Publications

Kniha Labyrintem (teorie) hypertextu se zabývá mediálními a textuálními vlastnostmi hypertextů v situaci, kdy se stále častěji setkáváme s komunikáty, které obsahují celou řadu prvků připisovaných hypertextům, a celkově dochází k nárůstu výskytu elektronických textů, které si osvojují hypermediální logiku uspořádání informací. Na první pohled to tak vypadá, že se konečně začínají naplňovat více než šedesát let staré teorie a vize badatelů o takové textové struktuře, která by změnila způsob produkce i recepce textů. A nemalá skupina současných odborníků na elektronickou textualitu se znovu k těmto konceptům ráda odkazuje. Bližší pohled však ukazuje, že zaštiťování se těmito teoriemi je ve skutečnosti jejich nepochopením, a naopak se ukazuje v celé konceptuální neukotvenost výrazu hypertext v systémech jednotlivých disciplín. Stále chybí syntetizující, hranice jednotlivých disciplín překračující náhled, který by se věnoval textualitě a medialitě hypertextu. 
Předkládaná publikace se pokouší tuto mezeru zaplnit tím, že usazuje medialitu a textualitu hypertextu do historie příběhu tohoto pojmu a sleduje tento fenomén systematicky od jeho prvních konceptualizací až po jeho současné uchopování. Zvolená metaperspektiva pomáhá mj. pochopit příčiny neutěšeného stavu na poli současných teorií hypertextu, který nemalou část teoretiků nových médií vedl k zamítnutí tohoto konceptu. Situaci kolem způsobu nakládání s tímto konceptem lze navíc chápat i v rovině zástupné, neboť to, co je zde sledováno na příkladu hypertextu, se týká i celé řady dalších fenoménů z oblasti studia nových médií. Jsme tak svědky toho, že se poprvé v historii vědy intenzivně střetly perspektivy věd společenských a technických, a tím se ukázaly často až propastné odlišnosti ve způsobech jejich nahlížení a uchopování fenoménů spojených s fungováním tzv. nových médií. Předkládaný text lze tedy číst i jako kapitolu z příběhu o dialogu věd společenských a technických.

Výraz abecední média v názvu knihy připomíná, že už tří tisíce let mají komunikační média¨co do činění s abecedou. Dnes je abeceda předpokladem prakticky každého média zpracování, přenosu či uchování informace: co je DNA pro život obecně, to je ABC pro život lidí. Civilizace je funkcí abecedy a dějiny civilizace jsou putováním abecedy z křemičitého jílu tabulek do křemíku počítačových čipů. A tak jako po dlouhém archaickém období myšlení s hlasem nastalo dlouhé období myšlení s abecedním písmem, je před námi nyní dlouhé období myšlení s počítacím strojem. Abecední zápis, jako první univerzální symbolický stroj, se po tisíciletích zpředmětnil v druhém univerzálním stroji, hmotném počítači. Brzy na to se objevily problémy podobné těm, které v souvislosti s médii zaznamenaly už texty upanišad, Tóry či dialogů Platónových: i v dnešních diskusích o médiích se staví písmo proti obrazu, hlas proti písmu, tělo proti stroji. A do těchto debat zasahuje velká novota – metafyzické
médium počítač. Sebeurčování člověka dnes probíhá v prostředí utvářeném nejen lidmi a přírodou, ale významně též počítači v síti. Lidé vědí, že svět je do jisté míry také jejich dílem, a že do tohoto díla mohou zasahovat. Zcela nedávno svěřili některé zásahy počítači v síti, který je zatím posledním abecedním médiem. Nepřenesli však na počítač to, co na stroj přenést nelze: odpovědnost. Sebeurčování není možné bez násilného určování něčeho či někoho jiného. Přenesením některých určovacích procesů na počítače v sítích se procesy lidské emancipacev mnoha směrech zkomplikovaly a problém svobody získal nový rozměr, dosud jen velice málo prozkoumaný, a tudíž prakticky neřešený. Májin závoj, v současnosti tkaný z algoritmů
a vektorů, znesnadňuje rozumné vnímání řady problémů, z nichž mnohé jsme už měli za vyřešené. Harold Innis měl pravdu: nová média vždy produkují vážné problémy, jejichž řešení převrací staré pořádky, i filosofické. Nezbývá proto než mnohé již dobře promyšlené promýšlet a přemýšlet znovu…

