Kraus Magazine in Terms of the Political Economy of Communication: A Critical Analysis of a Year of Existence of the New Concept in the Czech Media Market

This rigorous thesis researches the Czech printed magazine Kraus which was launched in November 2011 and ended in July 2012. The magazine was unique due to its media format of so called personality magazine. Kraus magazine was the first personality magazine in the Czech republic and no such other has been released since then. The thesis tracks and analyzes the existence of the magazine in Czech media market, while following the perspective of the critical political economy of communication. In order to put the Kraus magazine into a broader context of the political economy of communication, one part of the thesis is focused on foreign personality magazines such as Dutch Linda or American O, The Oprah Magazine. The successful Dutch Linda magazine was explicitly a pattern for Kraus, being published by the same media production company Sanoma Magazines. Another part of the thesis characterizes the public media image of Jan Kraus, a well-known Czech TV host, whose name and face the first Czech personality magazine bare. Marketing strategy, influences of the media management and ownership, advertising, internationalization, concepts such as commodification and structuration and more are the main interests of critical political economy and the key areas of this study too. The thesis includes a qualitative..