The aim of the thesis is to map and describe changes that have taken place in the field of political debates on the Czech Television (in the period from 1989 to the present). The work describes changes regarding the form and the content of programs and its debates. There also appears a critical assessment of that development (and of some prevailing trend) of the political issue programs (on Czech TV) in the thesis. Hypothesis relates to the assumpiton that a given period occured significant changes in the form and content of the broadcasted. Description of those changes is the main aim. The author proceeds in five steps. First, the introduction sets the theme in context, mentions a historical overview of political discussion programs broadcasted on Czech Television (from 1989 to the present) and consequently characterizes them. The first chapter will bring the presentation of the works from the field of political science and media- science, which will serve as a theoretical guide in analyzing the contents. The second chapter brings the key analysis of the programs using the theory and designed methodology. The third chapter evaluates the analysis, summarizes the empirically observed data and confirms or rejects the hypothesis. The thesis is closed by the fifth part, in which the author performes the final...

The aim of the thesis is to map and describe changes that have taken place in the field of political debates on the Czech Television (in the period from 1989 to the present). The work describes changes regarding the form and the content of programs and its debates. There also appears a critical assessment of that development (and of some prevailing trend) of the political issue programs (on Czech TV) development in the thesis. The first research question relates to the assumpiton that a given period occured significant changes in the form and content of the broadcasted. Description of those changes is the main aim. The second question 1 relates to the assumption that the applied media-scientific theories are applicable to the issue of television political debate. The author proceeds in five steps. First, the introduction sets the theme in context, mentions a historical overview of political discussion programs broadcasted on Czech Television (from 1989 to the present) and consequently characterizes them. The first chapter will bring the presentation of the works from the field of political science and media- science, which will serve as a theoretical guide in analyzing the contents. The second chapter brings the key analysis of the programs using the theory and designed methodology. The third chapter...

This paper deals with online political discussion on social networking sites. Drawing from Habermas’ concept of the public sphere and former adaptations of public sphere theory to Internet research, the study examines to what extent political discussion on social networking sites displays public issue focus as well as deliberative, liberal and communitarian characteristics. The empirical analysis is a case study that scrutinizes two opposing Facebook pages created in the context of the topic ‘Stuttgart 21’ – a construction project that evoked a local civic protest movement in the city of Stuttgart in the south of Germany. Using an ethnographic approach, the study takes into account the architecture, culture and discussion style on the two pages and aims at describing the pages in terms of their degree of reciprocity, contestation, ideological homogeneity, rationality and contextualisation with the offline protest movement. The results show two polarized pages that lack deliberation and dialogue, but feature ideological homophily and identification. The results back the fragmentation theory of Internet audiences, while not maintaining the fear of losing the common ground in society. On the contrary, the study suggests that civic political engagement on social networking sites should be discussed in the context of radical democratic processes. It concludes that the utilization of social networks in order to politically inform, stimulate and mobilise scalable publics is desirable.

This dissertation seeks to improve our understanding of the process by which emotions enable citizens to learn about public affairs and engage in political activities during electoral campaigns. It advances a theoretical model that incorporates the dynamics of emotions, various forms of media use, interpersonal communication and political involvement. This affective citizen communication model integrates into a single framework the insights of affective intelligence theory (Marcus, Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000) and the work on communication mediation (McLeod et al., 1999, 2001) and its two iterations, cognitive mediation (Eveland, 2001) and citizen communication mediation (Cho et al., 2009; Shah et al., 2005, 2007). More specifically, it suggests that the effects of emotions triggered by political candidates (e.g., enthusiasm, anxiety, anger) on knowledge of the candidates’ stands on issues and on political participation are largely mediated by communication variables, including news media use, political discussion and debate viewing. By positing emotions as an antecedent of both mediated and interpersonal communication, the study extends current research based on affective intelligence theory. At the same time, the study adds emotions to communication mediation processes, which to date have been studied from a mostly cognitive perspective. To test the relationships between the variables identified in the affective citizen communication model, I rely on panel survey data collected for the 2008 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections by the American National Election Studies (ANES) and the National Annenberg Election Surveys (NAES), respectively. Two types of structural equation models are tested, cross sectional (to relate individual differences) and auto-regressive (to relate aggregate change across waves). Results suggest that positive emotions spark media use, whereas negative emotions spark political discussions, and both types of communication behavior influence issue knowledge and participation in campaign activities. Furthermore, the theorized structure is found to perform better than an alternative structure where communication variables cause positive and negative emotions. Thus, results provide strong support for the proposed affective citizen communication model. Refinements to the proposed model, connections with existing theories of political communication, such as agenda setting and partisan selective exposure, and directions for future research are also discussed. / text

No description available.

No description available.

