This diploma thesis deals with the critical mapping of British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood with a focus on the relationship between her activist actions and branding. The goal of this thesis is to analyse discourse practice and uncover the meaning behind creating Westwood's media image. Westwood is actively involved in political, social and environmental matters. She's known for her critical stance towards the establishment, consumer society as well as economic system. She stood at the beginning of punk and helped to define its visual identity. She belongs amongst known sustainable fashion advocates which reflects her famous quote 'buy less, choose well, make it last'. On the other hand, she built a global fashion brand with annual turnover of more than 40.7 million pounds in 2017 and she herself became the subject of criticism because of this contradiction towards her own actions. Some critics pointed out that she urges the public to consume less but owns a global network of stores under her name at the same time. From a methodological point of view the thesis is based on qualitative research, specifically on critical discourse analysis whose mechanisms help to uncover power relationships and put this issue into a broader context.

The aim of this thesis is to test the main principle of the Gateway Belief Model (GBM) on Twitter data, as suggested and experimentally validated by other authors. van der Linden et al. (2015 and 2019). The GBM predicts that the perception of scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change increases the probability of support for public action against or in favor of the mitigation of the climate change. In this work I analyse a random sample of 115,940,434 tweets gathered over the course of the first six months of 2020. The big data is pre-processed using unsupervised (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) and supervised (Naïve Bayes Classifier) machine learning algorithms in order to generate keywords for filtering environmentally themed tweets and to classify either absence or presence of the climate activism. Within the dataset, 5,857 environmentally themed tweets were detected, finding that only 94 out of them were explicitly linked to the message of scientific consensus about anthropogenic climate change. The harvested dataset proved to be unsuitable for testing the GBM, not only because of the small number of tweets which contain the message about 97 % of climatologists reaching the consensus, but also because the majority of these tweets deny the consensus and therefore, do not represent a...

The thesis deals with media representation of protests in the Czech media. They are anti-communist protests, student, "anti - austerity", anti-Roma and anti-racist or antifascist. The author has used critical discourse analysis on a sample of media texts from 1/2008 to 7/2014 period. It focused on analyzing the labeling of protesters, representing the relationship between the protests and democracy and the protesters and society or "ordinary people". The author concludes that labeling the protesters as well as representation of the relationship between protest and democracy in the reference sample strongly reflects the overall concept of the Czech post-communist identity as the one that emphasizes moderation, but also individualism or rather minimalist definition of politics as limited to the party or parliamentary politics. As congruent are usually presented anticommunist protests and student protests, on the other hand suspicious or problamatic are framed union protests or "radical" or "extrem" protests.

Legal and Extralegal Factors in Argumentation and Decision-making of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic Abstract The thesis deals with the influence of legal and extralegal factors on the decision-making of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic. Particularly, it focuses on the questions of which preconditions for decision-making of the Constitutional Court are created by the external political and social environment, how this decision-making reflects the different attitudes and approaches of individual judges and how it is influenced by the composition of the judicial panels. The author first summarizes a wide range of factors whose influence on court decisions has been observed. These include not only the content of legislation, but also judicial philosophy, including activism and self-restraint, and various extralegal factors observed by the attitudinal and strategic model of judicial decision-making, but also by psychological and economic studies. Subsequently, the thesis focuses on the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic. First, it deals with the preconditions for the influence of various factors on its decision-making and argues that the Constitutional Court can be considered a strong court due to its external conditions and its own decision-making activities. Then, with the...

