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Evolution of the Idea of the "Russian Threat" to the Security of the European Union and NATO
Peleshenko, Anastasiia ; Ditrych, Ondřej (advisor) ; Martinková, Viera (referee)
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, the illegal annexation of Crimea, and the Russian proxy-war in the Donbas region of Ukraine, the idea of the Russian threat to the West has emerged in the academia and political discourse. While generally accepted as a serious concern among both Western democracies and international organizations, its conceptual complexity increased with time, to the point that the understanding of which Russian capabilities and foreign activities had to be considered threatening became multifaceted and convoluted. In order to understand how the idea of the Russian threat has evolved over the years, a discourse analysis of the texts from the EU and NATO was conducted, examining how the factors of context, identity, and goals have affected the articulation of the discourse. Research has shown that even though Russia gained a status of an ideological Other to the West, it was not always considered a threat. Additionally, while the awareness and understanding of the threats it posed to Western democracies grew over time, the organization(s) could not always articulate a clear discourse of the Russian threat. The changing contexts, the identities of the organizations and the values they are based on, as well as the EU and NATO's goals pertaining to Russia, have both...
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The Phenomenon of the "Intellectual Dark Web"
Drake, Daniel ; Miessler, Jan (advisor) ; Lütke Notarp, Ulrike (referee)
This paper investigates the topic of the "Intellectual Dark Web" - a supposed grouping of academics, authors and other personalities, whose opinions are deemed to be controversial. Due to a lack of academic coverage, the paper pinpoints the background from which this term had arisen and tries to find out whether the group can be considered a coherent entity. The research part of the thesis is divided into two phases. In the first, the three most prominent protagonists (Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, and Ben Shapiro) are subjected to a Critical discourse analysis from which the five most recurrent themes emerge. These are identity, free speech, anti-left, anti-elite, and appeal to reason. Subsequently, ten content pieces for each of the authors are analysed to find out whether these five topics overlap across time and different types of media formats. The biggest overlap was detected in the anti-left rhetoric, although there seemed to be a subtle difference in what the respective men mean when they use the word "Left". Similar conclusions were made on the topic of identity and the opposition to elites. The analysis also showed that in addition to the identified common topics, each of the authors focuses on a somewhat different area, in which, due to their different ideological and, above all,...
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"It's something like man flu": Male view on period
Dostálková, Michaela ; Vávra, Martin (advisor) ; Kobová, Ĺubica (referee)
The diploma thesis "It's something like man flu": Male view on period discusses the way men talk about menstruation, what is the level of their communication on that topic and how they view menstruating women. The text also reveals the stereotypes on menstruation in our society, and, last but not least, focuses on men's discourses of periods. The thesis focuses on three age groups classified as generations X, Y and Z. The theoretical part presents the basic concepts used in the text, such as gender, discourse, stereotype, etc. In this section, menstruation is viewed from biological, linguistic, historical and societal perspective which demonstrates the fact that within our society, it is an important part of women's lives. Subsequently, there is a part devoted to the definition of the term generation and the distinctions typical for each generation. The aim of this thesis is to, by using a mixed research, reveal men's approach towards periods. In addition to semi-structured interviews with men from individual generations, the author made use of an on-line questionnaire as well. Keywords Menstruation, generation, discourse, stereotype, cultural studies.
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Challenging Hegemony: Coercion, Repression and Protest in Liberal Democracies.
Čapinská, Barbora ; Kýrová, Lucie (advisor) ; Gagnon, Jean-Paul (referee) ; Wahlström, Mattias (referee)
Barbora Čapinská Abstract for dissertation thesis Challenging hegemony: coercion, repression, and protest in liberal democracies Year of defence: 2022 Abstract: This dissertation project identifies and classifies the types of coercive and repressive methods liberal democratic states use to prevent, resist, or suppress protest via analysis of secondary literature from several disparate academic fields. Despite the substantial fragmentation of the relevant research, it systematizes and clarifies the terminology used to describe these phenomena and combines the extant findings from all relevant research strands. Above all, the project stresses the fact that repressions are employed in response to a threat posed by the challengers, but the degree of this threat, or respectively legitimacy of the protest, is influenced or even constructed by the mass media coverage of protest and social movements. By endorsing a discourse-theoretical prism and the concept of hegemony, a relational definition of state, and a three-dimensional view of power, the author proposes to view protest and repression as a hegemonic struggle, in which protest is a counter-hegemonic discourse and the state an embodiment of hegemony suppressing challenges. To supplement existent typologies, the author introduces the concepts 'institutional...
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Analysis of the Official Israeli Discourse during the Second Intifada: Categorisation and Legitimisation
Záhora, Jakub ; Střítecký, Vít (advisor) ; Drulák, Petr (referee)
This thesis named "Analysis of the Official Israeli Discourse during the Second Intifada: Legitimization and Categorization" is concerned with discursive construction of Palestinian terrorism and Israeli security policies by Israeli officials in the period following 2000. The paper draws on works which refuse to perceive language as neutral communication means to describe the social reality, and instead approach it as a tool to impose and maintain social and political inequality and dominance of some groups over others. These theoretical foundations underpin the following research which examines legitimation strategies employed by Israeli officials in order to justify Israeli controversial measures aiming to quell Palestinian terrorism during the Second Intifada. The paper identifies several discursive schemes through which Israeli state representatives purported to legitimize Israeli security policies that were harshly criticized at the time. The basic strategy is to depict and categorize Israelis as peace yearning people who relentlessly offer far-reaching compromises aiming to achieve calm, which proposals are being adamantly rejected by Palestinians whose only reaction is resort to terror. The thesis further deals with Israeli officials' reframing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a part...
