Media image of czech presidents in the normalization era and in the present

This thesis, The Media Image of Czech Presidents during the Normalisation Period and Today looks at the visual component of the media image of Normalisation-era president Gustáv Husák and democratic president Václav Havel. The study looks at their visual representations in the newspapers Rudé právo, Mladá fronta and Mladá fronta DNES. The theoretical part of the study focuses on defining the role of President in the Czech political system, and outlines the historical context. The research part comprises a quantitative and qualitative analysis of photographs published in the determined newspapers. The study also details the characteristic activities of official presidential photographers and gives an assessment of information acquired during in-depth interviews with official presidential photographers. An interview with a former Czech News Agency (ČTK) photographer deals with the taking of photographs of President Gustáv Husák. An interview with Tomki Němec, Karel Cudlín and Jaroslav Hejzlar focuses on the taking of photographs of Václav Havel. The study seeks to find an answer to the question of whether the president interfered in the activities of his official photographer, and how the work of the presidential photographer differed during the Normalisation period and during democracy. The..