This diploma thesis, called Hyundai commercials from the semiotic point of view, deals with audiovisual commercials and their meanings, which can be hidden in them. The thesis is inspired by the book Mythologies which was written by Roland Barthes. The first part of the thesis is a chapter about the car manufacturer Hyundai, its background in the Czech Republic and also the reason for the choice of this brand is stated here. This part is followed by a chapter about advertising. Advertising is a type of persuasive communication, it is a part of mass media and is connected to other sciences such as psychology, social studies, linguistics and others. Relevant knowledge of these fields is used as well. The theoretical background of the thesis is extended in the next chapter which focuses on the science of semiotics. Key terms such as semiosis, sign, denotation, connotation, primary and secondary semiological systems and myth are defined. Also the method of semiotic analysis is explored. In connection with the terms mythology and ideology a subchapter on Roland Barthes follows. In the methodology chapter the research design is stated and research questions are formulated. The analytical chapter consists of the denotative parts of analyzed commercials (the plot together with the scene and sound is...

The diploma thesis "Athletes as heroes - construction and evolution of Czech olympic medalist image" deals with media construction of olympic Winter image and its following trasformation into national hero myth. It approaches the topic from the perspective of semiotic analysis. It informs about the key concepts of semiotics and media studies like visual communication, sign, code, myth, social construction of reality, representation and stereotype. These concepts are consequently used as tools for the analysis of photos (thein legends) and headlines in daily press. The text shows on the case of six olympic winners (between years 1998 - 2008) how Czech daily press dealt and built individual stories a basic archetypes. In its first part it offers basic theoretical frame serving to understand the hero image as the social construct. Athlete with his win attracts new - medial constructed - identity. In the second part text tries to analyse media contents that deal with athetes images immediate after their olympic victory. It arrives to following conclusions: media have a tendency to produce the stories od victory, that are gender unequal and stereotyped. And finally, text show us individual images, their basic signs and confrontation, that signifies very similar narrative pracices and zero progress in time.

This thesis deals with the construction of ideal female reader inscribed on the Czech edition of the magazine Harper's Bazaar. The theoretical part handles the important findings in the field of semiotics. The semiotic analysis itself is the crucial part of my work. Within the wide angle of field of semiotic processes character and its function, mentions the various concepts and theories that are linked to this issue. Chapter which binds to the functioning of the secondary semiotic system, in other words, the myth is based on the work Mythologies by Roland Barthes. Mythological analysis is crucial for the practical part. The theoretical framework also deals with studies on "inscribed" readers from Colin Sparks and Michelle Campbell that was one of the main motivations for creating this text. It analyzes important aspects of the theory of coding and decoding Stuart Hall. Last but not least, refers to the sociology of knowledge through the work of Social Construction of Reality from a pair of authors Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann. Practical part includes mythological analysis of the individual sections in selected publications between years 2002 and 2014. Also it doesn't focus only on the text itself, but also on the selected accompanying visuals. It deals with the Czech myths and legends. It...

According the research there were noticed few interesting elements of simulacra "comportment" and about the nature of hyperreality itself. First of all there was described, that the nature of hyperreality is very different compared to realities of lower levels. Hyperreality is a semantic space which is filled with simulacra. Those simulacra are holding very strong meaning, which is technically one of the basic elements of their nature. At the other hand not every meaning did pass to the hyperreal stadium. It means that in the end hyperreality suffers the lack of meanings. Its spectre of meanings is simply very limited. Although simulacrum holds a very strong meaning, it can disappear. In this paper there were described two ways, how it can happen. Both ways are directly connected with interest of audience, which mean in this case the interest of public. Simulacra can simply disappear when the audience forget them because of change of the cultural rules. The other way is a kind of simulacra duel. Against older simulacrum is putted a new one. If audience because of any reason decide, that the new simulacrum fits better to their needs, that the old one, the old one disappears. It was described, that there is wide spectre of objects which are able to pass through simulation and become simulacrum. In the...

