This thesis analyzes the way of presenting the catastrophe called Sandy in the Czech media. The motivation for choosing this topic was the ascertainment that the information about Sandy narrows only on the information about New York in spite of the fact, that this hurricane, sometimes called tropical storm or "superstorm" caused many injuries in the area of Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas and especially Haiti. The analysis is realized by force of critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough, because this method is appropriate especially for analysing mass media texts in the way of offering complex view from the level of social context, through the process of production to the language form of texts. Consequently, theoretical background comes from the methods and concepts of Norman Fairclough, from the definition of media discourse, which is oriented on new media, news and news values. The analysis is oriented on the most readable Czech online news and the on the news web pages of the Czech public service television and the Czech public service radio. The goal of this thesis is primarily the comparison between the way of reporting about the hurricane between the commercial and public service online news articles; revealing ideological and powerful aspects in the way of this reporting; and the...

UNIVERZITA KARLOVA V PRAZE FAKULTA HUMANITNÍCH STUDIÍ Katedra genderových studií Bc. Monika Skopalová Liga otevřených mužů: případová studie Diplomová práce Vedoucí práce: Ing. Petr Pavlík, Ph.D. Praha 2013 ABSTRACT This work is an attempt to contribute to the development of men's studies as a relevant academic field, which still does not have sufficient background in the Czech Republic. It captures work of the most visible so-called men's organization in CR - the League of Open Men (LOM). Qualitative content analysis based on feminist tradition includes data collected from interviews and thematic articles of LOM's representatives, and especially data from my own interview with Václav Šneberger, one of the organization's founders. The aim of analysis was to clarify ideological basis, values and theoretical concepts which LOM implicitly uses, to explore its relationship to feminist movement and so-called women's organizations, and also to find out its understanding of masculinity/ies and the way in which LOM discursively works with this concept of gender. The analysis revealed that although LOM presented itself as non-academic and non-gender organization which has no ideologies, theoretical basis or definitions and instructions in the "right manhood", it is more a purposeful strategy concealing the fact that...

There are not many countries in the world whose relations were as turbulent as in the case of the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since 1979 the U.S. military, diplomatic and economic assistance towards Iran has been replaced by sanctions and hostilities. Author of the M.A. thesis On the Edge of Dependency: Iran in the Foreign Policy of the United States, 1979 - 2009 assumes that the geopolitical interests of the United States were to make Iran weak, isolated and dependent on the periphery of the world system, thus to enforce a heteronomous structure of domination. To answer the research questions the critical discourse analysis has been performed. Based on the constructivist rule-based approach and speech act theory the U.S. political elites in the process of meeting their foreign policy objectives should have been using a commissive language. The analysis of the U.S. political discourse has shown, however, the United States since 1979 strived for hierarchical structure of domination over Iran. The long-standing lack of stability in the U.S.-Iranian relations can be therefore explained that Iranian political elites reject the rules Washington has been trying to apply.

The diploma thesis analyses U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship based on the interpretation of discourses, interviews and speeches of the American and Russian presidents since September 2001 till December 2013. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, and more specifically Membership Categorization Analysis, as a theoretical and methodological basis of the analysis, the thesis categorizes specific periods of the U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship into three categories - positive, neutral and negative. Each category is defined by two basic concepts of the Membership Categorization Analysis - by the collections of positive, neutral and negative categories, which were addressed by the presidents to their counterparts, and by the category-tied predicates related to the particular categories. The final categorization of the U.S.-Russian relations is contrasted with conventional political affairs aiming to highlight the parallels between the categorization changes based on the discourses and the changes in the conventional political context. The diploma thesis offers an alternative view on the U.S.-Russian relations.

This study has for its goal to examine whether a new racist prejudice against Mexican illegal immigrants was driving the activities of the minutemen movement operating along the U.S.- Mexico border whose stated goal was to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country. This work assumes that the old blatant racism is no longer acceptable within society but was replaced by a conspicuously color-blind rhetoric, typical of the minutemen movement, that might harbor a new racist prejudice. New racism does not put forth a race defined biologically but understands the white and non-white races conceptually. It thus contributes to the maintenance of the white-black dichotomy within society and more importantly to the discrimination and exclusion of the non-white races. In order to disclose a possible racist prejudice, this study conducts a Critical Discourse Analysis of the minutemen's discourse. Results of this analysis show that especially the focus on the notion of law and order, so typical of the discourse, is hugely misleading and that under this seemingly color-blind reasoning, there is, indeed, a hidden expression of the new racist prejudice.

