Blogs and their role in media

PhDr. thesis is focused on the role of blogs compared to the other media in the mediation process of a news topic and an expert topic. The theoretical part depicts the development of blogs and distinct definitions of this term. Blogs are subsequently analyzed through the scope of democratic media and democratization of the public sphere. Principles of produsage are used to discuss the role of blogging compared to the other media types. After that more technological view of the blogging follows - that of new media. The main principles of these media are used to discuss distinctive characteristics of blogs. Finally, this part offers summary of the former studies concerned with blogging. On the basis of the theoretical part research questions and hypotheses are constructed. The practical part is concerned with carrying out the content analysis of the articles connected to two different topics. As the news topic the topic of placing the US radar on the Czech Republic territory was chosen. This topic was covered between years 2006 and 2008. Introduction of the new micropayment service PaySec was chosen as the expert topic. Individual findings are interpreted with the help of statistical methods. Conclusion discusses generalized findings and theoretical implication of the study