Diploma thesis "An analysis of the media environment of the People's Republic of China" deals with the functioning of the media system of the PRC. The introductory chapter focuses on the evolution of the media system from the early beginning up to present, emphasis was placed on the period starting with the establishment of the republic in 1949. The main events which greatly influenced the current form of the media system were underlined. The evolution of the system is enriched by historical, political and cultural context. The periods of governance of both Mao Zedong and subsequent reformist Deng Xiaoping, who is known especially for his commencement of economic reforms in PRC, were analysed. A significant part of the diploma thesis is devoted to the basic characteristics features of the media environment of PRC, namely to the system of media regulation, self-censorship, censorship and propaganda. To demonstrate the significance and specificity of particular features of the media system, some main events were selected as examples and further analysed. In case of censorship, the relationship between PRC and Hong Kong and the 2009 Xinjiang protests were selected. Regarding propaganda, the Beijing Olympics games of 2008 were mentioned. Analysis of current media system with an emphasis on the main...

At first glance, the very idea of analysing the freedom of the media and of researching censorship in Switzerland seems absurd. After all, the Federal Constitution explicitly guarantees freedom of the media, and censorship is forbidden. Furthermore, this small, federal, multilingual and multicultural landlocked country in the middle of Europe is universally praised as a model of democracy. Indeed, in a country whose people have a far greater say in government than anywhere else, one could easily assume that the freedom of the media is a foregone conclusion. Yet, in reality, this shining image is more than a little tarnished. The "Prototype for Europe" – as the former Federal President of Germany Richard von Weizsäcker once described Switzerland – experiences the same forms and mechanisms of censorship as any other democratic country. Of course, in Switzerland "undesirable" journalists are not threatened with murder, but critically discerning authors do risk becoming social outcasts. Switzerland prohibits governmental pre-censorship, but the advertising industry has on occasion attempted to shape the content of the media by means of post-publication censorship in the form of boycotts. Switzerland is a constitutional state, yet the paragraphs of its penal and civil codes hang over media workers like the sword of Damocles. Then there are structural problems such as the lack of proper journalistic education. However one looks at it, the freedom of the media in Switzerland is officially, materially and structurally restricted. However, most people remain unconcerned by and indeed unaware of this state of affairs. Thomas Jefferson's reminder that, "to preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement”*, has long been forgotten in Switzerland. The Swiss appear to be basking in their country’s reputation as a place without media problems. It therefore came as no surprise to us when, both in our quantitative and qualitative research, many of those interviewed were surprised and even irritated at our 2 questions about possible threats to freedom of the media in Switzerland. Some people even felt that they were being personally attacked and responded along the lines that "Instead of fouling our own nest we ought to describe the advantages of our country and our democratic system". Or: "In comparison with Russia or China we are living in a paradise": It seems that only the most critical among the media personnel, media experts and media scientists are willing to pinpoint the problems faced by the contemporary Swiss media. All the others are convinced that we have the best media on earth. This attitude of part indifference, part ignorance and part wishful thinking, was the catalyst for our research on the freedom of the Swiss media and the potential dangers and mechanisms which threaten it. Our findings reveal that all that glitters is not gold and that the Swiss media scene is, in some ways, reminiscent of a Potemkin village. *Jefferson, Thomas, Letter to William Green Mumford, 18 June 1799 (http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/jefferson.htm, consulted 15 June 2006)

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This study was conducted to ascertain library media specialists' perceptions of the trends in challenges to intellectual freedom in Texas public school libraries and the factors influencing the outcome of challenged materials.

Social media are often referred to as democracy drivers in autocratic states, whereas in some countries, they appear as tools of the regimes that employ a wide range of mechanisms to restrict freedom of expression online. In authoritarian countries, political bloggers stand out as new political leaders or anti-regime actors, serve as alternative information sources, advocate for political action, or mobilize financial support for different initiatives. Political conditions in countries with established governments’ control practices complicate publishing routines for political bloggers and may increase incentives to self-censor. Employing the theory of the spiral of silence, this study analyzes self-censorship in social media among political bloggers in two neighboring post-Soviet autocratic countries - Belarus and Russia. The research is based on a comparison of media legislation in Belarus and Russia, textual analysis of political blogs, and survey among political bloggers in the two countries. The survey demonstrates that political bloggers face obstacles in forms of administrative or criminal sentences, forceful blocking of their pages, online threats, or experience pressure/ attention from secret services. Despite these challenges, political bloggers in Belarus and Russia demonstrate readiness to speak out and criticize political elites. According to the model suggested in this thesis, the majority of political bloggers practice self-censorship at the pre-publishing stages in forms of selecting topics and wording, avoiding particular names. The author argues that in autocratic countries, the spiral of silence, that engages more people to silence their opinion due to political obstacles, can be and is currently challenged by political bloggers, as decentralized political opinion leaders, who aim to break down the spiral of silence. The research contributes to media studies of social media and freedom of expression in autocratic countries. Political bloggers as neither ordinary social media users nor media in the non-democratic world require more attention among media and political scholars.