This book is dedicated to media fans in the broader context of international fan studies. It is written as a ground work in this field in the context of Czech academia. It focuses on the common myths of fan studies and contextualizes fan’s contemporary situation in the new media technology discourse. The main interests are specifically fans and their activities and practices. To explain some of the fan phenomenon I revisited postulates of thirty-year fan studies tradition and its conceptualization of fans. I also drew from two case studies tied to two TV series with tight connection to the femslash fannish interpretations. The result of my book is a structuration of already existing information about fans and fan studies complemented by new findings and reflections. Based on theoretical revision of fan studies texts and findings from case studies, I constructed a new theoretical typology of fans. With the help of the conducted case studies, I introduce a new type of fan activity adding to the canonical typology of Henry Jenkins from 1990’s and Janet Staiger from 2005. Contextualization of case studies in femslash is also original and specific, it is still an underresearched part of motivation for fan practices in the context of worldwide media fan studies. More closely is introduced specific fan language – fanspeak, mainly its local part (femslash fanspeak). The book should serve as a basic theoretical piece for further researches on media fans in the context of (mainly) Czech academia.

The monograph aims for theoretical elaboration of expressivity and the creation of a taxonomy of expressive evaluative and non-evaluative language means of the basic language plans. It also monitors the pragmatic contexts of the use of the expressive means in specific texts and assesses their potential ability to influence the listeners / readers. The starting point is the assumption that the presence of expressivity and evaluation in news reporting represents a fundamental violation of the so-called objectivity of news.

The book focuses on the studies of popular culture and its recipients in the context of cultural studies knowledge. Firstly, in the section From mass production of culture to the fans’ participative production, the book offers a short historical excursus towards gradual changes of understanding the concepts of mass and popular culture, beginning with the primal concept of mass culture and its recipients and ending with the actual theory of popular culture and its users. The book focuses especially on current audiences and their newly establishing (or at least newly reflected) position of potential co-creators of media contents, which they originally used to passively consume only. Attention is also paid to technology mediating and enabling these changes in media communication, especially individual use of media production (for example on social networks). The perspectives outlined form a theoretical framework which is the basis for the chapters of the second section called Popular culture between industry and recipients. They point out what contemporary studies of popular culture pursue and can pursue in the Czech context, linking the initial cultural studies with other areas of interest, such as gender studies and fan studies. The chapters are the result of individual research interests and activities that were part of graduate works of various degrees of study at the Department of Media and Cultural Studies and Journalism at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc, and thus represent the most up-to-date data, which in the field of the popular culture studies in the Czech academic environment form the subject of research and theoretical interest. In her chapter, Barbora Kalousková follows the specific phenomenon of displacing queerness, which serves to “normalize” nonconformist characters (here homosexual) in the context of parenthood, as presented in the American television series Modern Family and The New Normal. Anna Bílá focuses on capturing the shift in the depiction of gender in fairy tales in the American television series Once Upon a Time. Petra Čížková describes various types of constructed femininities and the newly forming myth of beauty based on the production material of the two most followed Czech beauty vloggers. Věra Bartalosová deals with the media representation of the journalistic profession in the Czech television series Případy 1. oddělení [The 1st Department Cases]. Miroslav Libicher draws attention to the reductionism of Euro-American film studies and the potential of the contribution of theoretically-analytical interest in non-Western film culture in the study of pop culture. The character and structure of one of the main archives of fan fiction as well as the specifics of Czech-language production in its context are described by Radka Krčová. Monika Bartošová presents a specific topic of constructing non-heteronormative identities by users of media contents on the example of slash fiction fan works, which is followed by Iveta Jansová in the chapter focused on lesbian interpretations of femslash. The book as a whole should serve as a guidepost for those interested in studying cultural studies, popular culture, fans and new media, and especially for those interested in linking them. However, the main aim of the publication is to inspire the reader to further study various topics appearing in the context of the outlined perspectives... Download the content table in PDF

