Red danger before elections: Trick or threat? Cover Image

Red danger before elections: Trick or threat?
Red danger before elections: Trick or threat?

Author(s): Lenka Vochocová, Jan Křeček
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego
Keywords: anti-communism; Czech newspapers; parliamentary election; specific status; qualitative analysis; Communist Party; media involvement

Summary/Abstract: Before the parliamentary election in 2006 we focused on the tendency of the Czech society and especially media to exclude one of the parliamentary parties – the Communist Party – from the government and to actively construct its status as specific. We designate this tendency as anti-communism, a word commonly used in the Czech political communication. According to our outcomes, anti-communism was a remarkable trend at the pages of at least three Czech dailies: Mladá Fronta DNES, Lidové noviny and Hospodářské noviny. Th e anti-communism as performed in their content was not only a media representation of an all-society phenomenon. It was actively constructed and supported by the journalists, editors and publicists of these dailies. Especially the two first mentioned newspapers can be perceived as actively anti-communist media both in the sense of their own involvement (the agenda setting, the content of editorials, etc.) and the manifest support of anti-communist voices (even PR information at the news pages). Právo, the fourth analyzed newspaper, can be by contrast characterized as anti-anticommunist or at least anti-antileft ist trying to construct a more positive image of the Communist Party and challenging the anti-communist tendencies.

  • Issue Year: 2/2009
  • Issue No: 03
  • Page Range: 307-318
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: English