The diploma thesis deals with media freedom in the Visegrád Group countries (Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary) from the perspective of professional journalists. It aims to map how journalists in these four countries perceive freedom in relation to their profession - how they understand the concept of freedom of expression, what threatens freedom of expression or freedom of the media according to them, how free they feel in their profession and what is the trend regarding media freedom in the coming years in their opinion. The theoretical part thoroughly captures the historical development of freedom of expression, its legal protection in constitutional documents and international conventions, the limits of freedom of expression as well as forms of its restriction. It also introduces the most important non-governmental non- profit organizations monitoring media freedom in the world and presents the media environment in each country. The theoretical part also pursues the perception and approach of professional journalists to freedom of expression, media freedom and other journalistic concepts and values. The analytical part then follows a journalistic professional discourse in the form of a qualitative analysis based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with active journalists from the Visegrád...

What do we require from the labor market in order for it to contribute to a free life? And will the labor market of the future live up to what we expect from it? This study examines how a political philosophy of Hegelian inspiration helps us understand the conditions by which the labor market could be capable of providing for what Axel Honneth refers to as ’social freedom’. An analysis by French jurist Alain Supiot is presented as an informative example of this theoretical framework. Supiot develops a sophisticated critique of the deficiencies of the contemporary labor market, while simultaneously pointing at some professions whose function testify of the possibility of the labor market of generating social freedom under proper conditions. As such, I show that a critical framework of Hegelian inspiration is immensely potent as to its capacity of understanding what we require from the labor market at this time of history. Immensely potent, but perhaps insufficient. Indeed, by introducing the research of Aaron Benanav pertaining to the development of the global labor market, this study corroborates the critique of Honneth and Supiot—a critical framework already introduced by Karen Ng and Timo Jütten—concerning the possibilities of the labor market of providing social freedom at any significant scale and thus hints at the probable necessity of overcoming capitalism during the time to come.

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This dissertation presents the U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) as an example of that service implementing successful change in wartime. It argues that creating the AWG required senior leaders to adopt a vision differing from the Army’s self-conceptualization, change bureaucratic processes to permit that vision to produce an actual military unit, and then place the new unit in the hands of uniquely qualified leaders able to build and sustain it. In the process, the dissertation will consider forces that influence change within the Army, arguing that the two most significant are its self-conceptualization and institutional bureaucracy. Only determined senior leaders can overcome these barriers, and then only by deep personal engagement. Such engagement extends to manipulating the bureaucracy by placing like-minded subordinates in positions where they can sustain the tenets of change long after the visionaries retire. The dissertation also posits effective leadership as critical to building and sustaining organizations able to consistently meet their founders’ vision. To effectively tell the story, the dissertation explores three major subject areas that provide historical context. The first is the Army’s institutional history from the early 1950s through 2001. This period begins with the Army seeking to validate its place in America’s national security strategy and ends with the Army trying to chart a path into the post-Cold War future. That section includes the major bureaucratic changes brought about by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the early 1960s as these changes created processes the service still uses. It also addresses the Army’s post-Vietnam War focus on re-establishing itself as a technologically sophisticated force optimized to defeat similar opponents. This dissertation also looks at several episodes further in the past. Prior to World War I, the Army’s history is largely one of asymmetric warfare. The dissertation thus examines several campaigns that offered lessons for subsequent wars. Some lessons the Army took to heart, others it ignored. Finally, the dissertation chronicles the AWG’s creation in 2006. The AWG was a direct outgrowth of the failures and frustrations that the Army experienced in Afghanistan and Iraq. The dissertation examines these campaigns and identifies the specific problems that led senior Army leaders to create the AWG. It also chronicles the organizations growth and re-assignment from the Army staff to a fully-fledged organization subordinate to the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command in 2011. This reassignment placed a now mature AWG in the Army’s standard force structure, a place it held until its 2021 deactivation. This deactivation did not result not from the unit’s failure to adapt to a post-insurgency Army focusing on technical modernization. Rather, it resulted from the Army’s inability to realize that while the AWG originated as a response to counterinsurgency, it provided a capability to support the Army during a period of great strategic and institutional uncertainty. / History

