Press Release from the University of Jyväskylä, June 6th, 2024
A study examining the media coverage of the Finnish ice hockey club Jokerit’s time in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), conducted by doctoral researcher Joakim Särkivuori and senior researcher Antti Laine, both from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, has been published. The study delves into the reporting by the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat during a politically tumultuous time. It considers KHL’s westward expansion efforts as part of Russia’s soft power strategy and explores the nature of the news coverage.
Helsingin Jokerit, one of the most well-known teams in Finland’s top level ice hockey league (Liiga), sold its home arena and nearly half of its shares to Finnish-Russian oligarchs in 2013. Following this, the team joined the Russian-led KHL from 2014 to 2022. The study focuses on two periods: the first covering Jokerit’s transition to the KHL and its first season there (13 February 2014 to 12 June 2015), and the second covering Jokerit’s last two seasons in the league (20 August 2020 to 14 May 2022). Significant geopolitical events during these periods include Russia’s annexation of Crimea (2014), the Belarusian protests (2020–2021), and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (2022).
Sports Journalists Initially Ignored Politics
The most critical and socially aware perspectives on Jokerit’s time in the KHL were highlighted in Helsingin Sanomat’s (HS) politics and economics sections. Sports journalists acknowledged KHL’s geopolitical dimension and initially focused on the sporting aspect. On the sports pages of the paper, KHL was reported on mainly positively without critical or investigative approaches. This was justified by a more positive view of Russia at the time and the belief that societal perspectives did not appeal to the broad readership of the sports section.
Laine, who specializes in sports journalism research, recognizes the click-based market logic but is still surprised by some decisions made by the HS sports department:
“Before Jokerit’s first home game, the lyrics of the Russian national anthem were printed on the sports pages, both in Finnish and in Russian, urging readers to save the lyrics to sing along at the games. This was only a few months after Russia had annexed Crimea. Such actions undermine the credibility of sports journalism.”
Attitudes Shifted with the Belarusian Protests
Criticism of the KHL intensified during the Belarusian protests (2020–2021) when Jokerit’s season was supposed to start with an away game in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. At this time, sports journalists also published articles with a socially critical tone. According to Särkivuori, there is a significant difference between the data from the two periods, reflecting a broader change in Finnish sports journalism.
“Many articles from the first period evoked disbelief, but sports journalists sharpened their pens when societal pressure on Jokerit began to grow. They were not the first to address it but did not hold back on criticism either. I believe Finnish sports journalism has taken significant strides towards a socially critical approach, but finding widely appealing topics and resources to delve into these areas is challenging. The competition for clicks between media houses and the fast pace of journalism promote a focus on popular and quickly reported surface phenomena.”
The research material includes all 187 Helsingin Sanomat articles about Jokerit from both periods that did not focus solely on the team’s performance on the ice. Additionally, three key journalists who wrote these articles were interviewed. The material was examined using frame analysis.
The study is published in the thematic issue ”Sports Journalists as Agents of Change: Shifting Political Goalposts in Nordic Countries“ of Media and Communication, and it is freely available at: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/8120
Contact Information
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- Joakim Särkivuori, MSc, Doctoral Researcher, Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics
joakim.v.f.sarkivuori@jyu.fi
tel. 050 309 10 50 - Antti Laine, PhD, Docent, University Researcher, Jyväskylä University Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences
antti.laine@jyu.fi
tel. 040 805 39 58
- Joakim Särkivuori, MSc, Doctoral Researcher, Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics
