Visualisations of election data produced by the mass media, other organisations and even individuals are becoming increasingly available across a wide variety of platforms and in many different forms. As more data become available digitally and as improvements to computer hardware and software are made, these visualisations have become more ambitious in scope and more user-friendly. Research has shown that visualising data is an extremely powerful method of communicating information to specialists and non-specialists alike. This amounts to a democratisation of access to political and electoral data. To some extent political science lags behind the progress that has been made in the field of data visualisation. Much of the academic output remains committed to the paper format and much of the data presentation is in the form of simple text and tables. In the digital and information age there is a danger that political science will fall behind. This thesis reports on a number of case studies where efforts were made to visualise election data in order to clarify its structure and to present its meaning. The first case study demonstrates the value of data visualisation to the research process itself, facilitating the understanding of effects produced by different ways of estimating missing data. A second study sought to use visualisation to explain complex aspects of voting systems to the wider public. Three further case studies demonstrate the value of collaboration between political scientists and others possessing a range of skills embracing data management, software engineering, broadcasting and graphic design. These studies also demonstrate some of the problems that are encountered when trying to distil complex data into a form that can be easily viewed and interpreted by non-expert users. More importantly, these studies suggest that when the skills balance is correct then visualisation is both viable and necessary for communicating information on elections.

Informacinių technologijų raida įnešė svarų indėlį į žmonijos gyvenimo tempą bei būdą. Žiniasklaida sumaniai pradėjo taikyti naujas technologijas savo kasdieniniame darbe. To pasekmė - naujos žiniasklaidos rūšies susiformavimas – internetinė žiniasklaida. Taigi tradicinė žiniasklaida surado naują konkurentą. Internetinė žiniasklaida – tai naujausia žiniasklaidos rūšis virtualioje erdvėje, jungianti tradicinę žiniasklaidą. Jos pagrindiniai bruožai: interaktyvumas, hipertekstualumas, daugialypiškumas. Iš esmės, kiekvienas, mokantis paskelbti tam tikrą informaciją, susijusią su masine žiniasklaida, ar tiesiog ją sugrupuoti tam tikrame portale, yra priskiriamas interneto žiniasklaidos kategorijai. Teorinėje darbo dalyje internetinė žiniasklaida analizuojama trimis aspektais: istoriniu, ekonominiu bei socialiniu. Antrojoje dalyje išsamiai pristatoma miesto naujienų portalo www.kauno.diena.lt istorija bei žinomumas visuomenėje, atliktos portalo struktūros analizės duomenys bei atlikto kokybinio turinio analizės tyrimo rezultatai. Trečioji dalis skirta Fokus grupės tyrimo analizės rezultatams. Darbo pabaigoje pateikiamos išvados, rekomendacijos, literatūros ir šaltinių sąrašas su priedais, kuriuose pateikiama papildoma tyrimo medžiaga. Darbo objektas – miesto naujienų portalo www.kauno.diena.lt rubrikos „Miestas“ savaitės naujienos. Darbo tikslas – ištirti miesto naujienų portalo www.kauno.diena.lt rubrikos „Miestas“ naujienas, pasitelkiant kokybinio tyrimo metodus (turinio... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Development of information technologies contributed immensely to the pace and way of life of the humanity. The media started skillfully applying the new technologies into their daily work. The consequence of it is the formation of the new type of the media – internet media. Thus, it became the competitor to the traditional media. The internet media is the newest type of the media in the virtual space, covering traditional media. Its main features are: interactivity, hyper-textuality, multiple character. Actually, everyone who knows how to announce certain information related to the mass media, or simply group it in a certain portal, is ascribed to the category of the internet media. In the theoretical part of the thesis, the internet media is analysed in three aspects: historic, economic and social. The second part thoroughly describes the history of the city news portal www.kauno.diena.lt and its popularity in the society, the data of the structural analysis of the portal as well as the results of the qualitative content analysis of the research. The third part is devoted to the results of the analysis of the Focus group research. The conclusions, the list of literature and sources with annexes of additional material of the research are provided at the end of the thesis. The object of the thesis is the week news of the column „City“ of the news portal www.kauno.diena.lt . The aim of the thesis is to analyse the news of the column „City“ of the news portal www.kauno... [to full text]