This study aims to examine the argumentation regarding freedom of speech and the statement “je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”) in eight opinion articles from different Swedish web magazines. Two doctotral dissertations who’s main topics are the freedom of speech and different types of arguments regarding freedom of speach, was used in this study. The study also uses the actual Swedish law surrounding the freedom of speech, as well as the freedom of the press and breaches of these laws. Also mentioned as different types of theories are; utilitarianism and journalism ethics and standards. This is a qualitative study using rhetorical analysis as a main method, but the study also uses some tools from the field of argument analysis, such as theses and main arguments. The results from this study shows, amongst other things, that various arguments can be used when trying to get your view surrounding the freedom of speech across. However there seems to be a clear difference between the writers who argue that the freedom of speech is more important than the right to not having to be discriminated by a statement or an utterance, and the writers who argue that the right to not having to be discriminated by a statement is more important than the right to potentially disciminate someone while uttering something. The writers who share the first view presented here, that the freedom of speech is more important, are also the ones who support the expression ”I am Charlie”, and the writers who don’t think that the freedom of speech is of more importance than the right to not having to be discriminated, does not support the expression ”I am Charlie”. However, while looking at this study, it’s imoportant that the reader bares in mind that the results from it doesn’t say anythning about anything else apart from the articles studied.

With the fast pace that technology is currently developing, technology forms a bigger part of our day to day lives. Technological advancement has an impact on all aspects of life, including how we communicate with one another. This has caused an increase in social media usage. South Africa is in no way an exception to this growing trend. The escalation of the use of social media platforms has brought with it the rise in the wrongful use of social media. The growth in wrongful use would lead to the proliferation of legal consequences for defamatory statements with regard to social media situations. The question arises if South Africa‘s current legislation is able to regulate the new phenomena of defamatory statements on social media platforms. The conclusion was reached that South Africa‘s current legislation is more than adequate to regulate this new form of defamation. With the qualification that that judges apply the current legal principles of the law of delict to this new form of defamation correctly. Educating and informing judges, as well as the public is vital in preventing this new form of defamation to become problematic. / LLM, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

With the fast pace that technology is currently developing, technology forms a bigger part of our day to day lives. Technological advancement has an impact on all aspects of life, including how we communicate with one another. This has caused an increase in social media usage. South Africa is in no way an exception to this growing trend. The escalation of the use of social media platforms has brought with it the rise in the wrongful use of social media. The growth in wrongful use would lead to the proliferation of legal consequences for defamatory statements with regard to social media situations. The question arises if South Africa‘s current legislation is able to regulate the new phenomena of defamatory statements on social media platforms. The conclusion was reached that South Africa‘s current legislation is more than adequate to regulate this new form of defamation. With the qualification that that judges apply the current legal principles of the law of delict to this new form of defamation correctly. Educating and informing judges, as well as the public is vital in preventing this new form of defamation to become problematic. / LLM, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This bachelor's thesis is based on a Minor Field Study (MFS) conducted in Rabat and Casablanca, Morocco, April and May 2015. The aim is to study Moroccan journalists' attitudes towards citizen journalism and its impact on the role of the journalist: 1) With what claims do they define citizen journalists and journalists respectively? and 2) In what ways do these claims relate to the impact citizen journalists can be expected to have on the role of the journalist and freedom of expression in Morocco? In the discussion, theories on discourse, professionalism, journalistic ideals, and development journalism are applied. Semi-structured interviews in French were conducted with five journalists working within five different print and online publications. The material was analyzed according to a model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The interviewed journalists give accounts of how they are "condemned to be connected" to the vox populi that citizen journalists constitute. There is a prevalence of professionalism discourse where verification and objectivity are described as what characterizes a journalist. But respondents also emphasize "teamwork", and that "all journalists are citizen journalists", and these themes are interpreted as characteristic of development journalism. Within professional discourse in a development journalism context, the reliability of citizen journalists is downplayed. At the same time, citizen journalists are described as freer than professional journalists. In conclusion, it is considered likely that development journalist discourse sets an obstacle to the liberalizing impact of citizen journalism.

