Search

Copyright of Pravnik is the property of Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of State & Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is supposed to be a contribution to contemporary discussion about creating “the others” as a populist strategy. One can say that the role of the most important “the others” in modern Czech history has been played by the Germans (as a nation) and/or by Germany (as a political unit). On the case of Czech President Miloš Zeman, the goal of this paper is to show the process of creation “the others”. The main questions of this text are: “Are the Germans the object of othering by Miloš Zeman? If yes, what are his arguments for creating this enemy of the Czech people?” This paper stands as a content analysis of dataset consist of all speeches, interviews, and articles by Miloš Zeman from his whole first presidential term in office. The main findings of this analysis are related to the reframing of the image of the Germans as a source of danger for the Czech people. Originally, Miloš Zeman used to speak mostly about the problems related to the so-called “Sudeten question”. However, this argumentation has been changed and Miloš Zeman has been speaking especially about the negative role of Germany during “immigration crisis” and immigration politics of Angela Merkel during the last years. Islam and immigration seem to be discoursively strong topics able to replace former importance of some other issues (the insignificant number of immigrants and especially Muslims in the country notwithstanding). Zeman often uses the historical images of Nazism to delegitimize Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is concerned with activities of German institution from Mainz Stiftung Lesen. Author's aim is to present the last of its surveys (2008) against a background of other publications and activities that Stiftung Lesen has rendered. As for results, the survey was organized in relationship to two main topics: reading of minority national groups in Germany and reading within Internet. Results show that reading still represents a key competence, even for such activities as dealing with Internet and other media. One can witness no competition between these two media, but rather an attempt how to organize their roles and cultural cooperation anew. Once again, the book is not dying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the media may be analyzed in rather different ways. The present article first presents approaches customarily used by media and communication sciences in the past and goes on to discuss novel approaches to media history and recent findings of the historical sciences. The authors favor placing less emphasis on the contents of selected media and their individual development and more on how the media fit into social history, since almost every topic, at least as far as the modern age is concerned, has aspects relevant to media history. Only rarely, however, have these aspects been analyzed in political, cultural or social history, research into historical gender relations, the history of towns or cities or the history of transnational relations. Possible results of this latter approach are listed predominantly for developments since the late nineteenth century in the German environment, for which there are much more studies than there are for Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]