Šių dienų žiniasklaidos raidai labiau nei bet kada anksčiau lemiamos įtakos turi technologiniai pasiekimai – naujienų perdavimas auditorijai tampa vis greitesnis ir prieinamesnis, todėl keičiasi ir pats naujienų turinys bei jo kokybė. Interneto plėtra ir skaitmenizacija žiniasklaidai kelia tam tikrų iššūkių – labai svarbu ne tik kuo objektyviau perteikti informaciją, tačiau tą būtina padaryti ir kaip įmanoma įdomiau bei kokybiškiau, panaudojant kuo įvairesnes raiškos formas: straipsnius, nuotraukas, vaizdo medžiagą. Pastebima, kad šiandien prie šiuolaikinės auditorijos (ypatingai jaunesnės kartos) poreikių greičiausiai prisitaikančių medijų galima laikyti interneto naujienų portalus. Šalia to, kaip pastebi įvairių šalių mokslininkai, naujienų gamyba tiek pasauliniu, tiek lokaliu mastu vienodėja, tampa paklūstanti besikeičiančioms sąlygoms bei naujiems auditorijų poreikiams. Komunikacijos technologijos ir prieiga prie tarptautinių naujienų agentūrų rengiamų žinučių sudaro galimybes lengviau ir greičiau jas perimti ir paskleisti lokalioms auditorijoms. Visgi kaip rodo įvairūs tyrimai, auditorija vis dar renkasi naujienas, atsižvelgdama į artumo kriterijų, todėl globalėjančiame pasaulyje negalima pamiršti ir lokalių vietovių išskirtinumų. Vietinių naujienų patrauklumą lemia bendruomenei priimtinos kultūrinės, socialinės, politinės ir kt. normos, todėl didelį vaidmenį miestuose, rajonuose bei gyvenvietėse atlieka regioninė žiniasklaida, kuri skelbia naujienas, susijusias su... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Technological diffusion and innovations are among the most important developments of contemporary reality that affect media businesses to a great extent. News production process is becoming faster and information is more accessible to audiences. It challenges media companies to react to changing conditions fast, to adapt to them, to deliver news as fast as possible and in various innovative formats, integrating text, visuals and audiovisuals. Studies done all over the world also show that communication and information technologies provide a better access to global information mostly produced by international news agencies. This way more and more international news appear in national media, the same information is spread all over the world making our news agendas more similar (homogeneous). However, other studies show that the proximity is still the most important news value factor for national and local audiences. Attractiveness and importance of local news is mainly determined by local cultural, social, political and other traditions and conditions. Local media, also in new interactive forms (as online news portals or social media channels) preserves its leading role in the cities and regions because it provides news that are substantial to local communities. The main aim of this study is to assess the impact and role of regional online media in Kaunas on the activism and engagement of local communities in public sphere. The basis of analysis is a qualitative focus... [to full text]

In this diploma thesis I deal with the topic of blogs. My main goal was to introduce the part of blogs called mommyblogs and to define it as a separate category in the theoretical background chapter. In the practical part, I decided to use quantitative methods of data collection through a questionnaire survey. The survey was aimed at both mommy bloggers and their readers. I supplemented the questionnaires with depth interviews with selected mommy bloggers. Which helped me to obtain even more detailed data, which enriched the data obtained from both questionnaires. I found out what motivates mommy bloggers to blog, but also what their attitude is towards cooperation with companies and how they select and label collaborations. Have they ever felt exploited either by companies or by social media? The respondents also touched on the topic of ethics and responsibility - either regarding the placement of photos of children on social media or regarding products whose promotion is bound by regulations. I tried to find out the ability of the readers to recognize advertisements on blogs and social networks of mommy bloggers. And also how the advertising message of mommy bloggers affects their readers. This thesis focuses only on bloggers from the Czech Republic.

