Diploma thesis Te splendors and miseries of DTP: desktop publishing and common practice of Czech publishing houses tries to map the current technical and personnel aspect of the DTP departments within Czech publishing houses. It uses a quantitative method of questionnaire survey. In the practical part of the research, it managed to obtain data from nine of the ten selected publishers. It was chosen on the basis of their readership with the help of data from the Union of Publishers. Undoubtedly, the main contribution of this thesis is the topic itself - text focuses on a group of media professionals, who are crucial for proper functioning of the print media, although it is constantly overlooked by academia. Tis diploma thesis does not bring any revolutionary knowledge about the feld of print media in the Czech Republic, although with the obtained data it is possible to at least partially analyze jobs and style of work of media professionals in DTP departments. Te work is a small quantitative contribution to the academic discussion, which unfortunately is not currently taking place, although it should.

Media is considered as one of the most powerful tools in disseminating information thereby shaping people’s lives. While there have been various studies about the relationship between media and people with disabilities, much of the emphasis has been on the media’s representation of people with disabilities than accessibility of print content in formats friendly to people with visual impairments. This research is a qualitative study which looked at the accessibility of online published print media information to people with visual impairments in terms of format. This was done by analysing content in online newspapers and magazines to determine its accessibility to them. Online interviews were also conducted to find out how print media is accessible to people with visual impairments. The Uses and Gratifications and the Social Responsibility theories were selected to frame the study on how media satisfies their specific needs and desires as well as having certain social obligations to society respectively. The findings of this study were that print media was inaccessible to people with visual impairments both in terms of formats and content. There is no print media known to people with visual impairments producing information in Braille format. The electronic version of printed media proved to be inaccessible due to the lack of media adherence to the Web Accessibility Guidelines. The research also established the underrepresentation and lack of representation in some print media due to print media’s lack of interest to cover disability issues. To respond to these needs, a framework was developed to ensure that people who are visually impaired are able to access print media information. / Communication Science / D. Phil. (Communication studies)

This Master's thesis focuses on the current luxury print media, which are published in the Czech Republic and are intended for the general public. At first, a theoretical part introduces the entire contemporary print media market, with an emphasis on periodically published titles. The thesis also deals with factors, that affect the form of these titles and media in general, using knowledge of a political economy of communication. Subsequently, the thesis shifts attention to its main topic - a luxury in general and luxury magazines. These magazines are described and set in the context of niche media. The thesis also summarizes knowledge about advertising. The research uses a qualitative research method with a partial application of a quantitative method: categorization, description, and comparison. It brings a summary of all currently published luxury periodicals, which are categorized based on thematic focus, periodicity, price, and publisher. The main part of the research is an analysis of ten titles (53x11, Můj dům, Motorbike, Dolce Vita, Bylinky Revue, SCORE, Kreativ, Vesmír, FC and dTest), in which a self- presentation, a target reader, a content, and a graphic design are described and evaluated. Part of the analysis also deals with advertising content and its relationship to editorial content....

M. Tech. (Public Relations Management, Faculty of Human Sciences), Vaal University of Technology / Health communication has become an integral component of quality health care. However, it is not just the process of giving information, but rather an active process that facilitates the use of information to improve decision-making and change behaviour that lead to positive health outcomes. Therefore, effective communication should be encouraged by means of two-way interaction between the health practitioners and the patients. The purpose of this research study was to determine the effectiveness of health communication in the Vaal region, using Levai Mbatha clinic as a case study. The study used the mixed method design consisting of both qualitative and quantitative methods. Quantitative research design was done through the distribution of questionnaires to parents in order to ascertain how child immunisation issues are communicated to them. Simple random sampling approach was used to gather the data, and the sample size for this design was 100 parents. For the qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews was used to determine the effectiveness of health communication information as disseminated by health practitioners to parents. Purposive sampling approach was used to select six (6) health practitioners. From the descriptive results (quantitative) it was evident that there is ineffective health communication at Levai Mbatha clinic. Parents are not aware of other illnesses related to child immunisation, and they feel that it would be better if the content of communication mediums were to be written in their mother tongue. It is therefore evident that, due to lack of understanding of the content, parents cannot participate in the discussions related to child immunisation this hinders effective communication. The interviews (quantitative) revealed that health practitioners felt that much needs to be done when it comes to the dissemination of child immunisation information. They indicate that there is not enough health communication material at their disposal to distribute to parents. Furthermore, there seem to be a challenge in language when they have to communicate with parents. Consequently, the efforts to effectively communicate child immunisation to parents effectively becomes insignificant.

