This thesis deals with visual communication in the form of photography. Explaining the theories of Roland Barthes and Vilém Flusser we point out the tight relationship of this medium with reality that obscures its constructive character. The witness role of photography seems to be essential in the context of journalism, where we are offered a story by the pictures that is however mistaken for reality itself. The thesis tries to present practices of media discourse that make us perceive an event as newsworthy. It draws on the theory of news values and the methods of social semiotic analysis and applies these to the winning photos of the contest Czech Press Photo (2006-2015). We highlight the semiotic resources used in the meaning-making process in relation to each picture. The results show that the preferred constructed news values are negativity, aesthetic appeal, proximity and personalisation and that the winning photographs mostly strengthen their semblance of being strictly informative.

This thesis focuses on the use of artificial intelligence in photojournalism. Its goal is to explore which tasks could be performed by this technology and how it could streamline journalist's work. The research method is grounded theory that was formulated based on findings from research - practices of pressrooms and their attitudes towards technologies. The initial part of the paper therefore examines specific tools and tasks that artificial intelligence could do in practice. This is done by collecting data from representatives of the largest Czech media houses, technology journalists, press agencies and representatives of photo banks. Secondary sources for research were academic work as well as popular-science resources. From these areas, the discussion proceeds to investigation and analysis of findings about the possibilities of working with images, from managing photo archives and video archives and automatic data retrieval, to machine vision or even generating of an original illustration photo based on selected parameters. This provides a foundation for further discussion on a set of upcoming tools that could make journalists' job easier, especially with regard to the ever-increasing demand for speed, accuracy and quality of news reporting. With that, the paper proceeds to analyse management...

This dissertation examines the role of scientific and medical disciplines in the construction of homosexuality in Mexico, and how non-normative gender and sexual subjects engaged in political activism, body modifications, and aesthetic production to challenge the pathologizing discourses reinforced by the increasing authority of the biomedical sciences. Chapter 1 examines the role of photography as a medical instrument in the first documented sex-reassignment treatment in the Western Hemisphere performed by Mexican physician and sexologist Rafael Sandoval Camacho in the early 1950s, and how his patient Marta Olmos, Mexico’s first transsexual woman, embraced photojournalism as a medium to document, archive, and validate her identity as a woman. In chapter 2, I examine the popular phenomenon of publishing photographs of erotized trans sex workers known as Mujercitos during the 1970s in Alarma!, Mexico’s most influential crime tabloid magazine, and how these marginalized subjects appropriated biomedical technologies like “sex hormones” intended to regulate gender and sexual deviance to construct bodily identities that challenged the medical and criminological positions on the essentialist natures of gender expression, sexual desire, and the sexed body. Chapter 3 examines the early gay narrative of Luis Zapata and José Rafael Calva that emerged in conjunction to Mexico’s Homosexual Liberation Movement in the late 1970s. My analysis demonstrates how Zapata’s El vampiro de la colonia Roma [Adonis García: A Picaresque Novel] (1979), and Calva’s Utopía gay [Gay Utopia] (1983) present sharp critiques shared by Mexico’s homosexual liberation groups on the growing authority of disciplines like psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and biomedicine in pathologizing homosexuality. Chapter 4 examines the changing understandings of homosexuality, homosexual desire, and the homosexual body during the HIV/AIDS crisis through the work of Julio Galán, Nahum B. Zenil, and art collective Taller Documentación Visual. My analysis presents the role of the HIV virus not as an explicit visual reference but rather as an elusive, spectral, and dangerous entity that is identifiable through the aesthetic and formal composition of the artists’ works, best exemplified by the references to condoms as physical and symbolic devices in the mediation of gay sexual contact and desire. This dissertation demonstrates the critical roles of biomedicine, criminology, sexology, and psychiatry in regulating diverse forms of Mexican homosexualities, while simultaneously functioning as liminal disciplines strategically adopted by homosexual subjects to redefine, shape, and validate their desired bodily, sexual, and subjective identities.

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This problem's investigation deals with the influence of sports photographer Al Panzera upon staff photographers at four major metropolitan newspapers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Information was gathered through interviews, periodicals, and the pages of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The study found Panzera to be influential in varying degrees upon all photographers interviewed. He proved most influential with beginners, especially in the 1940's and 1950's. He influenced advanced photographers to a limited extent. Areas of influence included his techniques, abilities, personality, and tenure with Star-Telegram.

This diploma thesis describes the way by which can photojournalism operate with the audience and how it is possible to influence a view of recipients about the world around us by photography. The thesis is devided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part is based on accessibility of the Czech and foreign literature and in its beginning that represents what photojournalism is and what is its role in media. A part of the opening chapter is also a discussion of ethics in the photojournalism. Furthermore, there is explanation of the process of how a recipient perceives visual communication. One of the key components of this work is a summary of how experts from the fields of photography and media see the possibility of influencing the audience with photos in the media. There are explained the concepts of the terms visual agenda setting and visual gatekeeping. The ways by which media most often manipulate a recipient are described and there is outlined also the question of objectivity in photojournalism. The end of the theoretical part is devoted to a relatively popular topic of digital photo editing in the media. The practical part of this thesis involves a qualitative research carried through in-depth interviews, which explores ways in which the photos, that are included in printed...

This thesis, The Media Image of Czech Presidents during the Normalisation Period and Today looks at the visual component of the media image of Normalisation-era president Gustáv Husák and democratic president Václav Havel. The study looks at their visual representations in the newspapers Rudé právo, Mladá fronta and Mladá fronta DNES. The theoretical part of the study focuses on defining the role of President in the Czech political system, and outlines the historical context. The research part comprises a quantitative and qualitative analysis of photographs published in the determined newspapers. The study also details the characteristic activities of official presidential photographers and gives an assessment of information acquired during in-depth interviews with official presidential photographers. An interview with a former Czech News Agency (ČTK) photographer deals with the taking of photographs of President Gustáv Husák. An interview with Tomki Němec, Karel Cudlín and Jaroslav Hejzlar focuses on the taking of photographs of Václav Havel. The study seeks to find an answer to the question of whether the president interfered in the activities of his official photographer, and how the work of the presidential photographer differed during the Normalisation period and during democracy. The...

