Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

This thesis deals with process of creating an artificial celebrity in Czech media context. It demonstrates that it is possible to make an unknown person famous and to become a celebrity who attracts media attention. First two chapters define a celebrity as an institution, its primary social functions and also its origin and creation. Third chapter describes Czech tabloid media market and its changes in last few years. Furthermore, it explains reasons why there is need for new celebrities. Forth chapter analyses in detail conditions that lead to creation of new artificial celebrity. Moreover, it defines a process of such creation and routines used by Czech media to cover celebrities. Last chapter shows a case of Ornella Štiková who was not even publicly known before she became a celebrity. After becoming celebrity, she attracted attention of all main Czech tabloid media. This media interest lasted (including short falls) almost for two years. Such a period is longer than average. As a part of this thesis, the author made a series of interviews with media experts, significant tabloid media professionals and insiders of Czech showbyznys. The main aim of this theses was to obtain knowledge of how Czech media works and how they communicate directly with celebrities. These interviews enrich this thesis...

The master thesis is concerned with an analysis and a comparison of two realities that, according to the theory explained in the text, are supposed to be different. The first part of the thesis deals with the theoretical framework through the analysis of the relation between media and reality. Basic approaches focusing on this coexistence through several paradigms, above all social constructivism and social representation, are explained. The theoretical part contains a chapter dedicated to the basics of news and the specificities of the content creation. The practical part of the thesis is first comprised of a definition and of an analysis of the news media reality, based on the declarative statements of its relation to the non-media reality. The same type of analysis is secondly also applied to the non-media or life reality. In order to facilitate comprehension of the topic and of these two realities, the work analyses a case study of a news event. Based on the case study, the practical section leads then to a comparative analysis of the characteristics of both studied realities. The final part suggests the definition of a relation between the media reality based on news production on the one hand and the non-media reality on the other hand. The work examines thus the degree of validity of the...

This graduation work is concerned with newly developing media formats, focusing on the reality show format. Introduction chapters theoretically describe theses from selected philosophical works of Vilém Flusser, which are mainly thoughts included in his interpretation of technical pictures philosophy. Further chapters follow this topic and try to link it with the reality show format. This format is defined and supplemented with specific examples. The graduation work is then concluded with chapters that introduce the reality show from a social-psychological point of view. These chapters are based on examples of psychological experiments, the results of which are applicable to certain situations which could occur within a reality show. The conclusion of the graduation work comprises the overall assessment of the reality show format in connection with the philosophy of technical pictures and outcomes of psychological experiments.

The term crisis of journalism is widely discussed nowadays. This paper examines whether journalism is in crisis, or whether it is a development caused by changes in the digital world. It also examines possible causes of this crisis and transformation in the digital world. One of the main causes of this is a perceived loss of credibility of the information given to the public. Therefore, there is a deeper interpretation of what trust and trustworthiness is and what can dis/trust cause in the society. In the context of the changes which journalism faces today, it describes the transformation of the role of the audience to active self-editor and outlines how the audience must orientate in the news itself. Otherwise, the media focused on earnings will continue to thrive on sensationalism and moral panics that will negatively effect social reality. In the empirical part this paper deals with the case of Břeclav in 2012, which is an exemplary example of moral panic with consequences.

The dissertation is titled "The trend of zombification in a current film and series production - audience-based research" and is aimed at explaining why people seek zombie themed series and movies. In the theoretical part, the author introduces the concept of a zombie in terms of its dominant position within the popular culture. With the historical background and the theoretical frame of the topic, the results of the audience research, that was focused mainly on the fans of a zombie genre, will be presented. By comparison of the media product discourse and the public discourse, the analysis reve als the hypothesis describing the relationship between the audience and the media content with a zombie theme. The research is based on a qualitative method of grounded theory. The methods of semi-structured interview and participant observation were used to collect the data.

本研究以影像倫理作為觀察角度，探討電視新聞動畫化所帶來的真實「再現」與新聞倫理的爭議。本研究採深度訪談法，訪問業與學界共十三人，研究發現，動畫的重建/再現過程，反映感官主義，當新聞報導超越了事實，有可能傷害新聞的專業倫理原則，進而造成資訊淺薄化的發展；再者，虛擬的再現，未必呈現資訊原貌，一則新聞的大量訊息，經過新聞工作者的判斷、篩選，通常只留下具有故事性或衝突性的重點來產製成動畫影像；最後，多層次守門的干擾，影響新聞真實性，在文字轉化為圖影像的過程中，難免會受到編輯室社會控制與新聞價值內化、新聞工作者之間的溝通落差與資訊查證之影響，使得真實性流失成為必然的副作用。 / This study examined that some controversy concerning ethic of images exists in the animated news on television, discussing the relationship changing between representation of truth and journalism ethics during the production process. Through empirical in-depth interviews with journalists and scholars of thirteen, we came to explore the ethical effect of animated news on traditional news production and standards. It reveals that the reconstruction of animated news reflects sensationalism. When news reports are not based on facts, they are likely to harm the profession principles of journalism ethics and they will result in the process of information trivialization. In addition, virtual representations may not present the original information, messages are chosen and judged by journalists from a piece of news with story or conflicting points to make animated images. Finally, because multilevel gatekeeping interference affects the authenticity of news, it will inevitably be influenced by several factors, such as social control in the newsroom, newsworthy internalization, communication gaps between journalists as well as verification of information, during the process of transforming a message from written to animated form. The loss of authenticity is an inevitably side effect.

Compulsory vaccination is one of the fundamental pillars of public health protection that has helped eradicate many previously lethal and widespread diseases from our geographical area. Although the vaccination rates remain high in the Czech Republic, the number of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children is growing. Reasons for this restraint are various. This thesis looks at the issue from the perspective of social constructivism. By implementing in-depth interviews, it tries to contribute to understanding how parents perceive the influence of the media on their decisions on the issue of compulsory vaccination. Other theoretical starting points are the media construction of reality, the theory of representation or biopower, and biopolitics in Michel Foucault's conception. A significant part of the theory also describes the current period, which is characterized by terms such as post-truth or post-factual era, and addresses which role plays new media such as social networks and the internet in the growing mistrust in expert knowledge and institutions. The analytical part is devoted to the analysis of collected data in the grounded theory approach. The identified categories then describe how parents evaluate the role of the media in the debate on compulsory vaccination, how they evaluate...