The meaning – the explicitness of which we often insist on so urgently – is not related to the designated items (if it were so, then we could hardly talk about e. g. love or political beliefs as both cannot be shown or photographed or measured exactly). Saussure's signifié is not the object we talk about, but our notion, conception, the eidolon of it: Idea by de Saussure, a sensory image of the word by Vygotski's, where both are the same. Thus, we must perceive language as a double-minded world, as the world in front of the unilaterally semipermeable mirror (the world with specific billions of realizations of language competence in communication as we perceive it on one side) and the world behind the mirror that is evident there, even if we do not see it, because language competence is the neurobiological ability of the human brain. However, He sees us from the opposite side of the imaginary mirror in our entire complexity, bearing the intellect, dementia, artistic talent, alcoholism, sociopathic inclinations or suicide. The brain works by dynamic interconnections of different areas of the grey cortex, encrypting and decoding our activities. According to a Russian linguist Yuriy Lotman, language interaction is a human relationship with “transmission and pause” – the key is the quantum of linear time filled with speech income on the one hand and Ancient Greek kairós (psychological time) on the other. In the present monograph, we have attempted to create a framework/frames for possible statistical research of language phenomena in their entire spectrum: From etymology and algorithms of creating expressions of languages in Indo-European parentage to political discourses, current and past.

The publication maps out the establishment of picture stories, later comics, in the domestic periodical press (first and foremost, satirical-humorous, social and children’s magazines) and this both from a historical as well as a theoretical perspective. The book is divided into three main sections, wherein the first treats thematically certain theoretical issues which define the picture story (and comics) along with the global context of the development of this form of expression. The second, primary and most extensive section, focuses on a detailed examination of domestic picture story production in the Czech and Slovak press. The third section provides several analyses which depict the immediate context in terms of territory, language and time-frame. The systematic analysis is finally supplemented by short summaries of the most significant figures and a calendar summarizing the most important moments over time in the development of the analyzed material as well as the defining contextual moments.

The text only pays limited attention to the establishment of the exile public sphere over the years following the Communist putsch in February 1948, although it does provide an overview of the most important expressions of media and information activity by exiles from this generation of refugees. The primary focus of the book is on the period after the invasion by the armies of the Warsaw Pact of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 which set into movement the most extensive wave of refugees in the modern history of the country. Members of this wave of exiles gradually developed extensive media and publishing activity in the West and contributed significantly to the renewal of the exile movement. Active public participation in the information and publishing spheres became one of the signs which served to define the overall profile of a generation of post-1968 refugees. “Tamizdat”, as the exile publishing activity is sometimes referred to, became a permanent part of unofficial media activity by exiles from the West for the domestic public.

The book introduces a social constructivist view on sexuality and gender, with the focus on the situation of people that can be labelled as non-heterosexual. Areas of life of non-heterosexual people that are covered by the book are, among others, concepts as coming out, school inclusive to gender and sexual diversity, civil partnership and marriage of same-sex couples, forms and specifics of homoparental families, and parental strategies of non-heterosexual couples.

The monograph focuses on the description and identification of individual and supraindividual features in discourses of selected moderators of the main news produced by the Czech television, ie. Události. At the same time attention is paid to what extent the moderator uses the means that have the potential to disrupt the reporting standard, and thus violate the principles of information quality. The taxonomy of feature-language devices has been used, however, new analysis and in particular comments on the analysis are extended to the evaluation of the unmarked means. The analyzed language means are quantified, recorded are their absolute occurrence in a single session and their relative frequency in one minute. The overall assessment of moderators always takes place within individual language levels

While the previous book bearing the subtitle "From Mr. Ťopásek to Superman" dealt with the works of authors creating picture stories mainly in the first half of the 20th century, the second volume of "The Stories of Czechoslovak Comics" shifts the focus to the period following World War II. This book is also divided into five sections. The first, introductory section entitled "Ze systému do systému" [From One System into Another] traces the fates and works of three picture stories authors who, each in his original way, tried to cope with the snares posed by the changing political regimes (Jan Fischer, Miloš Novák a Jozef Babušek - Schek). The second section entitled "Československá samosprašnost" [Czechoslovak Self-fertilisation] presents the works of authors who debuted between the mid-1950s and the early 1970s (Karel Franta, František Kobík a Pavol Moravčík). The third section entitled "3× Kája Saudek" focuses on the most distinctive Czechoslovak comics author in the post-war period. The fourth section Generace 89 [Generation 89] selects three artists from a very strong artistic wave whose début (postponed in a number of cases) was only made possible by the Velvet Revolution in 1989 (Miroslav Schönberg, Vladimír Tučapský, Ladislav Csurma). The concluding section "Tvůrci s československou krví" [Creators of Czechoslovak Blood] deals with authors who are only loosely related to the Czech and Slovakian comics scene, although their works pose an interesting parallel with the local production (Yaroslav Horak, Mojmír Ježek a Pavel Koza).