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Anti-immigrant Rhetoric and the Concept of National Identity in the French Presidential Campaign in 2012
Žižková, Markéta ; Matějka, Ondřej (advisor) ; Tomalová, Eliška (referee)
The thesis Anti-immigrant Rhetoric and the Concept of National Identity in the French Presidential Campaign in 2012 is focused on the political discourse of three main candidates of the French presidential campaign in 2012 (Marine Le Pen, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande). The aim of the research is to analyze the image of immigration and immigrants and on the other hand French and national identity in the discourse of the politicians. As methodological basis for the research critical discourse analysis was selected, completed by analysis of metaphors. The thesis is based on the theoretical framework composed of the following concepts: 1/ discursive reproduction of the racism by so called symbolic elites, 2/ new racism and 3/ construction of national identity. The thesis also presents the social and political context of the election. The main objective of the research is to answer the following research questions: How does the political discourse of presidential candidates deepen the gap between positive self-presentation and negative presentation of the others? And to which extent in the discourse of individual candidates can it be seen? The thesis describes specific topics, topoi and discursive strategies which are used by the candidates.
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Bernard Malamud's Selected Fiction in the Context of Black-Jewish Literary Relations
Simonová, Anna ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
Although Bernard Malamud's fiction has been frequently regarded as allegorical and symbolic, Malamud did not avoid the period's social issues in his works, such as the racial question and the changing nature of relationship between American Jews and African Americans. The present thesis aims to discuss Malamud's selected fiction dealing with Black- Jewish relations, namely short stories "Angel Levine," (1955) "Black Is My Favorite Color" (1963) and the novel The Tenants, (1971) and to place them into the context of Black-Jewish relations in the United States and of Black-Jewish literary dialogues and the tensions they express. It thus seeks to evaluate Malamud's role in the discourse of Black-Jewish relations in America. Calling upon a theoretical framework, outlined in chapter 2, based on philosophical and sociological findings of Judith Butler, John Searle, and Michael Omi with Howard Winant, the study examines the role of language and literature in constructing the Self and the Other (understood both as individual and collective identities, including categories of race and ethnicity), suggesting thus that literary texts, such as Malamud's selected fiction, are a part of discursive dialogue through and against which American Jews and Blacks construct their identities. Apart from the approaches to...
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Smokers, Snuffers and Cigarette Smokers: The Representation of the Consumers of Tobacco Products in the Public Sphere between 1864 and 1914
Holíková, Tereza ; Storchová, Lucie (advisor) ; Šima, Karel (referee)
The subject of this thesis is the analysis of the period discourse of tobacco product consumption in the Czech lands between the years 1864 and 1914 with main focus on the unifying and differentiating potential of tobacco. The aim of the thesis is to portray how the tobacco consumer was perceived, whether they were a pipe smoker, cigar smoker, a smoker of cigarettes newly mechanically massproduced in this period or individuals insufflating ground tobacco, usually called snuffers. The thesis deals with the representation of the physical appearance and characteristic attributes of tobacco consumers in period source material. It also tries to depict how the smoking and snuffing by women and children was perceived. This thesis also aims to capture the social distinction that tobbaco consumption was associated with and how it was perceived by individual social groups of the period. The representation of period social space and its segmentation in connection to tobacco consumption is also a part of this research. The thesis also addresses the interconnection of the period eugenics discourse and the tobacco discourse. A wide spectrum of period monographies and periodics dealing with tobacco consumption was analysed as well as selected period illustrations representing tobacco consumption. The source of...
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Media Discourse Analysis of rigt-wing weblog Altermedia.info
Bártová, Kateřina ; Jirků, Jan (advisor) ; Křeček, Jan (referee)
The thesis called Qualitative Analysis of Media Discourse of the Far-right Blog cz.altermedia.info deals with the discourse analysis of the Czech version of an international project Altermedia.info. Discourse analysis aims at differences between the discourse of the founding editor and the current one and analyses the neo-fascist nature of the blog. The theoretical framework of the analysis is based on the postmarxist theory of discourse introduced by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. The theoretical part of the thesis summarizes the findings of researchers who are engaged in discourse analysis (structuralism, poststructuralism, Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Norman Fairclough, Teun van Dijk). The thesis also examines how specific meaning is constructed within the nationalist discourse of Altermedia and to what extent a new team of authors contributed to the change of discourse. The analysis identifies the main nodal points, which are involved in the construction of discourse, and examines the antagonistic processes within the two different editors. Discursive analysis reveals particular inclination of the current discourse of Altermedia for the neo-Nazi ideology, and thus indicates the fundamental antagonism between the founding editors and current one.
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