Bloggers as professional journalists

The thesis focuses on the status of the blogosphere in traditional journalism. It defines blogs, describes their history, typology and audience, which has changed from passive recipients of media content to its active creators. The thesis depicts convergence as a process in which amateur journalists affect the institution of traditional journalism by publishing online. This gave rise to a new phenomenon, called participative journalism, which is a potential source of discrepancy between traditional and new media. The thesis voices mutual criticism and arguments from both professional journalists and bloggers. This need not prevail if these two media systems learn to live in symbiosis. The thesis further mentions the legal protection of bloggers in the Czech Republic and the democratizing potential of the blogosphere. The conducted qualitative research is based on twelve structured in-depth respondent interviews (both bloggers and editors) and focuses on the cooperation between lifestyle magazines (and newspapers) and bloggers. It examines motivations to take up the cooperation, its progress and its advantages and disadvantages. The research demonstrates that a symbiotic relationship is possible. It also discusses some notions introduced in the theoretical part of the thesis