Der Begriff der Ideologie, traditionell verstanden als falsches Bewusstsein, hat für die kritische Theorie zentralen Stellenwert. Nur unter Rückgriff auf diese Kategorie kann sie erklären, warum Herrschaft nicht nur fortbesteht, sondern oft sogar die Zustimmung der Beherrschten findet. Jedoch wird Ideologiekritik immer wieder vorgehalten, die Kriterien, nach denen sie bestimmte Bewusstseinsformen als falsch ausweist, nicht benennen zu können. Jürgen Habermas' kommunikationstheoretisch reformulierte kritische Theorie bietet eine Möglichkeit, dieses Problem zu bearbeiten. Ideologiekritik wird dann als Kritik systematisch verzerrter Kommunikationsbedingungen interpretiert. Der vorliegende Beitrag erläutert das Potenzial dieser kommunikationstheoretischen Ideologiekritik und illustriert es am Beispiel gegenwärtiger Islamdebatten.

Der Beitrag untersucht die ideologische Grundlage des digitalen Kapitalismus, die als Solutionismus verstanden wird. Am Beispiel der Sharing Economy als einer im Zuge der fortschreitenden Digitalisierung entstandenen Ökonomie vollziehen wir diese ideologische Grundlage exemplarisch nach. Hierzu arbeiten wir mittels einer narrativen Diskursanalyse die Ideologiearchitektur aus den Manifesten sowie Anti-Manifesten der Sharing Economy heraus.

Übergeordnetes Ziel dieses Textes ist es, auf die zentrale Bedeutung von Propaganda in liberalen Demokratien hinzuweisen. Insbesondere frühe Forscherinnen und Forscher hatten auf die Rolle von Propaganda zur Herstellung von Konsens sowie zur sozialen und ideologischen Kontrolle hingewiesen. Zunächst wird daher anhand einer kritischen Diskussion früher und gegenwärtiger Forschungsarbeiten gezeigt, wie eine selektive Betrachtungsweise in der Wissenschaft und terminologische Veränderungen zu einer Marginalisierung des Forschungsgegenstandes Propaganda in liberalen Demokratien führten. Anschließend werden vernachlässigte Konzepte herausgearbeitet, die es ermöglichen, die Manifestation von Propaganda in den Massenmedien zu untersuchen. Um Propaganda sichtbar zu machen, wird ideologische Integration als eine Dimension von Propaganda konzeptualisiert und anhand kurzer Beispiele skizziert.

Der Beitrag verfolgt zwei Ziele: Zum einen möchte er den Zusammenhang zwischen Stereotypen und Ideologie verdeutlichen, zum anderen Phasen des Aufschwungs und der Marginalisierung kritischer Stereotypenforschung in der deutschen Kommunikationswissenschaft nachzeichnen. Grundlage des Phasenmodells sind Metaanalysen der Forschung zu Stereotypen. Sie führen auch zur Klärung wissenschaftstheoretischer Positionen. Die Marginalisierung (ideologie-)kritischer Positionen wird abschließend durch ein Beispiel – Reaktionen auf das Werk Franz Dröges – veranschaulicht.

The goal of the thesis is to analyze the contemporary form of ideology through the work of Slavoj Žižek. It aims to answer the question - resulting from the widespread notion of the end of ideology - what do people believe in nowadays. In other words, what do we follow or what do we respect if it is said that we do not believe in anything? The collapse of the communist project in the Eastern bloc brought a period of distrust towards grand narratives and utopian projects. In addition, the widespread form of ideology, which currently has been liberal democracy, allows each individual to choose their own way of life and among a wide range of parties with different political orientations. The answers to the critical analysis of this assumption and the current form of ideology are found in the work of Slavoj Žižek, who has been dealing with these questions since the end of the Cold War. The first part of the thesis presents the Marxist tradition of critique of ideology - its forms and observations it brought into this area. The second part deals with Žižek's contribution to the topics while clarifying the concepts of the Symbolic and the Big Other, representing the current forms of the unconscious and practiced collective activity. The influence of the dominant form of ideology on the population and...

