The present thesis deals with the media image of women's everyday life in the socialist era. It focuses on the period of time between 1970 and 1975, i.e. on the so called early normalization. The aim of the study is to find out in what way the everyday life of the given period is interpreted by the magazine Vlasta. The main value of the analysis is that it reveals the idealistic presentation of the socialist women's way of life, and their common problems and worries. The analysis of the articles we perform is focused on family and home care, child upbringing both at home and in institutions, man's role in the family, physical and mental health, cosmetics, fashion, etc., i.e. all the aspects belonging to and forming everyday life. Through these topics, which are popular among women, the magazine discreetly created the ideal of the socialist woman. In the messages concerned with everyday life it was passing on the values, stereotypes and even ideological principles of the socialist society of that time. The main aim of the analysis is to create a complex picture of this everyday practice in Vlasta magazine. Key words Everyday life, woman, socialisms, normalization, Vlasta magazine, family care, home care, child care

This thesis deals with the problem of the Velvet revolution in a small provincial town called Náchod. My purpose is to describe the political situation before the revolution, during it and after the revolution ended. I used two methods for my research. First of them was regular text analysis of documents in archives and the second source I used was the method of Oral history. Oral history enriches us with knowledge of living witnesses who help us understand reasons, motivations and feelings of people who took part in an important part of our history, which Velvet revolution surely is. To understand them even better I shortly described their life stories and their position during the revolution. I made life story interviews with 4 members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and with 5 members of the Civic Forum. So we can hear opinions of both considered sides. At the end of the thesis I compared my conclusions with the conclusion doc. PhDr. Lukáš Valeš, Ph.D. made in his dissertation describing Velvet revolution in a small provincial town Klatovy. At the end I came to a conclusion that Velvet revolution changed political status of Czechoslovakia and its economy but the same people remained powerful.

This dissertation is dedicated to the weekly magazine Zítřek published by the Czechoslovak Socialist Party and to the historical period of the years 1968 - 1969. The study presents social and political context, the formation of the civil society, and the role of the weekly Zítřek in the following period. The study is focused on the origins of this weekly magazine Zítřek, its short duration, the long discussion about its stopping, and on its next course, as well. The weekly magazine Zítřek was established as a pro-reform magazine and that is the reason why the study is focused particularly on the press relationships, the history of the Czechoslovak Socialist Party, and its publishing house Melantrich. The study contains interviews with contemporary witnesses, Mrs. Sylva Daníčková and Mr. Aleš Fuchs, as well. In one part the study selects and evaluates articles published by Zítřek. The study is from a methodical view focused on the archive research and historical documents, the method of oral - history in the case of interviews with contemporary witness, and the method of content analysis.

Dissertation Abstract Paper Agora: The Samizdat Periodical Vokno and the Provincial Czech Underground in Historical and Social Perspective Martin Tharp, Department of Historical Sociology. The present work takes as its central subject a Czech samizdat publication, the magazine Vokno, primarily during its years of illegal operation, i.e. from 1979 until 1990, considered within the wider context of civil and cultural resistance to the oppressive social order of European state socialism. It treats Vokno as an instance of social action amid state forces inimical towards it, discussing the interplay and interaction of oppositional practice and the forces it opposes, both of state authority and more subtle ones of state cultural hegemony. It is argued that Vokno formed an attempt at a "counterculture" in the late 20th-century sense of an impulsive critique of a regimented modernity, yet within its immediate conditions was necessitated to assume three specific forms: as an aesthetic sub/counterculture, as a social network with differing levels of involvement and connections (whether to established intellectual dissent or to other social strata), and finally as a conscious oppositional social movement.

This thesis deals with history, evolution and the activity of the cultural club of kindred spirits: Jonas club. Deeper attention is laid upon the question of mechanisms by which the so-called islands of freedom were constituted in the 1970s and 1980s. As it seems, Jonas club worked as this kind of free platform, therefore the aim of this thesis is to trace the phenomena which lead to the formation of these islands of freedom. From the methodological perspective the thesis is a qualitative work, which collects the data using the method of oral history. The work is time-framed by the years 1967-1989, therefore from the era of the establishment of the club until the Velvet revolution. The chosen witnesses usually remember most of the so-called normalization period. And the apriori given topics are followed with the aim to comprehend their subjective emic perspective. When it comes to the sources, the work draws upon the magazines which the club publishes from the very beginning of its existence until nowadays. As for the structure of the work, the text is divided into three larger sections, outside of the introduction and conclusion. The first theoretical section presents to the reader the theoretical-historical context. It is followed by the methodological section which not only provides methodology,...

