Abstract
The chapter The news media and decision-making covers two topics - 1. analyses of the legal, economic and professional aspects of the czech media landscape since 1989 and 2. analyses of the evolution and actual trends in the political communication research in the Czech Republic - using the model established by James Dearing and Everett Rogers, who describe the processes of political communication from the perspective of agenda-setting theory. The relationship between the media and politics in the Czech social sciences is included in three disciplines: media studies, sociology and political science.
These disciplines pursue their own separate and rather detached research on political communication. In sociology, political communication appears mainly in connection with the results of public opinion surveys, voters' behaviour and the Czech public's political preferences.
Political studies touch upon political communication within election studies, mainly in relation to rational choice theories and partially in the area of political marketing. This disciplinary distinctiveness seems to be a strong limiting factor in Czech political communication research.