During the past decades, the world has seen a fast development in information technology. This has led to significant changes in many different industries including the media industry. The transformation is in progress and is unceasingly changing the game rules for media companies. Many magazines are struggling in the new competitive media landscape since existing business models in the print industry are hard to apply to the digital industry. In order for magazines to remain competitive they need to develop their revenue models and adjust to the new game rules in the industry. This thesis is focused on how magazines could develop their businesses in order to remain competitive in the transition from print to digital media. The research methods used were semi-structured interviews and a survey. The interviews were conducted with seven different media experts in order to find possible directions for Swedish magazines in general. The survey was aimed exclusively to the entertainment magazine Nöjesguiden in order to decide what additional revenue models fit them best. The results from the interviews implicate that magazines should continuously evaluate their print business using a holistic perspective, adopt long-term perspectives, initiate cost cutting in the print business and put the cost savings into investments for the future. In addition, they should have four main areas of focus in the digital business – strategy, content, target group and data. Strategy relates to focusing on the digital business, being innovative and trying new things. The results also show that it is beneficial to separate the old business from the new since the old business is linked to outdated industry structures. Regarding content, the direction should be either very broad or very niched. Thereto, magazines should focus on unique content, which refers to content that is not available elsewhere by other content providers. In addition, magazines should evaluate what makes their content unique. This is closely related to the target group, which is going to become more important in the future media climate. For magazines, getting to know their specific target group and focusing on improving the brand recognition are going to be advantageous factors in being competitive in the digital media climate. In conclusion, magazines should use data to continuously evaluate their business and use that knowledge to improve their offer. The results from the survey shows that the best new revenue model for Nöjesguiden at the moment is events.

This project examines how the confluence of nineteenth-century England’s educational reform, periodical literature, and scientific community growth contributed to a public dialogue between science and spiritualism that positioned the two as antithetical. I argue that this media-borne dialogue entrenched in the public consciousness a scientific domain claiming authority through masculinized, exclusionary language that effectively enclosed knowledge within objective measurement, while dismissing spiritualist notions of embodied knowledges based in affect. In doing so, I locate the under-recognized bridge between the printed medium of the debate itself and its durable influence on public discourse, occurring as it did at precisely the moment to best influence the broadest public. The first chapter examines the confluence of educational reform, burgeoning print culture, and rising science professionalization that formed the ideal delivery platform for the promulgation of a cultural narrative pitting objective knowledge against the subjective. The second chapter examines contemporary newspaper and journal articles to find science repeatedly metaphorized as solid ground, “objective”, and masculinized, while spiritualism is shadowy, irrational, and feminized. Metaphors of light and landscape recur from both sides, with spiritualist voices further claiming unquantifiable and communal experience as of equal value to the material “useful knowledge” privileged by science and institutional schooling. The final chapter analyzes texts from George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson, Marie Corelli, and Richard Marsh for representations of science, scientists, and those deemed outside their circles. There I discern a reflection of the media debate that finds unexpected – if unsettling – compatibilities between spiritualism and science, rejecting the alleged incompatibility of objective and subjective knowledge. All the texts speculate as to the parameters of human physical and mental life, but notably, none resolve the argument. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This project examines the ways nineteenth-century England’s educational system, periodical literature, and growing science community contributed to a public dialogue between science and spiritualism. The knowledge and practices privileged by science were repeatedly framed as more valuable than, and irreconcilable with, the subjective, personal knowledges of spiritualism, which posited a spiritual human self beyond the limits of the material body. This paper uses examples from contemporary newspaper and journal articles to study the dialogue between science and spiritualism, and finds science metaphorized as solid ground, “objective”, and masculinized, while spiritualism is shadowy, irrational, and feminized. These positions became entrenched enough in the public mind to affect the era’s speculative fiction, but in analyzing texts from George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson, Marie Corelli, and Richard Marsh, the author also finds an embrace of science and spiritualist themes as sometimes compatible, blurring the simple “sides” of the media conversation.

