Václav Štětka | Loughborough University (original) (raw)
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Papers by Václav Štětka
Recently, a growing body of research has been exploring the ways which political actors utilize s... more Recently, a growing body of research has been exploring the ways which political actors utilize social network sites (SNS) for campaign communication and voters’ mobilization. However, most studies in this rapidly expanding area focus on the mere adoption, by mapping out politicians’ presence or absence on SNSs, without further examining their individual communication strategies and approaches to the use of these new technologies. In this paper, we aim to fill this research gap by presenting a systematic empirical study of the use of SNSs by parliamentary politicians in the Czech Republic. Adopting a mix-method, multi-level approach, we first analyse the adoption of Facebook as mobilization tool by 13 most relevant political parties as well as 200 individual MPs in the context of the 2013 Parliamentary Elections campaign, looking mainly at intensity of use, level of interactions and basic characteristics distinguishing the SNS users and non-users among politicians. In the qualitativ...
Study of day-to-day social media practices, routines and communication strategies of members of C... more Study of day-to-day social media practices, routines and communication strategies of members of Czech parliament. By analyzing semi-structured interviews, the paper reveals the dividing line between the authentic „do it yourself“ attitude and the professional management of social media channels linked with the readjustment of communication style to different target groups and the intention of agenda setting. It also explores the difference between privacy barriers, which can be for certain politicians very strictly set, while blur for others. In conclusion, the article focused on importance, which politicians give to social media communication in political discourse.
Public Administration and Information Technology, 2014
This case study analyzes the use of social media in the campaign for the historically first direc... more This case study analyzes the use of social media in the campaign for the historically first direct presidential elections in the Czech Republic in January 2013. Following a brief outline of the political context and outcomes of the elections, this study explores and compares the strategies of campaign communication of the nine presidential candidates on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Apart from mapping the dynamics of the campaign and the responsiveness of Facebook and Twitter users, we have used content analysis to examine basic formal characteristics of over 1,000 messages posted on Facebook in the course of the campaign by the candidates and their teams. Additionally, this chapter also examines more closely the place of social media in the campaign of Karel Schwarzenberg, the eventual runner-up of the presidential race, whose team distanced all other candidates in both the extent as the level of sophistication of communication carried via the social networking sites. Overall, the presidential elections have revealed both the potential as well as limits of electoral mobilization through social networks, while at the same time it has demonstrated the continuing importance of more traditional means of campaign communication in the Czech Republic.
Information, Communication & Society, 2015
The paper aims to contribute to the still relatively unexplored area of the relationship between ... more The paper aims to contribute to the still relatively unexplored area of the relationship between gender and online political participation. Using two complementary methodsa representative, post-election survey of the adult Czech population, and a content analysis of communication on the selected Czech political parties' Facebook profiles during the campaign for the 2013 Parliamentary Elections, we attempt to challenge some established assumptions regarding the allegedly equalizing effect of the Internet and social media on participatory behaviour of men and women. While survey data discovered subtle yet statistically significant differences between men and women in some online expressive activities on Facebook, mainly commenting on other users' statuses, content analysis further revealed that there are not only notable gender gaps among the Facebook users who commented on the campaign, but also differences in the tone of communication produced by the respective gender groups, with men posting more negative comments addressed to parties as well as to other Facebook users. We suggest that these results question the prevailing perception about the narrowing of the 'gender gap' in the online environment and call for a more nuanced methodological approach to different forms of online political expression.
Presentation at the 7th ECPR General Conference, Sciences Po Bordeaux, France 4-7 September 2013.... more Presentation at the 7th ECPR General Conference, Sciences Po Bordeaux, France 4-7 September 2013. Panel: The Role of Online Media in Politics. Paper: 'Follow me, I Want to be Your President'! Analysing the Czech Presidential Election Campaign on Facebook and Twitter.
