Political trials led by the communist regime against women in the case of Milada Horáková, Fráňa Zemínová and Antonie Kleinerová and their media representation in the Czech press of the time

The aim of this thesis is to analyze media reprezentation of three women in the trial Milada Horáková et al. in May and June 1950 concocted by four Czech leading Daily Newspapers of the time. It tries to evaluate the picture of women as an enemy for the communist regime. This Soviet style show trial represents some of the worst excesses of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in the fifties. In the theoretical part, it describes political, economical and social changes after the Communist takeover in February 1948. It points out the reasons for establishing and designing political trials in Czechoslovakia. The practical part represents the results of a basic quantitative analysis focused on size and its comparision of media attention of Milada Horáková, Frána Zemínová and Antonie Kleinerová in each newspaper and an interpretation of all different pictures of these women which the media offered to the public. This thesis reveals how the communist propaganda was used to identify the class enemy and then misused it to manipulate a public perception