This thesis deals with disagreement between midwives and doctors about the fact where and in which conditions mothers should give birth to a child. While the doctors support the present way when most children are born in hospitals under doctor's control, midwives argue for so called natural childbirth when women deliver the child surrounded by familiar environment and with midwife's assistance. The description of both groups behaviour is based on the theory of Peirre Bourdieu. Midwives are focused on the change of their status in the process of childbirth while doctors want to preserve the present situation. Both groups use different discourses while creating their professional position providing different services. Doctors' way is more technological and clinical, while midwives create their professional position in more psychological way. There is a competitive fight in which both group use strategy of their own professionalization and disprofessionalization of the rival group and different interpretation of the same data. Because of disadvantageous position of midwives in the process of childbirth, they create their own strategies against doctors.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s a chain of events hit Chinese society that led to the crisis of identity. Nationalism became a new ideology that substituted Marxism as a source of identity for both state and society. This paper aims at defining differences between nationalism at the level of state and popular society, demonstrating how these versions of nationalism interact in discourses and what the implications of these interaction are on the legitimity and position of the communist party.

The MA thesis "The Special Relationship: A discourse on British-American relations in the British press" focuses on a discourse analysis of the "special relationship" in 2001-2010. The thesis is based on a sample of 25 commentaries published in leading British newspapers over this period and describes the characteristic features that appeared in the discourse on the United Kingdom's most important bilateral partnership. The identified elements pertain to national identity, national interest, historical narratives, diplomatic rituals, assessment of the Prime Minister's personal role and the perception of the UK's junior status within the relationship. The thesis uses a Foreign Policy Analysis model that takes into account the role of the media in the formation of foreign policy. Methodologically, selected discourse analysis methods are used, particularly thematic analysis and analysis of metaphors. The characteristic features of the dominant discourse are identified through excerpts from relevant secondary literature on the history of the "special relationship" after WWII and subsequently compared with the results of the newspaper sample analysis. The thesis pays special attention to the repertoires of arguments used by the commentators and places them in the context of an intensive public debate on the UK's...

Diploma thesis "National identity in France and its role in the politics of Nicolas Sarkozy" deals with national identity as a political instrument used by the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy during his five-year term (2007-2012). The main objective of this work is to prove that the national identity in his discourse served to increase his popularity or to obtain far-right voters and that Nicolas Sarkozy used this policy instrument throughout his mandate despite the fact that he officially turned away from it after a failed public debate on the subject in 2010. As methodological basis for research on the topic and achievement of the objectives "critical discourse analysis" was selected and also "analysis of metaphors" was used as its complement. In the theoretical part of the thesis some of the basic scientific findings that deal with the "nation", "identity" and the development and construction of "national identity" are presented and discussed . The research consists of three main chapters devoted to the analysis of Nicolas Sarkozys' speeches during the given period. Chapters are divided according to the changing role of national identity in Sarkozy's political discourse - from the campaign tool in 2007, through the recovery of this instrument in 2009 and 2010 to its insertion in the...

This thesis aims to attempt to clarify whether the principle of TV reality shows in general and also specific gender reality show Wife Swap could be a variation of the modern technologies of discipline or a special case of media confession which influences the audience through a TV reality show while presenting the positive norms. Furthermore, based on discourse analysis of interviews with various actors and actress of selected TV Part of Wife Swap it aims to understand and uncover their motivation to participate in this gender reality show, as well as to analyze strong attitude of the audience towards the controversial name of this reality show. The theoretical basis of the work are based on the idea of Foucault new technologies of discipline (the Panopticon principle), internalization of norms and the concept of pastoral power, and Judith Butler's concept of formation of repetitive body. In the end, the thesis considers not only the identified discourses that constitute the motivation of participants of this television gender show, but also a discussion of the research possibilities and limits in an environment that is defined by dominant discursive dichotomies.

This paper's aim is to critically describe and use Michel Foucault's method archaeology for discursive description of contemporary television beer advertisements broadcasted in the Czech Republic. Theoretical part tries to define terms as denounce, discursive formation and discourse and propose their possible usage in practical research. The paper supposes that television beer advertisements are governed by the same discourse which was used in other beer advertisement and all advertisements form a coherent whole. Analytical part's aim is to describe this coherent whole from the aim of discourse and specific chose of denounces that form picture of beer and its role in a men world. Key words: Foucault, discourse, archaeology, television advertisement, beer

The diploma thesis experimentally examines the influence of the discourse of international relations schools on decision-making of its actors. The hypothesis presumes that the extent of actors' cooperation is influenced by the discursive framing in which the dilemma is presented. The experimental model has been constructed on the basis of iterated prisoner's dilemma which is presented through discursively influenced narratives as an evolving international relations situation. These narratives, representing an independent variable, have been derived from concrete schools of international relations - realism, neoliberalism and constructivism. Participants of the experiment were assigned to particular experimental treatment on the basis of random assignment. The experiment confirmed a statistically significant difference between decision-making of participants assigned to the realist and neoliberal experimental treatment, fulfilling the condition of random assignment which was controlled through control variables. Understanding of the decision-making process was further enriched by a qualitative analysis of interviews with selected experiment participants; the analysis deals especially with the strategy selection process and the strategy application. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This dissertation focuses on the development of autism in the Czech Republic from an historical-sociological perspective. The study pursues the structural processes related to autism and their impacts on individuals, as well as the roles of various agents in the shaping of these processes. The study utilises the social constructivist approach as well as the standpoints of the interpretative stream of sociology. The concept of autism was introduced in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. It was understood as a rare psychiatric disorder and was known about by only a few professionals. Until the beginning of the 1990s, autism wasn't recognised in Czechoslovak society. Since the beginning of the 1990s new processes have emerged, resulting in the formation of a paradigm of autism - a new dominant and increasingly recognized system of values, methods, approaches and institutions, all connected to the concept of autism. The category of autism was reconceptualized in the 1990s and has started to be used more widely in Czech society. Based on the concept of autism, new institutions have emerged, such as specialized educational approaches and services, therapeutic methods, social services and NGOs etc. Discourses of autism have also started to form. This paradigm has been crucial for the social history of autism...

Lydie Kárníková Ideology in the Language of Media Diploma thesis 2011 Abstract The thesis scrutinizes the ways in which three Czech nationwide print media process the same news topics. Through analysis of three thematic discourses it studies the differences in approaching and presenting reality. The main focus lies in the argumentative and language aspects of the media texts with the aim to find implicit references on sets of values and beliefs typical for the perspective of the particular news media title and for the society in general. Implicit sets of values woven into the media contents have a form of an ideology: These ideological ideas can be very different across the society due to the number of opinion groups present within the whole society. In modern democratic countries with opinion plurality there are different ideological ideas neighbouring within the media market. The news as a genre does not allow expressing one's own opinion or approach explicitly: the news media thus embed their opinions into the structures of language. The core hypothesis of this thesis is the ability of language to create meanings. With the help of methodology that combines argumentative approach with analysis of syntactic and lexical modes of expressions the thesis tries to get into the language structure, looking for...

This paper examines the influence of the dominant masculine-hegemonic ideology and gender- compliance on agenda setting and framing texts in the context of a healthy diet, respectively vegetarianism, which is considered a healthy alternative if this diet is balanced. With reference to the already existing academic work on the topic of health discourse in the context of patriarchal ideology, this thesis aims to uncover through discourse analysis of texts in Czech lifestyle magazines for men and for women latent and subtle ideological structures supporting the social status quo and at the same time reveal the influence of the social construction of masculinity and femininity to the discourse of vegetarianism.