Telecommunications policy debates concerning the contentious issue of net neutrality have revolved around a number of broadband network operator behaviors, including discriminatory traffic management – differential treatment of network traffic associated with different Internet applications for the purpose of managing performance. Some stakeholders have advocated for regulatory intervention to prevent network operators from discriminating to the detriment of independent application innovation. Others would prefer to rely on competition between network operators to discipline operator behavior. Fixed-line broadband markets in the United Kingdom and the United States have differed substantially with respect to discrimination, competition, and regulation. The UK has experienced intense competition and pervasive discriminatory traffic management without triggering regulatory activity. The US has seen much less discrimination, limited competition, and regulatory threat followed by regulatory intervention. This thesis uses elite interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis in a comparative study of these two cases between the mid-2000s and 2011 to determine why network operators take up discriminatory traffic management (or not) and how competition and the regulatory environment affect traffic management outcomes. This thesis demonstrates that network operators take up discriminatory traffic management primarily to control cost, performance, or both. Competition promotes rather than deters discrimination because it drives broadband prices down, encouraging operators to manage high-volume applications whose traffic incurs high costs. Regulatory threat can be sufficient to counteract these desires, but in its absence and without concerns vocalized by interest groups, discriminatory approaches endure. Telecommunications regulators intervene to safeguard nondiscrimination when they conceive of their remits as encompassing social and industrial policymaking, are ambivalent about litigation risk, and are driven by their leaders’ reputational agendas, as in the case of the Federal Communications Commission. With a narrower perception of its remit and more concern for its organizational reputation, Ofcom exemplifies the characteristics that inhibit traffic management regulation.

After the initial excitement about the Internet as a space outside of governmental control has evaporated and courts in several states have applied national laws to ‘Cyberspace’, there is now a consensus among scholars that regulators have in principle the authority and capacity to regulate the Internet. Nevertheless, the application of the established tools of regulation - legislation and adjudication - to the current challenges to copyright regulation posed by the Internet has proven to be ineffective and produced undesirable side effects. Although market self-regulation has been suggested as a more efficacious approach to regulating the Internet and has proven effective in content regulation and Internet governance, the market has so far been unsuccessful in providing an effective and efficient remedy to the challenges to copyright regulation. The purpose of this thesis is to examine a novel approach to regulation and analyse its benefits and limitations. The novel approach defies the conceptualisation as co- and self-regulation, but introduces the solution from outside the regulated environment through entrepreneurship and innovation, and relies on the forces of the market to become effective. In this thesis, I analyse the regulatory systems implemented by two private organisations, Noank Media and Creative Commons, in China’s reportedly ineffective copyright law environment and find that their market-based and innovative approach to regulation can be understood as a form of social entrepreneurship. Social enterprises have been claimed to deliver social goods more effectively and efficiently than governmental intervention, because they are said to rely on local knowledge, to be driven by the demand of the stakeholders, and to be focused on social value creation. Based on quantitative and qualitative fieldwork with Noank Media’s and Creative Common’s stakeholders in China I analyse to what extent these two enterprises managed to successfully leverage the assets of social entrepreneurship. I conclude that while the novel approach has demonstrated the potential to produce more effective and more efficient regulation, it does not automatically result in Better Regulation. Further efforts are required to ensure participation, transparency, and public accountability, and to avoid regulatory fragmentation.

Diploma thesis "School media - press, radio, television, internet: on example of regions of Olomouc and Ústí nad Labem" deals with school media production of pupils and students of primary and secondary education focusing on the Czech environment. The whole issue is framed within media literacy, media education. Moreover, the interpretation accents with its direction of production. The most important chapters of historical-theoretical part introduce the outline of the school media development from the beginning till nowadays. Practical part characterizes school media in the regions of Olomouc and Ústí nad Labem. The research survey is mainly focused on the occurrence of school media production, forms of their outputs and characteristics of individual types of school media. What is more, the survey is also interested in current trends in publishing of school and class magazines and their theme and genre profile. Survey summarizes reasons, which impedes realization of school media production. Finally, on account of compile findings and data, it deduces a school media typology, criteria of their possible categorisation and includes them into the media system. As a result, the diploma thesis is a contribution to a study of school media and presents the platform from which it is possible to stem from during...