
This research opened several directions which are scientifically interesting. First, during the preparation of the material we should not have deleted similar texts taken from different sources. This could enable us to draw the dynamics of one event coverage in mass media. Second, postings concerning other border-crossing points can be traced, and the message array structures for various points compared.
Conclusion
This report focused on the situation around Kunichina Gora border-crossing checkpoint, located in Pechory district of Pskov oblast. The analyze touched upon a number of topics: Russian legislation as applied to the checkpoint, the perception of Kunichina Gora by the travelers, the influence of the checkpoint on the local community and the perception of Kunichina Gora via mass-media.
Resulting from the legislation monitoring it should be noted that the border guard and customs control is executed in accordance with the international norms of human and civic rights' observance within the context of the existent bilateral Agreement between Russia and Estonia following the principle of parity of the national legislations. There weren't instances of negative legal precedents within the issues and problems in the course of direct procedure of border-crossing. On the other hand, interviews with travelers had displayed the facts of corruption at the Kunichina Gora checkpoint, especially towards car holders. Evidently travelers are agreed with possibility of the "unofficial" way of problems solutions.
Interviewed travelers showed quite positive perception of Kunichina Gora point particularly in comparison with other checkpoints in Pskov region. Kunichina Gora offers the sufficient level of services for travelers. Problems can show up with physically handicapped peoples. Also the number of hardships increases for car holders.
Local experts evaluate the influence of the checkpoint on the community positively. Kunichina Gora checkpoint creates employment, increases the welfare level of Pechory inhabitants, makes an positive impact on the condition of the town infrastructure.
Concerning the mass-media there are a big amount of news messages about Kunichina Gora checkpoint. The reader who is interested in news about Kunichina Gora can get a wide picture of the situation takes place there. But this picture differs from opinions of interviewed travelers. In mass-media news the main topic is about custom: problems, plans, etc. But the main problem the travelers worry about is a question of time, what they spend during custom and border guard control.