Suchergebnisse

The report concludes descriptive findings of the 2014 survey in new and old media uses and civic and political engagement and participatory practices of the Czech society. The data from 1998 respondents was collected in October and December 2014 by Median; the collection employed quota sampling and computer-assisted personal interviewing. The report is published in English and Czech version.

Praha: Sociologické nakladatelství 2014, 291 pages, ISBN 9788074191688

Dahlgren, Peter. 2013. The Political Web: Media, Participation and Alternative Democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 208 pages.

After a long history, research on the relation between participative and communicative practices was revived in the late 1990s because of the proliferation of new media. New studies have taken into account both online and offline participation and the ability of new media to provide citizens with easier access to information and a broader repertoire of actions. In this article, which is based on a representative survey of the adult Czech population and a survey of Czech adolescents, we address participative and communicative practices as intertwined sets that are typically preferred by certain groups of citizens. As media-related and political practices usually vary due to generational and historical experience, the aim is to discover whether people with similar generational backgrounds and with similar repertoires of action manifest similar sets of commu- nication practices, i.e. similar media ensembles. Hence, we build this study on the assumption that the politi- cal- and media-related agencies are structured by historical experience as well as by biographical experience linked with life-cycle phases. Using cluster analysis, we focus on the various participative and communicative practices employed by three distinct adult generational groups and by contemporary adolescents, all of whom experienced the process of socialization in their own specific historical contexts.

The report concludes descriptive findings of survey in Czech media audiences. The data from 1998 respondents was collected in October and December 2014 by Median; the collection employed quota sampling and computer-assisted personal interviewing. Besides the standard socio-demographic indicators, the questionnaire included questions regarding the full range of possible media-related practices including obtaining and reception of films, TV series and other TV content, news, sports, music, books, magazines and spoken word; online activities and use of social networking sites; playing computer- and videogames; ownership of media and computer technologies and access to the Internet; respondents' political and public activities. The report is published in Czech and English version.

Posljednjih godina svjedoci smo intenzivnih akademskih rasprava o potencijalu društvenih medija u Češkoj Republici. U fokusu tih rasprava uglavnom su stranice političkih stranaka na društvenim medijima, a u posljednje se vrijeme fokus akademskih rasprava o upotrebi društvenih medija pomaknuo na političare. Cilj je ovog rada pružiti uvid u ulogu Facebooka u komunikaciji političkih stranaka i kandidata za vrijeme čeških parlamentarnih izbora 2013. Analiziramo kako je sedam političkih stranaka i dvjesto političara prihvatilo Facebook kao mobilizacijski alat te tražimo sličnosti i razlike u smislu prihvaćanja, strategije i uključivanja korisnika. Iako se utjecaj političke stranke čini važnom varijablom, naše istraživanje upućuje na to da je za uspjeh na Facebooku na individualnoj razini vrlo važno korištenje drugih digitalnih kanala. ; The last few years have witnessed an intensified academic debate on the potential of online social networking sites (SNSs) in the Czech Republic. However, the ensuing academic discussions focused mostly on the SNS pages of political parties. Politicians in particular have recently become the focus of attention in the shift towards research exploring the use of SNSs. The aim of this paper is to provide insight into the role of Facebook in the communication of parties and candidates during the Czech parliamentary elections in 2013. We analyse the adoption of Facebook as a mobilization tool by seven parties as well as by 200 individual deputies, looking for similarities and differences in terms of the adoption, strategy and engagement of users. Although party influence seems to be a significant predictor of Facebook adoption, our data also indicate that using other digital channels increases the chances of higher engagement on Facebook at the individual level.

Research on political speeches is commonly undertaken in countries where the president has a powerful position, typically in the United States. In the Czech Republic, too, political speeches are an important instrument for influencing public opinion. Meanwhile, few politicians are so known for their fiercely held opinions on the European Union as former President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus; his speeches about the European Union are the subject of this article. Our research is based on quantitative and qualitative content analyses of the speeches posted on the former president's website ( http://www.klaus.cz ) from 1995 until the end of his presidency in March 2013. Our goal was to identify the changes over time in how he spoke about the European Union, and whether and in what way his positions and vocabulary on the subject evolved.

The paper presents a case study of the Czech online activist group Žít Brno. The group that challenges local representatives and employs tactics of political satire, parody and culture jamming, evolved from a spontaneous one-off event to an ongoing political project and eventually became an institutionalized political actor. The case study, based on interviews with group members, content analysis of the project website, longitudinal observation of the group's activities and other additional material, enables us to research the limits and the potential of online tactics and the way online practices are intertwined with a more traditional repertoire of collective action. Building on debates about online political participation and the broadening concept of the political, we interpret the group's protest as a reaction to the crisis of institutionalized local politics and we discuss the actual role of new media in such a protest. The conclusion is that online protest and new media, despite their criticized action-less character, could enable a functional bridge to "real" politics but at the same time they do not play an exclusive role in successful protest politics and have to be interpreted within the context of a particular political action.