The issue of Internet addiction has so far not been in the centre of attention of researchers stu... more The issue of Internet addiction has so far not been in the centre of attention of researchers studying the impact of online technologies on children and possible risks they are encountering in the cyberspace. In search for the risk factors, research has mostly focused on the characteristics of children's online activities and on the content of computer-mediated communication rather than on the potential negative effects of the amount of time spent by children online on their psychological development and social life (needles to say, this problem is almost completely neglected by descriptive studies comparing the access to Internet across countries and measuring digital gaps and divides between them). Drawing on psychological conceptualizations of 'Internet addiction' and on existing body of research on this topic, our aim in this paper is to empirically examine patterns of Internet addiction among teenage Internet users in the Czech Republic. The data for the analysis ar...
If there ever was an ideological choice, this is it: the message – the new cyberdemocracy in whic... more If there ever was an ideological choice, this is it: the message – the new cyberdemocracy in which millions can directly communicate and organise themselves, by-passing centralised state control – covers up a series of disturbing gaps and tensions. The first point of irony is that everyone who looks at the Time cover doesn’t see others with whom they are supposed to be in direct exchange – what they see is a mirror-image of themselves. (Žižek, 2006)
This chapter compares the 2009 EP election campaign in two countries that are known for their rel... more This chapter compares the 2009 EP election campaign in two countries that are known for their relatively ambivalent attitudes towards the EU and European integration, both among their political elites as well as among the general population. Although it might seem at ...
This paper deals with the main legislative instrument of the EU audiovisual policy, the Televisio... more This paper deals with the main legislative instrument of the EU audiovisual policy, the Television without Frontiers Directive, and focuses on critical examination of its cultural goals. After a brief review of the evolvement of culturally oriented objectives in the European broadcasting legislation, the paper turns to the presentation of existing results of the programme quota policy across Europe. The main part of the paper is devoted to the empirical case study of the implementation of the TWF Directive into the Czech media legislation, complemented by analysis of Czech TV audience behaviour.
Lecture presented campaign materials and media coverage in the 2009 European parliament elections... more Lecture presented campaign materials and media coverage in the 2009 European parliament elections in the Czech Republic.
Social Media and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe
Journalism Studies
Existing research on media and the COVID-19 pandemic is largely based on quantitative data, focus... more Existing research on media and the COVID-19 pandemic is largely based on quantitative data, focused on digital media, limited to single-country studies, and often West-centred. As such, it has limited capacity to provide a holistic account of the causes and consequences of audience engagement with COVID-19 news, or to consider the impact of systemic political and media factors. To compensate for that, we examine a large set of qualitative interviews and media diaries collected in four eastern European countries during the first wave of the pandemic. We show that changes in news consumption-including the resurgence of television and decline of print consumption-were not driven solely by audience demand for up-to-date information, but also by practical constrains of home-bound life in lockdown, and the introduction of live briefings. Our findings underscore disruption and uncertainty as key elements of audience experiences and highlight the markedly privatized and depoliticized nature of public debate in the early phase of the pandemic. We argue that the pandemic was an unpredictable, open-ended, and exhausting media event with high potential for divisiveness and polarization, especially in contexts marked by low levels of media freedom, declining democratic standards, and elite-led politicization of the crisis.
The International Journal of Press/Politics
The transition from low- to high-choice media environments has had far-reaching implications for ... more The transition from low- to high-choice media environments has had far-reaching implications for citizens’ media use and its relationship with political knowledge. However, there is still a lack of comparative research on how citizens combine the usage of different media and how that is related to political knowledge. To fill this void, we use a unique cross-national survey about the online and offline media use habits of more than 28,000 individuals in 17 European countries. Our aim is to (i) profile different types of news consumers and (ii) understand how each user profile is linked to political knowledge acquisition. Our results show that five user profiles – news minimalists, social media news users, traditionalists, online news seekers, and hyper news consumers – can be identified, although the prevalence of these profiles varies across countries. Findings further show that both traditional and online-based news diets are correlated with higher political knowledge. However, on...
