With the rise of Internet, Web and new media technologies come increased opportunities for audience to recreate media content and influence its flow across different media platforms. The fan as a demanding yet enthusiastic consumer has become a centrepiece of media industries' marketing strategies. On the one hand, this qualitative change often described as participatory culture means a giant leap forward for fans, who can now serve new roles within the media industry. On the other, it represents a potential exploitation of media users, as unpaid volunteers do the labour professionals are paid for. This study investigates this tension in a case of videogame fans. On their official websites, videogame developers encourage fans to contribute with their fan art harnessing fan creativity for their advertising purposes. Convergence culture raises conflicts and compromises between creators of fan art (fan artists), and the owners of the copyrighted works they appropriate (game companies). This study addresses three main issues: (1) the way and circumstances under which game companies are displaying fan art on their official websites, (2) how fans understand the tensions between empowerment and exploitation, how do they address the issue of free labour, (3) how fans view issues concerning intellectual property...

My work deals with current konwledge of Celts in Iron Age and Roman Britain (approximately from the 6th century BC to the 5th century AD), includes infromation about chronology and periodization, Celtic society, settlement, burial practices, economic life, art and religion. The attention is devoted to today's views on Britain's share in the process of ethnogenesis of Celts and the ethnic structure of the population in pre-Roman period and the influence of the migration from the continent. The thasis further focuses primarily on the period of Roman occupation between 43 - 410 AD and the influence of Roman occupation on other aspects of Celtic society and effort to capture the development of the agricultural settlement outside the central site and explore the influences of Roman civilization in this environment. Work should, inter alia, aim to complete assessment of the extent of the continuation, modification or extinction of indigenous cultural forms.

This thesis comprises translations of five articles by the Russian ethnolinguist Nikita Iljich Tolstoy, some of which deal with the theory of the ethnolinguistic approach to language and the Slavic culture and others demonstrate a practical application of such an approach and such methods on the traditional Slavic culture. They present this approach as a continuous development of linguistic research which draws on the rich tradition and at the same time transcends its past and enriches it with new points of view. This also constitutes a unique way of preserving the legacy of our ancestors while simultaneously showing it in a new light. Aside from the translations the present thesis also includes an introductory study dealing with general characteristics of ethnolinguistics, its goals, subject, methods, and various schools of thought. In addition, chapters are included introducing the scientific work of N. I. Tolstoy and other members of the Moscow School of Ethnolinguistics. Present are also notes and comments on the translation, clarifying terms from the Russian cultural tradition not necessarily familiar in the Czech environment and explaining certain terms that may be difficult to translate.

In this diploma thesis I am going to analyze Christian metal music with emphasis on its missional character. My starting point is at a hypothetical use of metal as a tool for Christian mission. I assume that new Christian communities will be able to use metal as a cultural tool for creating the inner character of the community. This requires a short introduction to the development of both Christian and secular metal music. To describe Christian mission in this subculture I am going to use the method of praxis matrix, through which I'm going to try to offer more detailed information about the subject in question concerning the topic of the identification of the agent. I'm also going to try to describe the social context, the church affiliation, interpretation of the tradition, concretization of the activity and the ability of self- reflection and spirituality.

This thesis was focused on culture and climate of selected public universities in the Czech Republic in the form stated in strategic materials. The goal was to analyse and compare key aspects of strategic materials of selected universities that influence their culture and climate. Selected strategic materials included vision, mission, values, long-term intent of the university and educational faculty, annual activity report and code of ethics. The sample consisted of eight universities whose part was an educational faculty. The method of quantitative content analysis was selected for the analysis of the documents. There were six priority areas identified through the analysis of the documents of the Ministry of Education and key words related to these priority areas. The analysis of university documents showed that organizational culture and climate are not much explicitly covered in their strategic documents, the most frequently emerging feature of organizational culture were values, therefore mainly aspects determining culture and climate were tracked. The main focus of university strategic documents were the following three areas: quality, international aspect and research. Although universities shared a common ground stated by the Ministry of Education there was considerable diversity among...