Die Grenzen von Ressourcenabbau reichen tausende Meter über und unter die Erde. Dabei verfestigt und vertieft die Beschleunigung des Extraktivismus ungleiche Entwicklung und Ungerechtigkeiten auf der Welt. In Zentralasien bleiben Konflikte um Sozionatur in der kritischen Forschung zu Ressourcenextraktivismus und Widerstand jedoch weitgehend unterbeleuchtet. Diese Doktorarbeit leistet einen Beitrag zu der Ausweitung des Goldbergbaus in Kirgisistan und trägt zu einem räumlich umgearbeiteten, historisierenden und politisch sensiblen Verständnis des sich global ausweitenden Ressourcenextraktivismus bei. Die Arbeit präsentiert eine situierte Darstellung der multiskalaren Prozesse und Praktiken innerhalb und zwischen drei Standorten, die Kirgisistans Goldrausch ab/schaffen: die Hauptstadt Bischkek, das politische- und Verwaltungszentrum für mineralische Rohstoffe; Orlovka, ein Fall von angeblicher Kooperation; und Maidan, ein Fall von sich lange hinziehenden Auseinandersetzungen. Durch einen interdisziplinären Forschungsprozess entwickelt die Doktorarbeit einen relationalen soziomaterialen Ansatz zur Erforschung von multiskalaren extraktiven Verschränkungen der materiellen Dimensionen von Gold, seinen unterschiedlichen Bewertungen und seiner Governance. Sie mobilisiert die interdisziplinäre soziomateriale Analytik, durch ein multimethoden- Forschungsdesign, welche die miteinander verflochtenen strukturellen und historisch-geographischen Bedingungen offenbart. Dabei werden Konvergenzen im wachsenden geerdeten politischen Aktivismus gegen die globalen Strukturen des Extraktivismus, der die pluriversalen Wege zum Wohlbefinden aufkündigt zu Tage gefördert. Diese Doktorarbeit zeigt konsequent den Wert von disziplinärem und methodischem Pluralismus bei der empirischen Erforschung zum Zusammenspiel gegenseitig konstituierender Strukturen als auch von verorteter mehr-als-menschlicher Autonomie, die dem Schaffen und Abschaffen von Ressourcen und Ressourcengrenzen zugrunde liegen. / Resource frontiers extend to thousands of meters below and above the soil in pursuit of progress. Accelerating extractivism in fact entrenches uneven development and injustices across the globe. Yet, our age is not only hyper-extractive, it is also resistant: multifarious communities stand up against incessant extractivism. Socionatural struggles in Central Asia however remain unexplored in critical research on resource extractivism and resistance. Focusing on expanding gold mining in Kyrgyzstan, the given thesis contributes to spatially reworked, historicising and politically sensitive understandings of globally advancing resource extractivism. The thesis presents a grounded account of the multi-scalar processes and practices within and between three sites un/making Kyrgyzstan’s gold rush: the capital Bishkek, the centre of mineral governance; Orlovka, an alleged case of cooperation; and Maidan, a protracted case of contestation. Within an interdisciplinary research process, the thesis advances a relational sociomaterial approach for engaging the multi-scalar extractive entanglements of gold’s material dimensions, its different valuations, and its governance. Mobilising the interdisciplinary sociomaterial analytic through a multi-method research design reveals the intertwined structural and historico-geographical conditions that enact gold mining in Kyrgyzstan in an extractive state order while motivating ordinary citizens’ resistance to this order based on its emergent sociomaterialities. Unpacking embodied complexities in Orlovka and Maidan unearths convergences in surging grounded political activism against the global structures of extractivism that forecloses pluriversal paths to well-being. This thesis demonstrates the value of disciplinary and methodological pluralism in rendering visible the interplay of mutually constitutive structures and situated more-than-human agency that undergirds the making and unmaking of resources and resource frontiers.

The Master's thesis Iranian opposition and blogging - the phenomenon of Citizen journalism in a non-free society is focused on analysis of blogging as an opposition's communication tool within the nondemocratic regimes, contemporary Iran in particular. The research question is How can be the opposition's communication performed by blogging and what are the limitations and possibilities of such communication. The primary hypothesis is that the blogs are not used for direct manangement of opposition's actions, but rather as an alternative space for free expression. Four opposition's blogs written in english are analysed by means of qualitative analysis. The main criteria for selection of blogs were that the blog should be actualised on regular basis, based in Iran or at least written by a native Iranian, and clearly be in favour of the opposition's ideology. Content published between march 2009 and march 2010 was selected for analysis, for it was the period of disputed presidential election and following citizen's unrest in Iran. The issues of media's effects are not discussed in the thesis. Aside of the analysis, certain theoretical models of communication and their potential use within Iran's blogosphere are discussed. The analysis finally confirms that the bloggers have a potential to become...