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This study compares print media representations of refugees and asylum seekers with representations in short stories and poems written by refugees and asylum seekers themselves, within the frames of creative writing workshops. The primary research question guiding the study reads: How do (self-)representations in texts written by refugees and asylum seekers, within the frames of creative writing workshops, differ from representations of refugees and asylum seekers in print media.As a theoretical foundation for the study serves the social constructionist assumption that language, rather than reflect, constructs reality, and that the way the world is understood affects policies, practices and actions – in this case concerning refugees, asylum seekers, refugee relief, refugee/asylum seeker reception systems, integration etc. Starting out from the notion that print media representations of refugees and asylum seekers follow certain recurring patterns – not only resulting in rather simplistic portrayals, but, also, almost systematically leaving out refugee and asylum seeker voices, views and opinions – the study, following Dorothy Smiths suggestion that individuals somehow excluded from a particular discourse may offer perspectives undermining it, turns to the refugees and asylum seekers’ own texts as a possible source of alternative representations. Using Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory, complemented by semiotic analysis, (self-)representations in three anthologies with refugee and asylum seeker texts are compared to the results of a meta analysis of earlier research of representations of refugees and asylum seekers in print media.The findings of the study suggests that there are similarities, but also significant differences in how refugees and asylum seekers are represented in their own texts when compared to print media. Consequently, it is argued that there is a potential worth fostering in the creative writing workshops for refugees and asylum seekers, as well as similar initiatives. They may be seen as a step towards increasing refugees and asylum seekers’ opportunities to voice their opinion in matters that concern them; as answering to the post colonial call for bringing in new voices to the (social) development debate; and as contributing to the realisation of an agonistic democracy/pluralism.

This thesis examines one magazine's transition from print to digital media in order to shine a spotlight on one successful magazine brand and its attempts to navigate the digital revolution while also maintaining a successful magazine. Through a systematic descriptive analysis of communication strategies, a case analysis of Bon Appétit magazine is the focus of this thesis. Guided by the uses and gratifications theoretical perspective and informed by a systematic descriptive analysis, this thesis offers a rich examination of the Bon Appétit magazine brand and the ways the brand has been extended in the evolving digital media environment. The unique approach implemented in this thesis provides the opportunity to observe uses and gratifications from the organization's standpoint, instead of the consumer's. This unique approach was designed to reveal how Bon Appétit is attempting to fulfill consumer needs and gratifications through the digital media brand extensions, specifically its website, social media, and podcast. Analysis of Bon Appétit brand extensions indicate that six of Parham Santana's ten brand extension strategies are being implemented by Bon Appétit, including shift the form, transfer a component, transfer a benefit, leverage a special expertise, leverage your consumer base, and leverage a lifestyle. Another significant finding indicates that Bon Appétit implemented communication strategies centered on accessibility and convenience, surveillance, diversion, and interaction gratifications on its digital media platforms. Findings from this study suggest that future researchers would benefit from adding convenience and accessibility as gratifications considered in the uses and gratifications theoretical approach when researching digital media. Additionally, replication of the systematic method in this thesis, especially if applied to other magazine brands, could help reveal the types of brand extensions at play in digital platforms and whether other magazines use similar strategies to build and maintain relationships with consumers. / Master of Arts / This study explores how one magazine has added a website, social media, and a podcast to its content delivery strategy. Since consumer’s use of the internet, social media, and podcasts is rapidly increasing, they are no longer turning to magazines and other print publications for entertainment and information. In order for magazines to adapt to this trend, they need to take advantage of these digital media platforms. This study examines the communication strategies implemented on Bon Appétit’s website, social media, and podcast to determine how they are attempting to satisfy the desires consumers now have because of the new digital media. Results of this study indicate that consumers want to be able to have convenient and immediate access to the media and brand of their choice.

This thesis examines how the potentional future media professionals (students of Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism at Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University) relate to print media, i. e. daily newspapers and printed magazines. It is based on the concept of active audience, uses and gratification theory and studies that try to explain the decline of interest in print media. The thesis tries to describe the role of print media in lives of the studied group at the time when print media go through a long-term crisis. Massive expansion of the electronic media is the most important factor of this crisis. The research tries to answer the question whether print media are still attractive for the researched group, despite the constant wave of information from the Internet, what motivates this group to the use of print media and contrarily what discourages them.