Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2004. / "Publication number AAT 3136457."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 2005. / "Publication number AAT 3193850."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 2009. / "Publication number: AAT 3381566."

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Syracuse University, 2008. / "Publication number: AAT 3345012."

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2006 / "Publication number AAT 3242491."

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2006 / "Publication number AAT 3251769."

The Internet helps right-wing extremist groups reach and connect with the American public because their message of anti-government sentiment is an attractive one. As the nation continues to grow increasingly disaffected with the political system as a whole, the anti-government message of the extremist Right will prove to be progressively more attractive to those who are not extreme. History has shown that the radical Right has always tapped into the mainstream to reach the disaffected, and ideological surveys show that many of the position stands concerning the size and scope of the federal government are shared by both the extreme and the moderate. Media framing, the process by which articles and features are shaped to provide an understanding context, affords the media one way to describe the extreme right while it offers the extreme right another way of describing themselves. When the extreme takes to the Internet to describe itself, outside the mainstream broadcast media, it is able to form a message that appeals to the public because of its seeming moderation, attention to hot-button issues, and similarities to conventional negative politics. When all is said and done, the Internet simply provides a new forum for the disaffected and politically angry. This forum, however, is incredibly potent in its abilities to deliver a message quickly, affordably, and—most importantly—privately. This opens the door to potentially dangerous political communication between potentially violent and increasingly disaffected people.

In November 1953, the editor of the Manchester Guardian, AP Wadsworth, responded to Jodrell Bank Director Bernard Lovell regarding a complaint over an article that had appeared on the observatory's radio telescope project. Wadsworth understood there had been much collaboration between Lovell and his journalists in regard to the construction of the article and so the complaint suggested that there was 'far more to it (production) than appears on the surface'. Many scholars of science and the media point to the importance of uncovering the context of production from which popular science emerges in interactions between science and media actors. However, these and many other scholars also point to the difficulty of symmetrically unravelling the production context because of the complexities of such interactions and the diverse actors and agendas at play. To view and draw out these complexities, I employ the analytical flexibility and utility of space science as a lens because the production of popular space science was of interest, and valuable, to diverse scientific and media actors. I also use a broad and triangulated selection of primary sources, including from the often-elusive media context, to explore episodes of contingency where agendas and approaches are revealed. I hypothesise the notion of a 'common arena' to aid understandings of the context of production of science and the media. Within this common arena scientists, media professionals and science-mediating specialists met to negotiate the production of popular scientific representations. Scientific and media culture and science-mediating specialists sought authority over and identities within the arena through 'contributory expertise'. In such negotiations, popular scientific representations became a form of 'boundary object'. Across the middle of the twentieth century, and especially in the space age, popular space scientific representations were prestigious and high-profile and the subject of much negotiation. In many ways, the media gained much at the expense of science by redrawing the arena, exploiting science in the way that science sought to exploit the media. On reflection the arena is too simplistic a concept to support the rich narrative history and, in future, it is hoped, will be surpassed by a more constructivist encounter model that characterises interactions and developments at the science-media interface. Despite these limitations, two supplementary arguments emerge from the empirical application of the arena concept. Firstly, that the 'problem' of science and the media is historical and its origins long precede the political movement of the same name of the 1970s. In fact, the problem originated in the 1930s as soon as the traditional authority over the production arena enjoyed by scientific culture, and celebrity scientists such as cosmologist James Jeans, was challenged by media professionals. The Council of the British Interplanetary Society identified it, for example. Motivated by increased public demand for popular scientific material and intensifying competition among media industries, print and broadcasting media professionals extended their cultural authority over the common arena. This extension was facilitated because technological developments, such as satellite broadcasting, further restricted membership of the arena to those who understood the demands of media technique and were committed to serving the interests of audiences rather than science; in sociological terms arena and production authority was 'reduced' to media culture. Such developments reduced the ability of experts to directly address audiences and, thus, the influence of scientists over popular representations of science. In other words, mediation was a threat to the social authority of science. However, this problem was not mobilised into a movement because the relationship between scientific and media actors remained somewhat deferent and symbiotic. This fluidity allowed the likes of radio astronomer Lovell to continue to popularise, at least for a time. Another reason why the problem was not mobilised, and comprising the second supplementary argument, was the development of science-mediating specialists as 'boundary spanners'. Public eagerness for popular science, and the tensions between scientific and media culture for authority over its production, provided the opportunity for new social identities to emerge in the arena. Science writers such as JG Crowther, Ritchie Calder, and John Maddox, and science broadcasters such as Mary Adams, Aubrey Singer, and James McCloy, developed who mediated between, and were expert in and partisan to, both media and science; they were intercultural boundary spanners. However, the extension of the cultural authority of the media over the arena meant that membership of the arena became predicated on producing copy and programming that served the commercial interests of the media. Combined with, and reflecting, growing popular ambivalence with science, such pressures on science writers and broadcasters to actively challenge the social authority of science were the catalyst for the mobilisation of the problem movement by the scientific establishment. This movement sought to redraw production arena authority and re-establish the influence of scientists over popular scientific representations, as with Beagle 2.

This work offers a longitudinal analysis of the "Science" section in Lidove noviny in between years 1997-2012 as well as the theoretical background for science journalism in the Czech republic. In the theoretical part you will find discourse analysis for both of general journalism and science, which is completed with the description of science journalism which bridges the gap between the former two discourses. The analysis of science journalism and its forms in the Czech republic follows. Then the press title Lidove noviny and its "Science" section are presented. The latter part of this work concerns with the longitudinal analysis of this section, which is based on foreign studies as well as on the interview with Josef Matyas, the editor-in-chief of the "Science" section. Results of this analysis are put together with the theoretical expectations and some interesting questions for further examinations follow.

The goal of the Dissertation is to demonstrate what picture of science was created by the journal Lidové noviny on pages of its science supplement from 2012 to 2014. The theoretical part of the Dissertation has summarized a state of up-to-now research into the science journalism and it has conducted a survey of transfer of information about science to the civil society, it has described genre of the cience journalism, it has presented both concept of news value and the issue of creation of media picture of science. The subsequent part is based on the method of quantitative analysis of content. In this part, the Dissertation has engaged in analysis of specific characteristic of the science journalism on pages of the journal Lidové noviny and media image on science which had been created by this journal. In the final part, there have been discussed results of the analyses namely in the perspective of concepts, which have been presented in the theoretical part of the Dissertation.