The presented diploma thesis aims primarily to the analysis of ceramic material obtained from the Neolithic settlement area Hrdlovka excavated during salvage terrain excavation since the year 1987 to 1990. For the purposes of processing of finds and excavation situations the complex database and digitalised site plan were created in the GIS interface. The analysis of ceramics was targeted particularly to the establishing of settlement area relative chronology and separating of individual settlement phases. Current description system of Czech Neolithic pottery was modified and replenished with regard to Hrdlovka´s finding situation specifics. The process of chronological analysis comprising also spatial data was divided into several steps. Resulting sequence comprises 10 settlement horizons (Hrdlovka A - J), which correspond to nearly uninterrupted development since the early stage of the Linear Pottery culture to the late stage of the Stroked Pottery culture. Important pieces of knowledge were obtained mainly about the transitional phase between the both cultures, which was in Hrdlovka documented by two settlement horizons. The analysis of ceramics spatial distribution and some architecture characteristics are also presented in limited range.

This thesis, Cultural life in Terezin ghetto through the eyes of witnesses, is focused on cultural activities of Terezin prisoners with emphasis on sports, theatre and music. In the initial phase of the thesis I focus on the town of Terezin, from its foundation through the transformation into the ghetto up until its liquidation in 1945. Then follows the core work - Terezin culture. Individual subchapters are gradually dedicated to sports, music, theater and children's artwork as well. The goal of the thesis is an effort to transfer all the acquired findings into the ghetto environment, which should also be the core work of the thesis. I have gathered the necessary information on this issue from the Malach visual history archive, which is a source contatining several tens of thousands eyewitness accounts given by the surviving victims. In my thesis I am trying to connect information gathered from professional literature with the information gathered from the Malach archive. The whole thesis should provide a complete view of the cultural activities in Terezin while taking experiences and memories of the survivors into account.

This master thesis deals with the phenomenon of Westernization of pop culture in mainland China on the example of the Chinese adapted version of the Talent Show China's Got Talent. (CHGT) In its theoretical part it outlines the overall globalizing and Westernizing tendencies and sets a theoretical framework of the main terminology of media studies. The research goal of the thesis was to analyze the audience reception of CHGT in China and their ideas and views on pop culture The research goal is included in the broader context of cultural imperialism theories and the specifics of talent and reality shows are elaborated. Furthermore a historical overview of the evolution of pop culture in mainland China is provided. In the practical part, the applied methodological approaches and their potential strengths and weaknesses are described. A basic thematic analysis of certain selected social media like Weibo, QQ and Baidu was conducted. The two versions of the adapted Got Talent format were compared as far as the formal features are concerned, the British version of Britain's Got Talent and the Chinese adaptation China's Got Talent. Moreover qualitative in-depth interviews with Chinese respondents in the PRC and the UK were performed. The group in the UK served as a control group for comparison and the...

This diploma thesis deals with problems which often occur during implementation of kaizen philosophy into economic practice in Czech environment. Many Czech companies that adopted this philosophy do not reach such good results, compared to companies in Japan. Czech employee's do not accept it in good way. Thus the target of this thesis is to find out possible causes of this unfavourable situation. In theoetical parts, kaizen phiosophy and other related factors such as organizational culture are described. Furthermore, most frequent kaizen practice and its most important effects are described well as a brief history of it in Japan, USA, and Czech. Real implementations of kaizen in three companies in Czech Republic are analyzed in empirical part of this thesis. Most important points of this part are qualitative research (interviews with employees of these three companies) and quantitative research (questionares were filled by employees in one of these firms). The outputs of the thesis are general as well as specific suggestions for these three companies.

This master’s thesis treats about organizational culture in the firm SOFIZO, Ltd. The main emphasis of this work is to judge on examination current situation of organizational culture. The work is divided into two parts. In the theoretical part defines terms related to organizational culture. In the practical part of this thesis you can find analysis organization culture of company trought the questionnaire surfy. On the basis of questionary is designated structure, elements and orientation of organizational culture of the firm. Results from the questionnaires were used to develop a proposal for improvement of organizational culture.