Political Communication
Democracies around the world are facing a rising wave of right-wing populism and new nationalism,... more Democracies around the world are facing a rising wave of right-wing populism and new nationalism, which often relies on strategic exploitation of anti-immigration sentiments. While media have long been acknowledged as important channels of anti-immigration rhetoric, the evidence of the actual impact of news consumption on attitudes to migration and support for populist parties is still inconclusive, and largely limited to pre-digital media ecologies. Combining a representative twowave panel survey (N=819), digital tracking of real-time electronic measurement of television, radio and online media exposure, and an analysis of news content, this study explores the effect of news consumption on anti-immigration attitudes and electoral behaviour during the EP2019 election campaign in the Czech Republic. Our analysis reveals that being exposed to news about migration-particularly on websites and on commercial television stations-increases the likelihood of voting for populist parties, while exposure to public service media leads to less negative attitudes towards immigration. At the same time, being exposed to more news sources intensifies, rather than reduces, anti-immigrant attitudes. This result challenges the assumption that a more diverse news media diet could serve as an antidote to selective exposure and "echo chambers", commonly linked with radicalization of political views.
Recently, a growing body of research has been exploring the ways which political actors utilize s... more Recently, a growing body of research has been exploring the ways which political actors utilize social network sites (SNS) for campaign communication and voters’ mobilization. However, most studies in this rapidly expanding area focus on the mere adoption, by mapping out politicians’ presence or absence on SNSs, without further examining their individual communication strategies and approaches to the use of these new technologies. In this paper, we aim to fill this research gap by presenting a systematic empirical study of the use of SNSs by parliamentary politicians in the Czech Republic. Adopting a mix-method, multi-level approach, we first analyse the adoption of Facebook as mobilization tool by 13 most relevant political parties as well as 200 individual MPs in the context of the 2013 Parliamentary Elections campaign, looking mainly at intensity of use, level of interactions and basic characteristics distinguishing the SNS users and non-users among politicians. In the qualitativ...
Study of day-to-day social media practices, routines and communication strategies of members of C... more Study of day-to-day social media practices, routines and communication strategies of members of Czech parliament. By analyzing semi-structured interviews, the paper reveals the dividing line between the authentic „do it yourself“ attitude and the professional management of social media channels linked with the readjustment of communication style to different target groups and the intention of agenda setting. It also explores the difference between privacy barriers, which can be for certain politicians very strictly set, while blur for others. In conclusion, the article focused on importance, which politicians give to social media communication in political discourse.
Public Administration and Information Technology, 2014
This case study analyzes the use of social media in the campaign for the historically first direc... more This case study analyzes the use of social media in the campaign for the historically first direct presidential elections in the Czech Republic in January 2013. Following a brief outline of the political context and outcomes of the elections, this study explores and compares the strategies of campaign communication of the nine presidential candidates on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Apart from mapping the dynamics of the campaign and the responsiveness of Facebook and Twitter users, we have used content analysis to examine basic formal characteristics of over 1,000 messages posted on Facebook in the course of the campaign by the candidates and their teams. Additionally, this chapter also examines more closely the place of social media in the campaign of Karel Schwarzenberg, the eventual runner-up of the presidential race, whose team distanced all other candidates in both the extent as the level of sophistication of communication carried via the social networking sites. Overall, the presidential elections have revealed both the potential as well as limits of electoral mobilization through social networks, while at the same time it has demonstrated the continuing importance of more traditional means of campaign communication in the Czech Republic.
