The aim of the study is to describe the diachronic construction of the discourse of giftedness in print media and to analyse the changes within the discourse and its essence in digital era. Furthermore, the study attempts at indicating how media discourse relates to the understanding of the essence of gift and giftedness which develop parallelly in the field of science.
Nowadays, the topic of giftedness has become of great significance (Kaufman, Sternberg 2008; Uusikylä 2005) and it is also a topic widely reflected in media (Radford 1998; Meckstroth, Kearney 2007). In media texts, identities and roles are constructed with the help of specific vocabulary and social descriptions (McQuail 2007; van Dijk 1998), the ideologicality designing the society is inevitable in media (van Dijk op.cit.).
The central issues of the study are:
1)When did the notion of giftedness came in use in print media in Estonia and how the discourse of giftedness is constructed in historical media texts?
2)How are the different sides of the concept of giftedness and problems related to giftedness presented in media texts in the digital era and into what will the discourse develop in nowadays?
The study focuses on journalism corps texts (ERC) from 1890.–1990 and on their comparison with the texts of the digital era which have been found via Delfi.ee – the largest web portal in Estonia.
By combining the quantitative content analysis (Krippendorff 2004) and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 2001; 2010), the author comes to a conclusion that the media discourse of giftedness starts already in 1890s and its dynamics are comparable to that of a scientific discourse. However, the discourse of the digital era is strongly related to the issues of ideology and power — giftedness has rather become a power tool for bureaucracy and gifted people products in labour market.