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Proactive pacifism in Japan's foreign policy
Švárová, Kristýna ; Kolmaš, Michal (advisor) ; Karmazin, Aleš (referee)
This bachelor thesis offers a complex empirical evaluation of proactive pacifism in Japanese foreign policy in the last years of Prime Minister Abe's government. Proactive pacifism represents a great challenge to Japan's future direction. Scholars are debating whether Japan has radically changed in recent years under the Abe reforms and whether it abandons its policy of post-war pacifism, or whether it is only evolutionary development which is still strongly constrained by rooted social and cultural norms based on the pacifist constitution. For the needs of empirical analysis of proactive pacifism in Japanese foreign policy, three criteria have been established - 1) the legislative and the institutional criterion, 2) the militaristic criterion and 3) the social criterion. The institutional and the legislative criteria show significant change in the Japanese post-war development. Sending Japanese SDFs abroad is nothing new in the recent decades but exercising the right to collective self-defense is a major step. The use of weapons in foreign missions is for many authors a proof that Japan is abandoning its post-war pacifism. However, the militaristic and the social criteria showed that post-war pacifism still has a significant impact on political and foreign behavior. Japan is still far from being...
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Framing of Homelessness by the Czech Nationwide Media
Straškrábová, Eva ; Němcová Tejkalová, Alice (advisor) ; Veselková, Zuzana (referee)
1 Annotation This master's thesis focuses on a specific area of mass media functioning, with reference to a particular social problem - homelessness. Descriptive analysis is used to investigate media content by original research, and to identify frames, which typically accompany the topic of homelessness in the Czech nationwide media. Therefore, the main theoretical framework is outlined by the paradigm of social constructivism and the theory of media framing. The major part of the presented text is the research itself, initially inspired by the foreign media studies of T. G Shields (2001) and C. Zufferey (2014). The method of quantitative content analysis is used to explore the contents of six selected nationwide media, covering three various media types. To be exact, the contents considered are media news issued by daily Právo and Blesk, by television channels ČT 1 and Nova, and radio channels Radiožurnál and Impuls, within the decade of January 1st 2007 to December 31st 2016. Primary attention is drawn to the media space dedicated to reporting on the topic of homelessness, to the manner in which homeless people are represented in the media, to framing of causes and treatment of homelessness, and to the speakers, who are given the chance to explicitly speak in the media. Last but not least, the scope and...
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Migration crisis and security of the Czech Republic from the perspective of Parlamentní listy, Sputnik and Aeronet in 2015 and 2016
Červenková, Romana ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Kaleta, Ondřej (referee)
The master's thesis deals with disinformation websites' migration crisis framing regarding the Czech Republic. The thesis is based on the theory of social constructivism, which considers a speech act to be a crucial factor of securitization. The author proceeds mainly from the work of Thierry Balzacq, who reckons media to be the main securitization actors. The theoretical base of this thesis is supplemented by the theory of moral panic, which comes into being due to impact of securitization of particular person/group/institution. The thesis researches the way how migration crisis was securitized from 2015 to 2016. Therefore content analysis and discourse analysis are used. The articles, which are subjected to the research were published by Parlamentni listy, Sputnik and Aeronet. Articles were subjected to content analysis so as the author was able to find out which keywords emerged most frequently. Particular phrases were linked to specific themes, which consisted of "Security", "Criticism of government" and "National identity". After the quantitative analysis, the articles were subjected to qualitative analysis based on James Paul Gee's method, which allows the author to understand the used discourse and the context, within which the discourse emerged. Particular articles are then researched...
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Visuality of sweetness in marketing communication
Krementáková, Tereza ; Fišerová, Michaela (advisor) ; Kladný, Tomáš (referee)
The goal of this paper is to explore a visuality of sweetness. It is social construct with a sentimental meaning and it is used by marketing communication. We suppose that our phenomena is not build up on connotation such as a taste of sensation how it could be asssumed. It is build by a sentimental meaning. For a verification we establish conditions which have to be proved by a representation to be labeled as the visuality of sweetness. The selected phenomena is close to Barthes's theory of myth as a secondary semiotic system. That is the reason why we need to address this dilemma. The background of an origin of the sweetness visualitation could help us understand Hackley's critical view on prism of social constructivism. Both theories could not be complete in a measure of marketing communication and a whole concept of sweetness visualisation is completed in Kress's multimodality theory. The part of the paper is empirical semiotic material which helps us to demonstrate a scale of a use of sweetness visualisation from a binary oppossition to a complete use of visual sweetness in marketing communication.
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The changes in foreign policy of Russia during the first presidential term of Putin
Muchin, Viktor ; Dubský, Zbyněk (advisor) ; Eichler, Jan (referee)
The aim of this bachelor thesis is evaluation of changes in Russian foreign policy during the first presidential term of Putin. The thesis is divided into two parts- theoretical and practical. In theoretical part I am concerned with operating one of the theories of international relations called social constructivism. This theory brought manifold changes into foreign policy of Russia through seeking Russian own national identity. My observational question asks to which magnitute national aspect of Russia was approved in its foreign policy. Social constructivism is consequently introduced in the analysis of three Russian doctrinal documents- the National Security Concept, Military doctrine and the Foreign policy Concept of 2000. In practical part I present the application of this theory on demanded complex of co-operation with the USA as the representative of Western civilization, while there is also the effort to maintain the sphere of influence on post-soviet region such as Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus.