Information, Communication & Society, 2015
The paper aims to contribute to the still relatively unexplored area of the relationship between ... more The paper aims to contribute to the still relatively unexplored area of the relationship between gender and online political participation. Using two complementary methodsa representative, post-election survey of the adult Czech population, and a content analysis of communication on the selected Czech political parties' Facebook profiles during the campaign for the 2013 Parliamentary Elections, we attempt to challenge some established assumptions regarding the allegedly equalizing effect of the Internet and social media on participatory behaviour of men and women. While survey data discovered subtle yet statistically significant differences between men and women in some online expressive activities on Facebook, mainly commenting on other users' statuses, content analysis further revealed that there are not only notable gender gaps among the Facebook users who commented on the campaign, but also differences in the tone of communication produced by the respective gender groups, with men posting more negative comments addressed to parties as well as to other Facebook users. We suggest that these results question the prevailing perception about the narrowing of the 'gender gap' in the online environment and call for a more nuanced methodological approach to different forms of online political expression.
Presentation at the 7th ECPR General Conference, Sciences Po Bordeaux, France 4-7 September 2013.... more Presentation at the 7th ECPR General Conference, Sciences Po Bordeaux, France 4-7 September 2013. Panel: The Role of Online Media in Politics. Paper: 'Follow me, I Want to be Your President'! Analysing the Czech Presidential Election Campaign on Facebook and Twitter.
The issue of Internet addiction has so far not been in the centre of attention of researchers stu... more The issue of Internet addiction has so far not been in the centre of attention of researchers studying the impact of online technologies on children and possible risks they are encountering in the cyberspace. In search for the risk factors, research has mostly focused on the characteristics of children's online activities and on the content of computer-mediated communication rather than on the potential negative effects of the amount of time spent by children online on their psychological development and social life (needles to say, this problem is almost completely neglected by descriptive studies comparing the access to Internet across countries and measuring digital gaps and divides between them). Drawing on psychological conceptualizations of 'Internet addiction' and on existing body of research on this topic, our aim in this paper is to empirically examine patterns of Internet addiction among teenage Internet users in the Czech Republic. The data for the analysis ar...
If there ever was an ideological choice, this is it: the message – the new cyberdemocracy in whic... more If there ever was an ideological choice, this is it: the message – the new cyberdemocracy in which millions can directly communicate and organise themselves, by-passing centralised state control – covers up a series of disturbing gaps and tensions. The first point of irony is that everyone who looks at the Time cover doesn’t see others with whom they are supposed to be in direct exchange – what they see is a mirror-image of themselves. (Žižek, 2006)
This chapter compares the 2009 EP election campaign in two countries that are known for their rel... more This chapter compares the 2009 EP election campaign in two countries that are known for their relatively ambivalent attitudes towards the EU and European integration, both among their political elites as well as among the general population. Although it might seem at ...
This paper deals with the main legislative instrument of the EU audiovisual policy, the Televisio... more This paper deals with the main legislative instrument of the EU audiovisual policy, the Television without Frontiers Directive, and focuses on critical examination of its cultural goals. After a brief review of the evolvement of culturally oriented objectives in the European broadcasting legislation, the paper turns to the presentation of existing results of the programme quota policy across Europe. The main part of the paper is devoted to the empirical case study of the implementation of the TWF Directive into the Czech media legislation, complemented by analysis of Czech TV audience behaviour.
Lecture presented campaign materials and media coverage in the 2009 European parliament elections... more Lecture presented campaign materials and media coverage in the 2009 European parliament elections in the Czech Republic.
Social Media and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe
Journalism Studies
Existing research on media and the COVID-19 pandemic is largely based on quantitative data, focus... more Existing research on media and the COVID-19 pandemic is largely based on quantitative data, focused on digital media, limited to single-country studies, and often West-centred. As such, it has limited capacity to provide a holistic account of the causes and consequences of audience engagement with COVID-19 news, or to consider the impact of systemic political and media factors. To compensate for that, we examine a large set of qualitative interviews and media diaries collected in four eastern European countries during the first wave of the pandemic. We show that changes in news consumption-including the resurgence of television and decline of print consumption-were not driven solely by audience demand for up-to-date information, but also by practical constrains of home-bound life in lockdown, and the introduction of live briefings. Our findings underscore disruption and uncertainty as key elements of audience experiences and highlight the markedly privatized and depoliticized nature of public debate in the early phase of the pandemic. We argue that the pandemic was an unpredictable, open-ended, and exhausting media event with high potential for divisiveness and polarization, especially in contexts marked by low levels of media freedom, declining democratic standards, and elite-led politicization of the crisis.