The thesis focuses on the reflection of the presence of the military garrison in the everyday life of the inhabitants of Holýšov in the time span from the 1980s to the end of the army's presence in the town (1997). The thesis deals both with the structural composition of the garrison in the period under study and with the significant events related to its presence, but the focus of the thesis lies in the analysis of the mutual relationship of the army with the population of the town and with its self-government. The research is based on oral history interviews with conscripted soldiers, basic service soldiers, civilian employees of the army and the local population. Key words: Military garrison, everyday life, Czechoslovak People's Army, normalization period, methods of oral history.

The diploma thesis deals with a comparative analysis of two singing competitions, Zpívá celá rodina and Česko hledá Superstar. The comparison is based on the analysis of the shows Zpívá celá rodina and Česko hledá Superstar. Since the analysed television singing competitions were broadcast in different eras, significant differences between the two television shows can be observed. The theoretical part deals with television entertainment, the definition of television singing contest formats, as well as the description of media audiences and television fans. The thesis includes a brief description of the TV music shows and singing competitions that were available on the domestic market. The following comparative analysis is based on comparing the two mentioned singing competitions. The thesis presents the findings that the different eras contributed significantly to the form of the television singing competitions and also had a considerable influence on the preferences of the television audience. The thesis also provides a rationale as to why the the above mentioned shows were so popular with television audiences and whether the concept of Zpívá celá rodina could still be successful today. This justification is supported by comments by music experts and personal experience of participating in the...

This thesis focuses on the topic of photography in the work of Television studio Ostrava, a part of Czechoslovak television, during a period of the communist regime, called normalisation, and the reflection of this period after the year 1989. It may be presumed that communist propaganda and other efforts of normalisation will be apparent in the documentaries and other products concentrating on photography. The region of Ostrava also has its own cultural specificity due to its mainly industrial nature; the region is characterised by coal mining and metallurgy. Thus it may be presumed that communism will be planted in the minds of the people more firmly. The thesis also contains a theoretical framework, describing socialist realism in photography and normalisation in photography as well as in the television studio in question. In order to verify these hypotheses and to discover other important facts of the topic in question, a content analysis of data available in the archive of Television studio Ostrava was carried out. The archive suffered grave losses during major flooding of Moravia and Silesia in 1997, some films and actual photographs were however still available for analysis. The findings relevant to each document are stated in their respective parts and are summarised as a whole in the...

(in English): Vladimír Dvořák (14 May, 1925 - 28 December, 1999) is mainly known to the public as the presenter of Televarieté, a TV entertainment programme, and older generations may also remember him as a music programme presenter and an author of lyrics to pop-music songs of the 1960s. However, this limited perception calls for a correction, as Vladimír Dvořáka was, without exaggeration, a universally talented man. As this text aims to show, Dvořák was strong in fine art and literary disciplines (wrote a number of librettos), as well as on the script-editing, programme presenting and acting sides, and all these artistic talents were sheltered with and maybe even shadowed by his organisational skills (completely unknown to the public) combined with enormous proactivity and high ambitions. During his presence at ČST Vladimír Dvořák created a TV entertainment development strategy that he worked on until his death. He was diplomatic and creative at the same time, and he introduced a number of very successful TV formats to feature many big names, at least those tolerated by the totalitarian regime. Vladimír Dvořák knew how to manoeuvre his way through the clearly demarcated world of communist TV broadcasting without having to make dirty compromises with the regime's officials. Moreover, although he...

This thesis is concerned with the issue of the publication of church newspapers and magazines and the regulation thereof by state institutions and organs of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in the period 1956-1989. The first chapter gives a general overview of the policy of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in the field of mass media and is divided into three parts: after the Second World War, after the communist putsch in February 1948 and after the invasion by armies of the Soviet Block in August 1968. To better understand the situation of the church in that period of time it was necessary to include a chapter that outlines the general context of the way in which the Communist Party perceived and understood the church and religion as such, and therefore the second chapter offers a short introduction to the 'church policy' of the Communist Party. The third chapter monitors general facts related to the publishing business of the time, with special reference to the church newspaper and its control and restriction by the Central Church Publisher and Secretariat for Church Affairs of the Ministry of Culture. The fourth and main part of this study focuses on the newspaper and magazines of the Czech Brethren Church, with each subsection containing a detailed description of the publishing...