My diploma thesis deals with respecting the journalism ethics by two most read general- interest newspapers in the Czech Republic - Mlada fronta DNES and Hospodarske noviny, when using complex communicate including a news photo. My research sample contained just breaking news (home and world) published nationwide in March, 2014. A relationship between meanings of particular parts in complex communicates (the headline, the caption, the photo and the article) and has been my variable that I was searching for within the sample. As all the parts work together in building one sense, which should represent a reality, I suppose, that meanings of these parts should show a relationship of harmony and substitution within one complex communicate. I used semiotic analysis to analyse meanings within a communicate, both denotation and connotation level. I applied my knowledge of social and visual semiotics, semantics and pragmatics to explain the meanings of individual signs. At the end of my research I compared results of my analysis to outcomes of Magda Polmanova's research - a former Charles University student that dealt with almost the same topic as me in her bachelor thesis, analysing the same dailies however from 2011. The findings of: How many times have these dailies published complex communicates that...

The master's thesis deals with the citizen photojournalism and the citizen videojournalism in the Czech media landscape. It focuses on the frequency of the amateur photographs and videos published on the selected news web sites and also on the gatekeeping process. This master's thesis also reflects the editor's opinions on the citizen photojournalism and the citizen videojournalism. The citizen journalism is usually viewed from the perspective of the citizen journalists, but this master's thesis brings the view from the second side, from the media professionals. The thesis uses the combination of the quantitative and qualitative methods. Firstly, there was conducted the quantitative content analysis. Secondly, there were interviewed the media professionals. The conclusions of the master's thesis indicate that the citizen photojournalism and the citizen videojournalism is rarely used on the Czech web sites. The media professionals evaluate this phenomenon positively, find its contributions to the news flow but only under the certain conditions. On the other hand, they do not find the citizen photojournalism and videojournalism absolutely necessary element for the news service.

Obwohl das dokumentarische Bild als beglaubigte Aufzeichnung einer außermedialen Realität als Diskursgegenstand bereits seit Längerem dekonstruiert ist, scheint die Faszination am Dokumentarischen nahezu ungebrochen. Die stete Bezugnahme auf das Dokumentarische in unterschiedlichen Diskursen der Fotografie zeugt davon. Auch zahlreiche künstlerische Auseinandersetzungen rekurrieren seit den 80er-Jahren verstärkt auf dokumentarische Konzepte und Formate. Ausgehend von diesem Paradoxon, der Dekonstruktion des Dokumentarischen in Theoriekontexten und dem Wiedererstarken dokumentarischer Formate in der Fotografie und Kunst, sucht die vorliegende Arbeit nach den Ursachen einer offenkundig anhaltenden Faszination am Dokumentarischen. Dabei richtet sie den Blick speziell auf künstlerische Fotografien, die Gebrauchsweisen der Fotografie aufgreifen, welche per se mit dem Dokumentarischen affiziert werden, wie die Pressefotografie, die kriminalistische Fotografie und die Amateurfotografie. Sie zeigt, über welche Strategien das Dokumentarische dort produktiv umgesetzt wird. Lässt sich jeder Dokumentarismus erst einmal als Versuch lesen, in der Repräsentation das Reale zu verbildlichen, beziehen sich die vorgestellten künstlerischen Arbeiten von Jeff Wall, Thomas Demand, Sophie Calle und Richard Billingham zwar auf ein Begehren nach dem Realen, machen aber gleichzeitig den Verlust des Realen in ihren Erzählungen von der Wirklichkeit erfahrbar. In ihrer Ambivalenz vermitteln die künstlerischen Arbeiten ein Konzept des Dokumentarischen als mobiles System, das dieses nicht als Kategorie, Genre oder Stil festschreibt, sondern als Handlung begreift, die das permanente Ineinandergreifen von Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion des Dokumentarischen nachvollzieht. Insofern erweisen sich die Kunst und das Dokumentarische als nicht polar, denn über ihre Beziehung zum Realen kristallisiert sich dieses als das gemeinsame Dritte der beiden heraus. / Although the documentary image as authenticated record of a reality beyond the media has, as the object of discourse, long been deconstructed, the fascination with the documentary would appear to be ongoing. The constant references to the documentary in a variety of photography discourses bears witness to this. In addition, countless artistic treatments since the Eighties have referred back to documentary concepts and formats. In the light of this paradox as well as the deconstruction of the documentary in theoretical contexts and the renewed gaining of strength of documentary formats in photography and art, this study investigates the reasons for the evident persistent fascination with the documentary. In the process, artistic photographs in particular are examined which reference conventions in photography that are associated per se with the documentary, such as for example press photography, criminalistic photography, and amateur photography. The strategies by which the documentary is productively implemented are demonstrated here. If every form of documentarism can be read first of all as an attempt to express the real visually in the representation, then the artistic works by Jeff Wall, Thomas Demand, Sophie Calle and Richard Billingham that are presented here may indeed reference a desire for the real, but at the same time they make it possible in their telling of reality to experience the loss of the real. It is through their ambivalence that the artistic works convey a concept of the documentary as a mobile system that does not codify it as a category, genre or style, but rather perceives it as an act that comprehends the documentary''s constant intertwining of construction and deconstruction. As such, it is shown that art and the documentary are not polar, because through their relationship to reality this relationship is shown to crystalize out as the common third party for both.