Monograph, subtitled From Mr. Ťopásek to Superman, structured into five sections, represents the history of the Czechoslovak comics in the 20th century in the form of biographically oriented chapter. In the historical context of the publication discusses the work of fifteen artists associated with the Czech and Slovak environment, including artists who have developed their careers abroad.

The monograph presents the methodology of media studies, especially approaches based on sociological tradition. The book invites the reader into the world of empirical research of the social sciences, it discuss its stages and provides support for a possible independent empirical work in the field of media research. The main effort of the author was to introduce the most commonly used methods in media research and culture implemented in the Czech Republic. It also presents examples of the research, analysis of media content and media recipients as well. Book presents the basic methodological concepts and provides guidance for developing the skills to acquire, analyse, interpret and present empirical findings. It explains the basic rules of scientific work and clarifies procedures of generation and verification of scientific knowledge in the field of media, cultural and communication studies. The book is designed for those interested in the functioning of the media in the late modernity and those who deal with the analysis of media content and research of media effects.

The goal of the book is to clearly discuss and offer a variety of concepts and approaches that make it possible to read, interpret, study, and analyse comics texts (whether specific individual comics or the most diversely defined groupings of comics) with new eyes. The twelve main chapters, supplemented with smaller side excursions, do not aim to be an „alpha-omega“ compilation, nor do they strive to offer an original or comprehensive general theory of comics. They aim primaly to initiate a guided discussion and to offer an introductory description of the characteristics of comics from broadest possible range of possible perspectives. For this purpose, this volume also contains a glossary of key terms linked to a theoretically oriented study of comics as well as annotated list of recommended literature that provide relevant sources for each topic, thus enabling readers to further their „comicsological“ research.

Monograph based on the university grant project processes the taxonomy of language means violating of the norm in media news reporting. Theoretically and methodologically is established on the assumption of conceptual compatibility of functionally oriented stylistics, which considers the informative function as the basic stylistically unmarked function, and of the information quality principles designed in the concept by Jörgen Westerståhl. The created tool for the analysis of news reporting in terms of use of the language means was then applied in the analysis of the main television news channels CT1 and TV Nova. For both stations the results of the analyses identify actual language means interfering with the rules of information quality and show the individual trespasses, thus detecting the breaches of TV news reporting identity (referring to its purpose, i.e. to inform), to its form, i.e. language means, and to its meaning, i.e. relation to reality).

The book discusses C. S. Pierce's semantic system within the context of newest findings on neurophysiologic nature of the language. This is applied to cognitive psychology of media mainly in the context of multimediality. Aesthetics of information in the digitality of modern media is a narrative aspect of (mainly electric) application of principles of tragedy and comedy in the context of ritualised media influence.

The History of Czechoslovak Comics of the 20th Century traces the development and changes in comics as an art form in today’s Czech and Slovak Republics, from their early beginnings in the Czech and Slovak language periodicals of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire, through their precipitous development after 1989 and the subsequent dissolution of Czechoslovakia. In this history of Czechoslovak comics, emphasis has of course been placed on original domestic creation, but not to the detriment of exploring the inseparability of Czechoslovak production from the international context. The history of Czechoslovak comics as presented in this book project is therefore situated within its logical context – cultural in general, and comics specifically – with an emphasis on changes and developmental trends, and not merely as a collection of isolated profiles of selected personalities and texts. The topic of interest thus includes not only the history of local comics creation, but also the changes in the reception of comics within the Czechoslovak cultural space and by society as it was.

The book, The Media and Speed: Dromoscopic dromology of dromospheric dromocracy, deals with the texts of French theorist and critic Paul Virilio. Its three parts, entitled Media and Dromocracy, Media and Dromoscopy, and Media and Telecracy, address, respectively, the main problems examined by Virilio approximately in the past 40 years from the vantage point of dromology, or a study of speed and a study of psychological, social and cultural consequences of fast mediation.

