The aim of this thesis is to study what means are used in newspaper leaders (editorials) to influence public opinion. In order to obtain a wide range of such means, I have chosen material that has a clear timeframe and illustrates strong political antagonism, concerning the 1971 conflict between the Saco and SR unions and the Swedish state. Leaders from eight different newspapers with different party affiliations are analysed – six morning and two evening newspapers. What type of message leaders convey is examined mainly at the sentence level. Writers report what happened, assess the situation and analyse the causes and explanations for there being a labour conflict. They express criticism of those involved in various ways and exhort them to take recommended courses of action to resolve the conflict. Paragraphs can also be categorised in this way. How criticism is expressed is studied in detail because the material is rich in critical utterances of different types.  Various theories about text types and speech act theory provide a theoretical background that is applied to the material. A number of different theories about what defines a genre are presented and tested on the leaders. The results of the investigation indicate that a large number of leaders from the morning newspapers are structured in a similar way, with the paragraph as the unit. They reveal a pattern, the normal pattern, where information is presented in a given order in the majority of morning leaders and the greatest number of message types is used. There is also a pattern of analysis/criticism, with critical and analytical paragraphs alternating and the analysis substantiating the criticism, as a rule. The few leaders in the morning newspapers that do not form a pattern may be strongly critical or almost solely analytical. One of the morning newspapers has many critical leaders that argue or incite. No analysis is made of evening newspaper leaders at the paragraph level since the paragraphs are short; instead, they are analysed as a whole, as are the argumentative leaders. The analysis shows that many leaders are structured in a similar way while at the same time there is considerable variation in the material, which is attributable to there being different types of editorials.

This diploma thesis describes the way by which can photojournalism operate with the audience and how it is possible to influence a view of recipients about the world around us by photography. The thesis is devided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part is based on accessibility of the Czech and foreign literature and in its beginning that represents what photojournalism is and what is its role in media. A part of the opening chapter is also a discussion of ethics in the photojournalism. Furthermore, there is explanation of the process of how a recipient perceives visual communication. One of the key components of this work is a summary of how experts from the fields of photography and media see the possibility of influencing the audience with photos in the media. There are explained the concepts of the terms visual agenda setting and visual gatekeeping. The ways by which media most often manipulate a recipient are described and there is outlined also the question of objectivity in photojournalism. The end of the theoretical part is devoted to a relatively popular topic of digital photo editing in the media. The practical part of this thesis involves a qualitative research carried through in-depth interviews, which explores ways in which the photos, that are included in printed...