Andrus Saar

Andrus Saar (21 November 1946 – 28 May 2015) was an Estonian sociologist, media scholar, lecturer and public-opinion researcher. He founded and led the survey-research company Saar Poll and was closely associated with the development of Estonian media research, public-opinion polling, and comparative values studies.

Life and career

Saar was born in Viljandi. He studied Estonian philology with a specialization in journalism at Tartu State University, graduating in 1970. He completed postgraduate study there in 1976 and defended a Candidate of Philological Sciences dissertation at Moscow State University in 1977 on the functional typology of radio broadcasting.

He worked as an editor at Estonian Radio from 1970 to 1972, and from 1976 to 1988 held research and managerial posts in the Estonian State Committee for Television and Radio. At the same time, he taught at the University of Tartu; later histories of the field place him among the researchers associated with the media-sociology strand of Tartu's journalism department in the late Soviet period. In later decades he also taught sociology and media at Tallinn Pedagogical University, the Institute of Law, Audentes University and Estonian Business School.

In 1988 Saar founded the social and market research company Saar Poll, which he led until his death. From 1989 to 1992 he also headed the Estonian branch of VCIOM.

Research and public role

Saar's work ranged across media sociology, public opinion, values research and sociology of religion. A European Commission profile noted that he took part in numerous international comparative studies dealing with values, social justice, quality of life, discrimination, poverty and health, and that he regularly communicated the results of such research to the Estonian public through radio, television and print media.

Official survey documentation identifies Saar as Estonia's programme director or principal investigator in several rounds of the European Values Study and the World Values Survey. European Values Study documentation lists him as programme director for Estonia's 2008 round, while World Values Survey documentation names him and Anu Realo as primary investigators for the Estonian 2011 wave. A later policy report on Estonian values research credited Saar with conducting Estonia's values-study fieldwork in 1990, 1999, 2008 and 2011.

His international scholarly publications included, with Liivi Joe, the article Polling, Under the Gun: Political Attitudes in Estonia, Surveyed at the Height of the Soviet Coup Attempt, August 1991, published in Public Opinion Quarterly in 1992.

Saar also worked in sociology of religion. He contributed the chapter Eestimaalane ja tema usk sotsioloogi pilgu läbi to the 2012 Estonian Council of Churches collection Astu alla rahva hulka, a volume devoted to religion and worldviews in Estonia. In 2010 the European Commission appointed him one of Estonia's ambassadors for the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.

Honours

In 2001 Saar received the Order of the White Star, 5th Class.

Selected publications

  • Massiteabevahendid ja avalik arvamus (with Juhan Kivirähk, 1987).
  • Ausalt ja avameelselt: Stagnast perestroikasse. Avalikust arvamusest aastail 1984–1989 (1989).
  • Ett ryktes anatomi (with Göran Stütz and Eino Tubin, 1991).
  • När alla lyssnade på radio: Moskvakuppen från Estlands horisont (with Göran Stütz and Eino Tubin, 1992).