Od Listopadu po Novu Vývoj české žurnalistiky v letech 1989–1994

The book deals with the rapid development of the journalistic profession between 1989 and 1994. The story of Czech journalism itself begins with a "reconstruction prologue", which describes the existing tradition of journalism, i.e. not only the official stream in the state and party-controlled media, but also the growing tradition of samizdat or exile. The book divides the post-Soviet development into several chapters that trace the evolution of the journalistic profession from different perspectives: the changes in the collective representation of journalists show the transition from a state-controlled journalists' union to a voluntary syndicate and the reluctance of many journalists to organize professionally. In the chapter The Evolution of Ideas about Free Journalism, the author explores what was actually behind the arguments for freedom and independence in the controversies of the time. These included, for example, the post-Soviet self-management of editorial offices, the degree of partisanship and the influence of political forces on the media, or the limits of freedom of speech in cases of tabloids, xenophobia or erotica. The growing Czech-Slovak tensions were also strongly reflected in the media. The section describing the liberalisation of the media market is then divided into the "invisible hand of the press market" and the "visible audiovisual hand of the state", as the path to private periodicals on the one hand and private radio and television on the other differed significantly. Finally, the book offers fourteen theses in which the author summarizes all that is important in the development of journalism and media in the first half of the 1990s. - It is published in cooperation with the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University.