Men, money and mobile phones: Tracing the technology discourse in Finnish newspapers

The use and interpretation of technology takes place in a variety of socio-spatial contexts. Technology discourses change over time and place, and the contexts vary, but newspapers are one of the most important. This paper analyses articles about technology in seven Finnish newspapers in 2003. Among 1682 technology-related articles, the most common topics were men, enterprises, money, Finland, employment, other countries, the Internet, and mobile phones. A country was mentioned in a majority of articles, most often Finland (36.9%) followed by the United States (19%), then China (8.1%). Gaps in gender and generation exist. Men were mentioned in 56.6% of the articles, while women, children, and the elderly were mentioned much less,14.1%, 6.9%, and 1.8%, respectively, less, in fact, than the enterprise Nokia (18.3%). Overall, newspapers provided a forum for discussions about men making money with technology in an enterprise. Articles about women and technology often were more negative in tone than articles about men.