This diploma thesis focuses on two periodicals that were published simultaneously during 1939-1940, i.e. in the initial period of the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Both periodicals presented themselves as press platforms of the sympathizers of fascist groups. One of the periodicals related to the pre-war fascist group Červenobílí and the other referred to a fascist movement called Vlajka. Despite seemingly similar orientations, the magazines got themselves into a dispute that resulted in an extensive press campaign. The aim of my thesis is the detailed analysis of this campaign. Most of the people concentrated around Nástup Červenobílých magazine were active in the committee of Národní souručenství (the only legal Czech political organization of that time), or in its satellite institutions. Nástup Červenobílých thus acted loyally towards Národní souručenství and was financed by its leading officials. Vlajka magazine, on the contrary, was against Národní souručenství from the beginning, which was reflected in the attacks on Nástup Červenobílých. The press campaign was led on the level of personal insults and the main protagonists were Zdeněk Zástěra, publisher of Nástup Červenobílých, and Jan Rys with Josef Burda on the other side, both Vlajka officials. Both magazines used various...

This diploma thesis deals with the so-called advocacy journalism, which is in the Czech media environment trying to explain on the example of a journalist, sociologist, former environmental activist and member of two political parties - ČSSD and Green Party - Jakub Patočka. The thesis puts journalism in context with other types of journalistic roles and the concept of journalism in liberal democratic societies. The research method of the work is an in-depth semi-structured interview, which examines primarily Patočka's perception of journalism and politics and their blending. The text focuses primarily on the period since 2003 when Patočka joined the Green Party until 2017, when the Brno Social Democrats decided to exclude him from the party. The work is divided into Patočka's journalistic and political career. Journalistic chapters are devoted to his work in the magazine Last (later Seven) generation, Literární noviny and Deník Referendum. One chapter describes his role in the so-called Kuřim case. In the section dedicated to Patočka's political engagement there are mentioned European Parliament elections 2004, in which Patočka stood as a leader of the Green Party, his attempt to reform the Green Party together with Jan Beránek or Patočka's expulsion from the ČSSD due to his organization of a...

The master'sthesiscalledThematicpreferencesoftheCzechprintedmedia seenontheexampleofthecaseofPussyRiotdeals withthe mediaphenomenon Pussy Riot, whichprovokedheightenedinterestofboththegeneralpublicand Russianand Western mediaatthebeginningof2012.The membersoftheartistic activistmovementPussyRiotperformedtheso-called"punkprayer"intheCathedral of Christthe Saviourin Moscow. Thisact, whichhadpoliticalandreligious overtones, wassubsequentlycriminalized. Thethesisoffersaninsightintothe backgroundofthecasefromtheperspectivesofhistory,inspirationandgoalsofthe movement.Italsoseekstopointouttheimportantaspectsoftheirperformanceand eventsthattookplaceafterthecase.ThethesisshowshowthePussyRiotissuehas beenaddressedbythemediaaroundtheworld,takingintoaccounttheworkofthe journalistandtheinfluencesthatmayshapehisorherwork.Italsotakesintoaccount theinfluenceoffeminism,itsdevelopmentinthemedia,anditsconnectionwiththe activismofPussyRiot.ThemainaimofthisworkistofindouthowCzechmedia haveconstructedmeaningsrelatedtoPussyRiotfromthebeginningofthecasetothe present.Todothis,aqualitativeanalysisofthreeCzechdailynewspapers Mladá frontaDNES,Hospodářskénoviny,PrávoandthreeCzechweeklyRespekt,Reflex andTýdenwasused.

This ethnographic study intends to explain the recent mobilization practices within the LGBTQ movement in contemporary Madrid in reference to the strategic use of identity and networking in collective action. It describes the Spanish movement as an ideologically polarized heterogeneous aggregate. The active challenging groups criticize the dominant part of the movement for giving up its original message of sexual liberation and diluting it in consumerism by supporting capitalist tendencies and the power of leading political parties. Via launching protest campaigns and collaborating in internationally supported networks with other ideologically related social movement communities, the challenging groups demand civil rights for all people, regardless of their sexual orientation or identity. They mobilize upon the collective identity of "precariousness" while integrating elements of queer and transgender theory into their radical leftist oriented politics in order to transform the Spanish society. By bringing on new critical ideas and adherents, the success of the leftist oriented challenging groups has an impact on the direction of the politics of the dominant group, which thereby is forced to adopt such ideas into their politics. Despite the disunity and antagonistic character of the movement, the...