| Abstract [eng] |
The work deals with the problem of factualness in the media. The main issue at question is whether factualness can be perceived as a priority requirement for the content of the news media. The hypothesis lying at the base of this work assumes that today’s media does not prioritize factualness even when writing on important political topics. The objective of the study is to examine, whether news media messages on political topics fulfill the criterion of factualness which itself denotes the relation between the real object and its projection in the media. The subsidiary issues, analyzed in this work include main principles of functioning of the news media, the process of and the criteria for event selection, typical structure of the news message and ways of interaction between the journalist and the source of information. A substantial part of the work is devoted to the role of news media in the area of political communication. It analysis the main trends in covering political topics, deals with the tendency of media as constant opposition to the political elite. It also defines main aspects of reporting on political issues, determines major tendencies of news reporting, including the trend of politainment, the rise of so called “junkyard journalism”, The empiric study, analyzing the media coverage on the resignation of the former minister of Health A. Caplikas, revealed that the projection of this issue in the news media was not homogeneous in its nature. Different newspapers and internet news portals projected different images of the event. What is even more important, the projections were not adequate to the real situation. In some cases the image was simplified so the latent aspects and causal relations were not revealed. In other cases the projections were deformed and constructed images that did not reflect the real situation at all. The study illustrates that news media does not perceive factualness as a priority criterion when constructing news messages. The gap between the media projections of the event and the real situation is evident. Thus the conclusion can be drawn, that media can no longer be seen as a mirror reflecting the reality is it is. Instead, it creates a transformed image of the issue by deliberately highlighting some aspects and concealing the others. The work can be useful for practicians, working in the field on media relations, political communication specialists and member of general publics, who wish to have a deeper look at the principles of construction of news. |