The goal of this work is to present the daily working routine of Czech journalists employed in newspapers in the years 1965-1974, with an emphasis on examining the institutional level of external pressure on journalists, in contrast to self- censorship. The Prague Spring is seen as a milestone, which divide the work into three stages: The 'thawing' period before 1968, a period of relative freedom of expression from January 1968 to mid-1969 and then the following period characterised by the stabilization of the 'normalization regime' in the first half of 1970s.

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During the Angolan War of 1975-6, whilst South African troops were actively engaged on the side of the Unita/FNLA alliance, news media in South Africa were prohibited from disclosing information about the country's role in the war. Under Section 118 of the Defence Amendment Act of 1967, no information about SA troop movements or plans could be published without the permission of the Minister of Defence or his nominees. This case study shows how the Government used the Defence Act to censor certain news while releasing other news which suited its political outlook and objectives. The study documents the history of the Defence Act and of the military-press liaison machinery which grew out of it. The introduction defines propaganda as a technique of ideological control designed to supplement the control of society by means of repression. The study sets in context the Government's propaganda strategy before, during and after the Angolan War, arguing that the structures of white domination, including the newspaper industry, are being drawn into the Government's scheme of total co-ordination to fight a total war.

The censorship of popular music in South Africa during the 1980s severely affected South African musicians. The apartheid government was directly involved in centralized state censorship by means of the Directorate of Publications, while the South African Broadcasting Corporation exercised government censorship at the level of airplay. Others who assisted state censorship included religious and cultural interest groups. State censorship in turn put pressure on record companies, musicians and others to practice self-censorship. Many musicians who overtly sang about taboo topics or who used controversial language subsequently experienced censorship in different forms, including police harassment. Musicians were also subject to anti-apartheid forms of censorship,such as the United Nations endorsed cultural boycott. Not all instances of censorship were overtly political, but they were always framed by, and took place within, a repressive legal-political system. This thesis found that despite the state's attempt to maintain its hegemony, musicians sought ways of overcoming censorship practices. It is argued that the ensuing struggle cannot be conceived of in simple binary terms. The works of Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu, in particular, are applied to the South African context in exploring the localized nuances of the cultural struggle over music censorship. It is argued that fragmented resistance to censorship arose out of the very censorship structures that attempted to silence musicians. Textual analysis brought to light that resistance took various forms including songs with provocative lyrics and titles, and more subtle means of bypassing censorship, including the use of symbolism, camouflaged lyrics, satire and crossover performance. Musicians were faced with the challenge of bypassing censors yet nevertheless conveying their message to an audience. The most successful cases negotiated censorial practices while getting an apparent message across to a wide audience. Broader forms of resistance were also explored, including opposition through live performance, counter-hegemonic information on record covers, resistance from exile, alignment with political organizations and legal challenges to state censorship. In addition, some record companies developed strategies of resistance to censorship. The many innovative practices outlined in this thesis demonstrate that even in the context of constraint, resistance is possible. Despite censorship, South African musicians were able to express themselves through approaching their music in an innovative way.

The identification and examination of cultural information strategies and censorship patterns used to propagate the controversial issue of the caricatures in two separate cultural contexts was the aim of this dissertation. It explored discourse used for the coverage of this topic by one newspaper in a restrictive information context and two newspapers in a liberal information context. Message propagation in a restrictive information environment was analyzed using the English daily Kuwait Times from the Middle East; the liberal information environment of the US was analyzed using two major dailies, the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. The study also concurrently identifies and elaborates on the themes and frames through which discourse was presented exposing the cultural ideologies and premises they represent. The topic was approached with an interdisciplinary position with the support and applicability testing of Chatman's insider-outsider theory within information science and Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence theory and Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model based in the area of mass communication. The study has also presented a new model of information censorship - circle of information censorship, emphasizing conceptual issues that influence the selection and censorship of information.