Thesis (LLD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The central issue which is considered in this thesis is the meaning of the constitutional guarantees of religious rights and freedoms in South Africa. In other words, it is concerned with the functions of the state, through its laws or conduct, in respect of religion and with its relationship towards the institutional church or religious community. It is argued that religious freedom is, in fact, a bundle of rights and freedoms. The "essential rights and freedoms of religion" which constitute this "bundle" are identified in the context of the historical development of religious rights. It is shown that religious rights theories have developed in the West which include concepts of freedom of conscience, the right to freely exercise religion, accommodation of pluralism of a confessional and institutional nature, equality of all religions before the law, nondiscrimination on the grounds offaith, institutional separation of church and state and some separation of state (or law) and religion. It is maintained that no single principle could by itself guarantee religious freedom and that these rights and freedoms are mutually. supportive of and mutually subservient to the highest goal of guaranteeing religious freedom. These essential rights and freedoms are therefore treated as constituting minimum standards for the protection of religious freedom and it is argued that religious freedom as protected in the South African Constitution should be interpreted to incorporate these multiple principles. It is shown that, prior to the promulgation of the interim Constitution the essential rights and freedoms of religion were not adequately protected in South Africa and that the constitutional entrenchment of these essential religious rights was necessitated by various factors in the preconstitutional South African society. The position with regard to religious rights and freedoms in post-Constitutional South Africa is considered by briefly sketching the broader constitutional context and by assessing the constitutional clauses protecting religious rights to determine whether the essential rights are protected. The religious rights provisions in the Constitution are analysed in detail in order to determine how they should be interpreted and implemented to ensure adequate protection of the essential rights and freedoms of religion in South Africa. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die sentrale vraagstuk wat in hierdie proefskrif ondersoek word is die betekenis van godsdiensregte en vryhede wat in die Grondwet verskans word. Dit ondersoek die funksie van die staat, hetsy deur wetgewing of staatsoptrede, ten opsigte van godsdiens en ten opsigte van kerke of godsdiensgroepe. Daar word geargumenteer dat godsdiensregte inderdaad uit 'n aantal regte, oftewel, 'n bondel regte, bestaan. Die essensiële regte en vryhede van godsdiens wat hierdie bondelopmaak word geïdentifiseer met verwysing na die historiese ontwikkeling van godsdiensregte. Teorieë van godsdiensregte het in die Weste ontwikkel wat die volgende essensiële regte en vryhede insluit: vryheid van gewete, die reg om godsdiens vrylik te beoefen, akkommodasie van pluralisme, gelykheid van alle godsdienste en nie-diskriminasie op grond van godsdiens, institusionele skeiding van kerk en staat en gedeeltelike skeiding van staat en godsdiens. Die argument lui verder dat 'n enkele beginsel nie opsigself godsdiensvryheid kan waarborg nie en dat hierdie regte en vryhede mekaar wedersyds ondersteun en tesame die doel van godsdiensvryheid dien. Die essensiële regte en vryhede van godsdiens word daarom behandel as minimum standaarde vir die beskerming van godsdiensvryheid en daar word 'n saak uitgemaak dat godsdiensvryheid in die Suid-Afrikaanse Grondwet geïnterpreteer behoort te word as synde hierdie veelvuldige beginsels in te sluit. Die proefskriftoon dat die essensiele regte en vryhede nie voor die inwerkingtreding van die interim Grondwet in Suid-Afrika genoegsame beskerming geniet het nie en dat die konstitusionele verskansing daarvan deur verskeie faktore in die pre-konstitusionele Suid- Afrika genoodsaak is. Die posisie na die inwerkingtreding van die Grondwet word geëvalueer deur kortliks die breë grondwetlike konteks te skets en vas te stelof die artikels in die Grondwet wat met godsdiens handel, inderdaad die essensiele regte en vryhede van godsdiens beskerm. Hierdie artikels word in diepte geanaliseer ten einde te bepaal hoe hulle geïnterpreteer en geïmplementeer behoort te word ten einde die essensiele godsdiensregte en vryhede genoegsaam te beskerm.

The main purpose of this BA-thesis was to do a qualitative study of the Ecuadorian journalists' personal experiences of their work conditions in relation to freedom of the press. The aim has been to analyze their personal opinions regarding censorship, the media climate and if they feel there is press freedom for journalists in Ecuador. The material has been analyzed and then complemented by theories and earlier research. Among other theories we have been using Denis McQuail's freedom principle and view of structural influences together with Graeme Burton's view of censorship. Together with earlier research about censorship and the status of freedom of the press in Ecuador we were able to put the interviewees' answers in relation to both theories and research. Our analysis showed that the interviewed journalists felt there were many obstacles when it came to the freedom of the press. One obstacle was the strain on the relationship between the government and the press which affected the media climate in a negative way. The majority of the interviewees stated that there was no complete freedom of the press in Ecuador while the ones who opposed to this still felt there were difficulties. Some even questioned whether freedom of the press was possible anywhere in the world, which also shows the complexity of the subject.