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Finnish-Russian Relations after the End of Cold War
Janegová, Zuzana ; Dubský, Zbyněk (advisor) ; Veselý, Zdeněk (referee)
Finnish-Russian relations after the end of Cold war are considered to be a unique form of cooperation between countries of different ideological backgrounds. This thesis focuses on the analysis of mutual historical relations of Finland and Russia, which overlap to the time after the end of the Cold war; these are deep rooted in Finland's primary endeavor to keep its status of neutrality. The main aim of this thesis is the evaluation of Finnish postneutrality as an effective tool of foreign policy against Russia with respect to the historical reflection of both countries with most regard to the social and cultural differences in the society. The base theory for determinating mutual sociocultural distinction is social constructivism from which the national identities are defined. These are essential for the enemy image provision and above all for the evaluation of the Finnish foreign policy and Finnish political behavior towards Russia. The changes and transformation of the concept of postneutrality follows in regard to the integration process in Europe with the emphasis on the security keeping possibilities related to the potential accession to NATO.
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What has Charlie said about us? Media discourse analysis after the Charlie Hebbo terrorist attack.
Vacková, Kateřina ; Křeček, Jan (advisor) ; Šoltys, Otakar (referee)
This thesis deals with the qualitative text analysis of media discourses related to the 7th January 2015 terrorist attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo's staff. In accordance with social constructionism theory, the term terrorism is here understood as a social construct and mass media is considered to be one of the social construction agents. The objects of analysis are journalistic texts published during the one-month period of 7th January - 7th February 2015. As a resource for the analysis I have chosen the daily newspaper Lidové noviny, the weekly magazine Týden, online newspaper IHNED.cz and TV programme Události, komentáře. The texts were analysed through the combination of grounded theory method and four steps of foucaultian discourses analysis described by Carla Willig. The aim of this paper is to discover and to interpret the most significant discursive constructions of Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack that appeared in the Czech media, to situate the same discursive object within wider or global discourses, to describe positions that discourses make available or attribute to the subjects and social actors, and to define the practices arising from these discourses. The media event of Charlie Hebdo attack has been closely related to the topics of freedom of speech, 9/11 terrorist...
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Social Construction of Species superiority
Klicnar, Filip ; Vandrovcová, Tereza (advisor) ; Balon, Jan (referee)
This thesis charts the social construction of species superiority in the Euro-Atlantic civilizational area. The goal is to describe the process of construction of this superiority and simultaneously to describe the impact of it. The beginning of the species superiority was domestication of the wild animals. Second defining moment was the transition from a traditional into industrial society, in which the animals where materialized and considered to be an object in trading relationships, as well as the belief in legitimate use of animals for economic purposes in the society. This belief is thoroughly irrational. Throughout the process of reality construction the society begun to perceive the given status as natural and right. In order to escape the question of ethical contradiction it has crowded out the negative aspects of that reality from the perception of its members, in which some psychological mechanisms are helping individuals to escape the reality. The final chapter of this thesis charts the conditions that have made the Holocaust possible and on which our modern rational-economic system lays ground. These conditions are being preserved in the "nature" of the economic system itself.
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Comparison of Hans Kung and his work Global Ethics with the Civil Religion
Knotek, Daniel ; Hošek, Pavel (advisor) ; Hajko, Dalimír (referee)
This Diploma Thesis deals with two universalistic conceptions, represented by the Swiss Catholic Theologist Hans Küng and his work Global Ethics, and the Civil Religion. In the first part of my text, I bring in the personality of Hans Küng, his work, ideas and the book Global Ethics which received great acclaim on international forum, Churches and society. Küng draws up three basic theses: No world peace without peace among religions. No peace among religions without dialogue between the religions. No dialogue between the religions without accurate knowledge of one another. These theses express the need for a dialogue, being able to formulate viable visions of the future. In the second part of my work, I introduce a less known notion of the Civil Religion with its transformations and development throughout the history. It is a concept exceeding the border of sociology, political science, philosophy and theology, examining the formative processes of the society and its religious reference speech. It penetrates the academic discourse especially in the period between the 1960s and 1980s, as represented e.g. by the American sociologist Robert Bellah. In the third part of my text, I compare both the universalistic conceptions and try to find out where they intersect and in which respect each of them has...
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Discourse analysis of creation of public space in Prague
Hladík, Zdeněk ; Matoušek, Roman (advisor) ; Pospěch, Pavel (referee)
The central idea of this diploma thesis is perception of public space as something unnatural. Its existence and functioning is affected by its users. However, in society there are many interest groups, which have some requirements on public space and try to imprint theirs notions into it. One such attempt could be document Strategie rozvoje veřejných prostranství hl. m. Prahy/ návrh, which presents itself as revolutionary document of development, that its content should be in accordance with interests of community. But is it really so? Accepting the principles of social constructivism and using discourse analysis as main research method we should be able to say 1) how in this document is presented public space of Prague and its creation and 2) how visions of this document (its authors) are distinct form public discourse. The result of this diploma thesis should be to determine whether the content of document is really written in accordance with interests of inhabitants of Prague and if it's really so unique, as it says. Key words: City, development, discourse, discourse analysis, IPR, public space, Prague, social constructivism
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