This dissertation analyses narratives of the Mašín brothers and their father, Josef Mašín senior. The Mašín brothers established what they called 'a resistance group' against the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, which between 1951 and 1952 killed three people. The brothers, alongside the other member of the group, Milan Paumer, escaped from the country in 1953, heading for the Western sectors of Berlin. Despite more than 20,000 East German and Soviet troops hunting them, the group reached West Berlin safely. Later, the brothers went to the USA where they joined the U.S. army. The dissertation analyzes a whole range of discourses including newspaper articles, historical papers, books, detective stories, novels, memoirs and also one episode of the Czechoslovak television series, Třicet případů majora Zemana ('Major Zeman's Thirty Cases'), entitled Strach ('Fear'), from 1975. The dissertation is conceptually embedded in cultural studies and critical theory. Drawing on Roland Barthesʼs work on mythologies, Hayden Whiteʼs theory of history and Slavoj Žižekʼs theory of ideology, the dissertation considers the relationship of the Mašín brothersʼ narrative representations with respect to the dominant ideology of the time. The first chapter of the dissertation deals with narratives produced in Communist...

In the following essay, I focus on the representations of bodily "difference" in the Prague's freakshow culture, particulary on the displays of the so called "Lilliputians", which were popular among the public from the beginning of the 19th Century to the 40's of the 20th Century. Firstly, I introduce the Prague's curiosity exhibitions as a specific social praxis and I compare them with similar displays in Europe and the United States. In the second part of this essay, I try to analyse those exhibitions critically, using the concepts from the present disability studies discourse. I deal with the bodily "otherness" as a category of difference, which arises from the intersection of different ideologies. According to the point of view, this category shaped the individual and collective identities and fostered the social hierarchies of the time. Throughout the essay, I focus on the dis/continuities in the imagination of bodily "difference" and I try to describe the specificity of the Czech freakshow tradition. Key words: 19th Century, body, representations, bodily difference, abnormality, ideology

The thesis titled Antifascist Antifascist action: Ideology and evolution in 1996-2012 aims primarily to chart the historical and ideological development of Antifascist Action (AFA), a radically Czech anti-fascist organization. Thesis also aims to capture the most important moments and changes in the development of this organization since its formation to the present, with emphasis on other sub-questions the thesis places: defining methods of AFA struggle, AFA definition of the current status and the past, searching for causes of development cycles, access explanation for violence or just clarification of terminology. Because of the absence of broader and more complete sources the author came to the study of archival journals, analysis of different anarchist materials and the use of several interviews. In the end the thesis describes the overall history of AFA and creates conclusion that AFA is in its current development dynamic organization, which experienced its period of stagnation and at least two booms that have a direct connection with the development on the far-right scene. It also explains the change in the programm and the strategy of AFA.

The aim of this work is to analyze the linguistic representations in the early texts of Sokol and to show to what extent and how the discourse of Sokol is built on national- ideological grounds. I understand national ideology as a complex principle, yet unbounded and undefinable, which connects and develops certain assumptions, ideas and, in the case of the 19th century, especially ideals for their massive expansion and acclaim. This is happening through a specific Sokol discourse. Within this discourse, I will distinguish between different levels on which the ideals connecting gymnastic and nationalist interests are produced using different argumentative and narrative devices. The work contains of three analytical parts. The first one deals with the discursive mechanisms - repeated argumentation or narrative strategies and rhetorical devices. In the second part, I deal with Sokol conception of the ideal man and the third part deals with question, how specifically the ideal person is involved in the prosperity of the nation, therefore in the declared main objective of Sokol efforts. Keywords: Sokol, nation, ideology, physical education, health

The diploma thesis deals with the issue of communication in the mass media in terms of constructing the media reality and in terms of the relationship between media, politics and the public. The work is devoted to the constructivist approach in the media and political communication and the relationship between media coverage and political practice. Selected aspects of this relationship, including the tools of political communication, are illustrated with the examples from the first direct presidential election in the Czech Republic. The work deals with the influence of media on the social reality of their consumers and deals with the functioning of ideology in the concept line of thinkers of the Frankfurt School towards Jürgen Habermas and Noam Chomsky. Within the functioning of ideology in mass communication, the work pursues a technological development of the media to the current era of digitalization, which significantly affected the social and media relations. Keywords Ideology, communication, communication model, constructivism, media, politics