Journalism and Media Studies in the Czech Republic: Some Deliberations on their Historical Development
Abstract
Taking developments since 1989 as a starting point, this contribution deals with the history of the Czech press on one hand, starting with the beginning of the eighteenth century, and with the treatmentof journalism and the media as academic field on the other. The authors demonstrate that the Czech press scene was a mirror and, at the same time, an engine for the cultural development and for the politicization of the Czech nation.
They follow developments from the First Czechoslovak Republic, where the media experienced a heyday, through repression during the German occupation, up to the socialist era. They elaborate on individual phases of socialist press politics and describe the exploitation of the media for political goals, but also their modernization.
The scientific treatment of media developments is also traced back to the start, as is the professionalization of the journalistic trade. According to the authors, this rich tradition has been far too rarely taken into consideration since 1989: too frequently the press, but also the newly established media sciences followed models from the West.The main goal of the authors is thus to draw attention to the inspiration that can be gleaned from the own past, in media science and other disciplines dealing with the media.