This exploratory paper applying cross-cultural and developmental perspective analyses and discusses trust in alternative media and its relation to trust in professional media, seeking to identify the national specifics of media trust and its developmental patterns. Employing 2016 survey data of Czech, Estonian and Greek youth (aged 14–25, N = 3654) collected as part of the international CATCH-EyoU project (Horizon 2020), the study outlines the typology of media trust, comprising trust in alternative and professional media, and compares social and political predictors influencing media trust in the three countries. The study illustrates the diversity of relations between the two types of media trust, concluding that differences in selected predictors of media trust and the distribution of media trust types across national sub-samples illuminate the strong role national context plays, illustrating the varying pathways development of media trust follows in these varied contexts along socioeconomic and cultural lines.

This article introduces and validates a Political Antagonism Scale (PAS) aimed at capturing politically motivated antagonism among people in survey research. Recent trends indicate a rise in politically motivated polarization across various countries. This polarization often transcends mere ideological distance, fostering an identity-based "Us" versus "Them" political perspective. Consequently, this transforms the traditional agonistic political competition into a deeply adversarial antagonistic relationship, wherein political counterparts are viewed as enemies. Such conflict dynamics may have serious consequences for democratic politics and should be examined by scholars of political polarization across different political contexts and at different time points. However, a comprehensive survey tool addressing this form of polarization has been lacking. The PAS is designed to capture the complex nature of political antagonism and target individual antagonization towards their political outgroups on the level of social groups, political elites, the media, and everyday life. In addition, we present a regression model identifying potential sources of political antagonism. Our findings highlight the significant association between political antagonization and a prevailing sense of ontological insecurity.

This is the editorial of "Sociální studia / Social Studies" special issue focused on CATCH-EyoU project, funded by the European Union, Horizon 2020 Programme, Grant Agreement No 649538

U članku predstavljamo kvalitativno istraživanje svakodnevne građanske prakse dijela Čeha, s posebnim naglaskom na ulogu novih medija. Temi smo pristupili tako da smo se orijentirali na sadržaj, a ne na medije. U fokusu našeg istraživanja jesu načini na koje su građanske prakse strukturirane u užem i širem društvenom i političkom kontekstu te kako te kontekste doživljavaju postsocijalistički građani iz sela i velikih gradova. Uzimajući u obzir navedene kontekste, analizirali smo ulogu novih medija i građanske prakse u svakodnevnom životu. Istraživanje se temelji na polustrukturiranim dubinskim intervjuima s 22 politički i javno aktivna građanina, a pokazalo je da se Česi suočavaju sa sličnom krizom u institucionalnoj politici kao što je to slučaj i u starijim demokracijama. Istraživanje je također otkrilo razlike u načinu informiranja između sela i gradova, kako u participacijskim praksama tako i u načinima kako građani koriste nove medije. Međutim, istraživanje nije dokazalo da su novi mediji radikalno transformirali građanstvo, već je pokazalo da je došlo do suptilnih pomaka u praksi i do pragmatičnog miješanja komunikacije licem u lice i tradicionalnih medija (tiskani mediji, sustavi razglasa, oglasne ploče) s novim komunikacijskim tehnologijama. ; The article discusses qualitative research on the mundane civic practices of some Czechs, with a specific focus on the role of new media. It works with a context-oriented approach in order to avoid media-centrism. Our research is focussed on the ways in which civic practices are structured by immediate and wider social and political contexts and how they are experienced by post-socialist citizens from villages and large cities. The role of new media and the place of civic practices in everyday life is analysed with respect to these contexts. The research based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 22 politically and publicly active citizens indicates that Czechs experience a similar crisis in relation to institutional politics as their counterparts in long established democracies and it reveals tell-tale differences between the social spaces of villages and cities both in participatory practices and in civic uses of new media. However, the study does not indicate a radical, new media-driven transformation of citizenship, rather it suggests subtle shifts in practices and a pragmatic mixing of face-to-face communication and traditional media (print, public address systems, noticeboards) with new communication technologies.

Research on political speeches is often done in countries with strong presidential powers, typically in the USA. However, political speeches by presidents are also a critical method of influencing public opinion in the Czech Republic. Therefore this article is focused on the analysis of speeches of the former President of the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus. Our research is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Klaus' speeches (thematic units are used as the unit of analysis) found on his website (www.klaus.cz) in the period from 1995 to the end of his presidency, March 2013 (N = 470). We aim to identify the changing structure of political issues in Klaus' speeches and changes in Klaus' position on those issues, and to uncover any characteristic features of his speeches (the use of personal pronouns, the role of the speaker, the tone of the speech, etc.).