Mass media portrayal of Czech courts

This thesis focuses on the mass media portrayal of Czech courts in the context of the possible influence on the court's legitimacy and confidence. The research of portrayal is based on the analysis of Fagan's dimensions of legitimacy (effectiveness, distributive justice and procedural justice), court rulings and the overall view. The representation of sources of legitimacy rather corresponds to materialistic society - the most represented dimension in 2014 was the effectiveness, on the other hand, distributive justice was represented the least. Normative factors, namely procedural fairness, however, were not covered much. The portrayal in 2014 was, in terms of judicial rulings and the overall view, rather neutral but the sources of legitimacy were mostly negative. Differences were mainly found among mass media portrayal of the lower courts and higher courts and the differences correspond to different confidence in these institutions. I also studied the development since 1997, but besides the increasing interest of mass media in the courts, I have not found any other significant differences which could cause the rise of confidence in the courts. Mass media can also cause the difference in confidence in the courts of the left-wing and right-wing oriented people, because the journal Pravo has a slight..