Kniha si klade za cíl zpřehlednit oblast mediální výchovy a rozšířit diskusi o ní mimo oblast školství, jelikož s médii se děti setkávají především a nejdříve v rodině. Ačkoliv je mediální výchova nepopiratelně prostor interakce mezi rodiči, dětmi a samotnými médii, kniha se zaměřuje především na rodiče – konkrétně na nástroje, kterými mohou mediální vychovávání svých dětí realizovat. V tomto ohledu jde především o možnosti záměrného působení, které se nejčastěji objevuje v podobě pravidel, která například zakazují či povolují užívání určitých médií nebo konzumaci určitých obsahů, dále jde o výchovně motivované diskuse s dětmi o médiích nebo společné užívání médií. Širším rámcem pro tyto nástroje jsou postoje k médiím, k jejich předpokládanému vlivu.

This publication is the first book of a three volume study on the current form of discourse in television news. The content of the first part is called TV news as a comprehensive communiqué (theory and model of analysis) and its aim is finding of a heuristic and corresponding analytical tools based on critical reflection of existing theoretical concepts and their reconceptualization.

The book presents an innovative application of traditional concepts of philosophy of language, sociology and semiotics on media and (mediated) communication. Following contemporary concepts that reflect media (Flusser, Virilio, Castells) publication highlights multilayer character of the relationship and mutual interference of media, communication and society. Specifically, it focuses on (re)formulation of philosophical assumption of this triad within linguistic/communication turn, postmodernity and ?medial? reading of the history of philosophy.

The book presents an innovative application of traditional concepts of philosophy of language, sociology and semiotics on media and (mediated) communication. Following contemporary concepts that reflect media (Flusser, Virilio, Castells) publication highlights multilayer character of the relationship and mutual interference of media, communication and society. Specifically, it accents the philosophical reflection of elementary media (speech, writing and image) and the language of religion and science through the perspective of sub-specie communi(cati)ons.

Papers included in this book were presented at the international colloquium “Comics Studies: potentials and perspectives”, which was held at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc on 26th and 27th April 2011. The colloquium was jointly organised by the Centre for Cultural, Media and Communication Studies at the Faculty of Arts and the Institute of Czech Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v. v. i.

Dictionary deliberately builds on the earlier Dictionary of Literary Theory (2006), extending the literary aspect of the media for the medial and in particular multimedia universe of civilization. It seeks to capture the current state of research of media and mediality, theoretical and empirical, in its development from the twenties of the 20th century to the present. Emphasis on the issue of the evolution of scientific ideas on the media and the consequences of changes in scientific and paradigmatic shifts in this area and their impact on research methodology, such as changes of the notion of the omnipotent media to agreed/negotiated/conventional effects of media.

The book A history of the Czech media of the 20th century focuses on the development of print, radio and television as well as transformations in the press agency, media legislature, censorship practice and the journalism profession starting from the period when the Czech lands were part of Czechoslovakia (over the years 1918-1992).

The introduction of the textbook concerns general theory of communication, it follows the approach of traditional function stylistics to production of linguistic communication and confronts it to modern approach of external linguistics. The second part deals with production of journalistic communications whereby the point of departure is the framework of mass communication which has substantial effect on final form of linguistic communications in connection with general communication framework. The textbook is focused on phraseology of external linguistics and further more on text components, models and figures and on non-classifiable texts as for their genre and hypertexts. A procedural type of approach is applied. The content and structure of the text correspond with operative (teaching) point of view. A CD with journalistic texts is enclosed to the textbook.

Kniha si klade za cíl zpřehlednit oblast mediální výchovy a rozšířit diskusi o ní mimo oblast školství, jelikož s médii se děti setkávají především a nejdříve v rodině. Ačkoliv je mediální výchova nepopiratelně prostor interakce mezi rodiči, dětmi a samotnými médii, kniha se zaměřuje především na rodiče – konkrétně na nástroje, kterými mohou mediální vychovávání svých dětí realizovat. V tomto ohledu jde především o možnosti záměrného působení, které se nejčastěji objevuje v podobě pravidel, která například zakazují či povolují užívání určitých médií nebo konzumaci určitých obsahů, dále jde o výchovně motivované diskuse s dětmi o médiích nebo společné užívání médií. Širším rámcem pro tyto nástroje jsou postoje k médiím, k jejich předpokládanému vlivu.