Ce mémoire porte sur les raisons qu’ont de jeunes adultes québécois de discuter ou non de politique sur Internet. Il s’inscrit dans le contexte général de l’avènement du Web 2.0 et dans le contexte particulier des élections canadiennes de mai 2011. Au niveau théorique, nous avons mobilisé la théorie de l’agir communicationnel du philosophe allemand Jürgen Habermas ainsi que sa conception de la sphère publique. Du point de vue méthodologique, nous avons étudié un échantillon composé de jeunes adultes québécois, hommes et femmes, âgés de 19 à 30 ans, qui habitent à Montréal et dans ses environs. Ces jeunes citoyens ont été interrogés dans le cadre de quatre focus groups. Les données recueillies ont été analysées selon une méthode d’extraction des arguments en accord avec la méthodologie de la reconstruction rationnelle. Les résultats ont permis d’exposer plusieurs raisons qu’ont avancées les jeunes adultes interrogés pour expliquer leur degré de participation à des discussions politiques sur Internet. Celles-­‐ci ont été regroupées en quatre thèmes: le manque de connaissances et l’aspect public; la conscientisation et l’obtention de feedback; la réaction par rapport au contenu, la composition du réseau et la valeur de l’information; le face à face, l’anonymat et les sujets controversés. Ces résultats ont été discutés en considérant ceux obtenus par d’autres chercheurs afin de faire ressortir les apports de cette étude au domaine de la communication. La discussion a également permis d’adopter un point de vue théorique critique pour explorer ce que les résultats de ce mémoire révèlent sur l’état de la sphère publique québécoise. / This master thesis deals with the reasons some young adult Quebecers have to be or not to be involved in political discussions on the Internet. It was written within the general context of the rise of Web 2.0 and within the specific context of the Canadian elections of May 2011. At the theoretical level, we have worked with German philosopher Jürgen Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action along with his conception of the Public Sphere. From a methodological standpoint, we have studied a sample made up of young adult Quebecers, both men and women, aged between 19 and 30, living in Montreal and its surroundings. These young citizens were questioned throughout four focus group sessions. The collected data was analysed with an argument extraction method in accordance with the rational reconstruction methodology. The results allowed us to expose many reasons that could explain the questioned young adults' level of involvement in online political discussion. These reasons were regrouped in four themes: the lack of knowledge and the public aspect; awareness and feedback; reaction based on content, the nature of the network and the value of information; face-­‐to-­‐face conversation, anonymity and controversial topics. In order to highlight the contributions of this study to the field of communication, the results were discussed while considering those obtained by other researchers. The discussion also allowed us to adopt a critical and theoretical point of view to explore what the results of this thesis reveal on the state of the Public Sphere in Quebec.

Ce mémoire porte sur les raisons qu’ont de jeunes adultes québécois de discuter ou non de politique sur Internet. Il s’inscrit dans le contexte général de l’avènement du Web 2.0 et dans le contexte particulier des élections canadiennes de mai 2011. Au niveau théorique, nous avons mobilisé la théorie de l’agir communicationnel du philosophe allemand Jürgen Habermas ainsi que sa conception de la sphère publique. Du point de vue méthodologique, nous avons étudié un échantillon composé de jeunes adultes québécois, hommes et femmes, âgés de 19 à 30 ans, qui habitent à Montréal et dans ses environs. Ces jeunes citoyens ont été interrogés dans le cadre de quatre focus groups. Les données recueillies ont été analysées selon une méthode d’extraction des arguments en accord avec la méthodologie de la reconstruction rationnelle. Les résultats ont permis d’exposer plusieurs raisons qu’ont avancées les jeunes adultes interrogés pour expliquer leur degré de participation à des discussions politiques sur Internet. Celles-­‐ci ont été regroupées en quatre thèmes: le manque de connaissances et l’aspect public; la conscientisation et l’obtention de feedback; la réaction par rapport au contenu, la composition du réseau et la valeur de l’information; le face à face, l’anonymat et les sujets controversés. Ces résultats ont été discutés en considérant ceux obtenus par d’autres chercheurs afin de faire ressortir les apports de cette étude au domaine de la communication. La discussion a également permis d’adopter un point de vue théorique critique pour explorer ce que les résultats de ce mémoire révèlent sur l’état de la sphère publique québécoise. / This master thesis deals with the reasons some young adult Quebecers have to be or not to be involved in political discussions on the Internet. It was written within the general context of the rise of Web 2.0 and within the specific context of the Canadian elections of May 2011. At the theoretical level, we have worked with German philosopher Jürgen Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action along with his conception of the Public Sphere. From a methodological standpoint, we have studied a sample made up of young adult Quebecers, both men and women, aged between 19 and 30, living in Montreal and its surroundings. These young citizens were questioned throughout four focus group sessions. The collected data was analysed with an argument extraction method in accordance with the rational reconstruction methodology. The results allowed us to expose many reasons that could explain the questioned young adults' level of involvement in online political discussion. These reasons were regrouped in four themes: the lack of knowledge and the public aspect; awareness and feedback; reaction based on content, the nature of the network and the value of information; face-­‐to-­‐face conversation, anonymity and controversial topics. In order to highlight the contributions of this study to the field of communication, the results were discussed while considering those obtained by other researchers. The discussion also allowed us to adopt a critical and theoretical point of view to explore what the results of this thesis reveal on the state of the Public Sphere in Quebec.

No description available.

No description available.