This paper focuses on the concept of right to the city and tries to link it to the topic of spatial planning in Prague. It introduces the view on the world of global neoliberalism, which comes from critical social geography and was elaborated especially by David Harvey, but originates from the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre. Through the optics of this approach the paper tries to grasp the complex problems of spatial planning on the example of Prague. Through a qualitative questioning of the representatives of CSO's, the paper attempts to show the relevance of the concept for public participation in decision making in urban development. The thesis presents a fundamental critical frame of theories, which evaluates the condition of society in the stage of late neoliberalism, and also the basic approaches to the city in social theory including the context of post-socialism. From these it continues to the analysis of urban space presenting a belief, which gives to the inhabitants of a city the right to make decisions about its shape instead of the capital. It puts emphasis on demarcation of the role of social movements and also the concept of place attachment, which becomes one of the key determinants for the involvement of inhabitants into the processes of urban development. The paper uses the...

Mechanical knowledge is presently considered to be the major problem in di- dactics of mathematics. The aim of this diploma thesis is first, to diagnose possible instances of mechanical knowledge in cognition of an A student, i.e. a student with excellent results in mathematics, and second, to provide a dis- cussion of their probable causes. The thesis consists of two parts. In the first part, i.e. the theoretical one, the concepts which are essential for the empirical part are introduced. The pivotal sections of the theoretical part of this thesis are therefore devoted to the introduction to the theory of generic models and mechanical knowledge. In case of mechanical knowledge, the emphasis is put on a discussion of its possible causes, as well as ways of their diagnostics, reeducation and prevention. The empirical part of the thesis is dedicated to a case study which was conducted. In this study, a number of examples of mechanical knowledge in va- rious branches of mathematics were identified in cognition of a lower-secondary student, based on the analysis of in-depth interviews and teaching materials. It is concluded that the most probable cause of the identified instances of me- chanical knowledge is the transmissive education style, in which the priority is placed on remembering definitions...

This work focuses on examination of hyaluronan-sulfactant aggregates in term of determination of aggregate number. The value of critical micellar concentration (CMC) cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) in three different solvents (water, phosphate buffer and physiological solution). Next the effect of the native hyaluronan supplement on the value of CMC was examined. It wasfound out that the solvent has the biggest effect on the value of CMC whilst the hyaluronan supplement affects CMC only a little. The aggregate number (Nagg) CTAB and the effect of the native hyaluronan supplement were determined out by means of fluorescence quenching. Pyrene was used as a fluorescence probe. Iodine and cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) were used as quenchers. Sulfactant was dissolved in three different solvents (water, phosphate buffer and physiological solution). Not only the hyaluronan supplement but also the used solvent has the strong effect on the value of the aggregate number. When using 10mM CTAB dissolved in physiological solution the value of Nagg was 119 ± 4 while the value was half in buffer. Then we found out that in most cases the hyaluronan supplement reduces the value of the aggregate number.

This research seeks to interpret the academic activism of Academics for Peace in Turkey. It argues that the occurrence of the Academics for Peace results from the intertwinement of neoliberal and authoritarian ideology. The writer of this research suggests that Academics for Peace build networks of solidarity based on resistive critique and truth-telling practices. Solidarity (alternative) academies in Turkey are the seeds of this engagement in solidarity, self- adapting practices, activist truth, and parrhesia, and they appear as phenomena that carry out prefigurative-instituent practices. The research suggests that Solidarity academies can be evaluated as a 'threshold' cultivating our understanding of the 'commons' and 'commoning practices.'

This diploma thesis with the title The phenomenon of Karel Gott in Czech press during 1960s-1980s researches a media representation of Karel Gott. Media representation of the most popular singer of Czechoslovakia is in this thesis constructed based on the analysis of media contents of three contemporary printed serials during the years 1959-1989. The theoretical part of this thesis focuses on the area of cultural politics, it deals with specific attributes of popular music in Czechoslovakia and it also presents the identity of Karel Gott. This part of thesis also deals with the press production with focus on the censorship. The aim of this thesis is to compile the media representation of Karel Gott using the method of critical discourse analysis presented by Norman Fairclough. The analysis uses mentioned method to research contents regarding Karel Gott and published in contemporary printed media, such as the serial Mladý svět, Vlasta, Pionýrské noviny, Sedmička and also Sedmička pionýrů. The purpose of this research work is to find out if and in which ways was the media representation of Karel Gott helping to establish the dominant discourse. This thesis designates research questions, whereas the set of answers to three subordinate questions helps to construct the answer to the main question. The...