From November to Nova

The book deals with the rapid development of the journalism profession between 1989 and 1994. The story of Czech journalism itself begins with a " perestroika prologue", which describes the previous tradition of journalism, i. e. not only the official stream in the state- and party-supervised media, but also the growing samizdat or exile tradition. The post-November development is divided into several chapters in the book, which follow the development of the journalistic profession from different perspectives: The changes in the collective representation of journalists show the transition from a state-controlled journalistic union to a voluntary syndicate and the reluctance of many journalists to organize professionally. In the chapter " The Development of Ideas about Free Journalism, " the author examines what was actually hidden behind the arguments about freedom and independence in contemporary disputes. This included, for example, the post-November self-government of editorial offices, the degree of partisanship and influence of political forces on the media, or the limits of freedom of speech in cases of tabloids, xenophobia, or eroticism. The growing Czech-Slovak tension was also significantly reflected in the media. The part describing the liberalization of the media market is then divided into the " invisible hand of the print market" and the " visible audiovisual hand of the state", because the path to private periodicals on the one hand and private radio and television on the other was significantly different. Finally, the book offers fourteen theses in which the author summarizes everything essential about the development of journalism and the media in the first half of the 1990s. – Published in collaboration with Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University.