This thesis deals with the depiction of death in the Sandman comic books written by Neil Gaiman. It aims to explore the forms of death that the author presents in his comics through pictorial and textual codes. The work begins with a reflection on the phenomenon of death and how this phenomenon and its depiction stand in time and in current perception. The theory of visual semiotics is used for research, especially the findings of Ch. S. Peirce and the theory of multimodality, which is described in the theoretical part. The focus is then shifted to the comics itself and towards the characteristics of individual elements of visual language applicable for describing comic images, such as color, perspective, panel size, framing, etc. The analysis of images is preceded by research depicting death from the perspective of western culture in its historical context. In the description of the images, the essential features of the individual modes are determined and their meanings are interpreted. The conclusion is summarizing author's findings and try to confirm the initial thought presented at the beginning of the work: that Gaiman perceived the character of Death very differently than is usual in contemporary commercial images.

Development cartographic means of expression for representing castles on old maps of the Bohemia Abstract This thesis examines the development of cartographic means of expression that are used for the display of castles, palaces, strongholds and ruins on the old maps of Bohemia in the period from the early 16th century to early 18th century. The work evaluates the positional inaccuracies of location of interest sites through cartometric analysis. The first part is theoretical, in which the issues outlined cartographic semiotics and cartographic expression. Next two parts deal with the oldest cartographic references of the Bohemia, or the description of the analyzed maps. Further, the thesis illustrated the method by which the analysis are extracted. The chapter summarizes contains results of findings. Keywords: old maps of Bohemia, signs for castles, cartographic semiotics, cartometric.

The aim of this thesis is to define the growing use of health symbolism in the consumer goods industry. Powerful group of consumers, focused on the value of health and an active lifestyle, is the base for developing a long-term emerging market with portfolio of brands and products, which are building its image on the basis of health connotations. This "medicalization of consumption" takes place mainly at the level of signs with relevant references, according to which consumers are oriented at different levels of awareness of that fact. On the example of semiotic analysis of Activia brand we would point out how could each sign build a product, permanently associated with required values.

The present thesis introduces an analysis of a part of public corporate communication through which large international companies present a positive image of their brands, technologies, operations and, above all, their values vis-à-vis the issue of environmental protection. It would likely not provoke much dispute, shall it be stated that environmental protection has over the several past decades climbed to the top of the list of the world's priority agenda. Yet whether an ecological crisis is or is not a real threat, or whether the parties involved really do or do not take the proclaimed steps necessary for the improvement of the state of the natural environment, is not a matter of importance here. The important thing is that people (companies) are talking about the environment. In the context of a global ecological threat companies are on one hand pressured into accepting green responsibilities, on the other hand in building their green image they actively adopt certain aspects of green discourse and articulate their own environmental diagnoses and propose possible remedies. Using critical discourse analysis this thesis tries to uncover the ways of construction of corporate green responsibility discourse aiming to answer questions regarding the selection of discourse strategies and use of language,...

Persuasion and Signs: Semiotics and Rhetoric as Complementary Disciplines The hypothesis we consider in this dissertation is that of complementarity of semiotics and rhetorics, both in symstematical and historical context. The first part deals with the late modern interpretation of the history of rhetorics, sophistry and sophistical rhetoric (showing why i tis necessary to discriminate between these terms). This is illustrated by the discussion about pragmatics and interpretation of ancient rhetoric in the anglo-saxon philosophy of the late 20th century. Topic of persuasion is considered as the main point of investigation for its being common both to rhetoric and semiotics. This is elaborated in the second part of thesis, which concentrates on the analysis of Ch. S. Peirce's late work, especially his classification of signs, semiotics as pure rhetoric, with emphasis on his concept of pragmatism. The pragmatism is the point where semiotics and rhetoric coincide. In the conclusion it is find out, that semiotics and rhetoric are complementary disciplines, at least for their specific account of the notion of sign and persuasion. Keywords Rhetoric, rhetoric, semiotics, semeiotic, sophistry, Lyotard, Vitanza, Nietzsche, Peirce, Deleuze.

The diploma thesis focuses on marketing communications in performing arts. In particular, it concentrates on poster advertising of the Divadlo na Vinohradech. Marketing in art is specific because it must adapt to the artistic goals. Thus, the role of marketing is not to conform to demands of the market but to attract audience to the current offer. The product is firstly made and only then placed on the market. It is possible to base the marketing communication channels on the product itself. In connection with the above mentioned, I tried to reveal what elements - either those which are explicitly shown or the hidden ones - are used on posters for theatre performances. Moreover, I tried to find out whether the posters included traits which are specific for the field of culture and arts. As a tool the semiotic analysis was chosen to examine individual pictures and texts as well as their mutual relationships. Keywords Semiotics, marketing, marketing of culture, communication, verbal and visual communication, picture and text.