The Evolution of the Media Image of Athletics Championships on Czech News Websites

This thesis reports on an evolution of the media image of major athletics competitions, concretely of the World Athletics Championships and the European Athletics Championships. Using grounded theory methodology, the thesis seeks to examine which topics are used by Czech sports journalists publishing on sport.iDnes.cz, iSport.cz, and Sport.cz news websites. This paper aims to uncover the media's agenda and its eventual gradual changes based on articles dedicated to five chosen championships. The qualitative content analysis covers the period from 2009 to 2018. All the detected topics are divided into categories and subcategories, the findings are exemplified by quotations of relevant journalistic texts. The results of this analysis demonstrate the media image of the athletics. Besides that, the thesis also shows how the Czech online media worked with several sporting events. The final part of this paper includes a comparison of observed championships and a description of categories' development. The findings are also represented in a chart