The International Journal of Press/Politics
The transition from low- to high-choice media environments has had far-reaching implications for ... more The transition from low- to high-choice media environments has had far-reaching implications for citizens’ media use and its relationship with political knowledge. However, there is still a lack of comparative research on how citizens combine the usage of different media and how that is related to political knowledge. To fill this void, we use a unique cross-national survey about the online and offline media use habits of more than 28,000 individuals in 17 European countries. Our aim is to (i) profile different types of news consumers and (ii) understand how each user profile is linked to political knowledge acquisition. Our results show that five user profiles – news minimalists, social media news users, traditionalists, online news seekers, and hyper news consumers – can be identified, although the prevalence of these profiles varies across countries. Findings further show that both traditional and online-based news diets are correlated with higher political knowledge. However, on...
Political Communication
Democracies around the world are facing a rising wave of right-wing populism and new nationalism,... more Democracies around the world are facing a rising wave of right-wing populism and new nationalism, which often relies on strategic exploitation of anti-immigration sentiments. While media have long been acknowledged as important channels of anti-immigration rhetoric, the evidence of the actual impact of news consumption on attitudes to migration and support for populist parties is still inconclusive, and largely limited to pre-digital media ecologies. Combining a representative twowave panel survey (N=819), digital tracking of real-time electronic measurement of television, radio and online media exposure, and an analysis of news content, this study explores the effect of news consumption on anti-immigration attitudes and electoral behaviour during the EP2019 election campaign in the Czech Republic. Our analysis reveals that being exposed to news about migration-particularly on websites and on commercial television stations-increases the likelihood of voting for populist parties, while exposure to public service media leads to less negative attitudes towards immigration. At the same time, being exposed to more news sources intensifies, rather than reduces, anti-immigrant attitudes. This result challenges the assumption that a more diverse news media diet could serve as an antidote to selective exposure and "echo chambers", commonly linked with radicalization of political views.
In this research paper, we examine the presence and characteristics of online communities in the ... more In this research paper, we examine the presence and characteristics of online communities in the Czech Republic, with a particular focus on selected socio-demographic (age, gender) and psychological characteristics as well as individual motivations of their participants. According to our findings, about one fifth of Czech Internet users regularly attend at least one online community. There are no significant gender differences in the membership; however, participants differ according to age, with the youngest age groups being the most active in belonging to an online group. We also investigate the question of correlation between the intensity of engagement in online communities, and the quality of their participants' social life in the "offline world" (measured primarily by the number of online/offline friends and the amount of time spent with them or with their families). Finally, we pay attention to the perceived psychological benefits from belonging to an online group. The analysis, which we present as a pioneer study aimed at the Czech Internet users, is conducted using the data from the World Internet Project, which in 2006 surveyed a representative sample of the Czech population (1710 respondents aged 12+).
European Journal of Communication, 2010
International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 2010
Abstract: As part of the EU Kids Online project, the network developed a methodology for hypothes... more Abstract: As part of the EU Kids Online project, the network developed a methodology for hypothesis testing in a cross-cultural setting, building only on existing research. The aim was to be able to draw conclusions about commonalities and differences in children's online ...
Journal of Political Marketing, 2013
ABSTRACT In this article, we analyze political parties' campaign communication during the... more ABSTRACT In this article, we analyze political parties' campaign communication during the 2009 European Parliamentary election in 11 countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK). We study which types of issues Euroskeptic fringe and Euroskeptic mainstream parties put on their campaign agendas and the kind and extent of EU opposition they voice. Further, we seek to understand whether Euroskeptic and non-Euroskeptic parties co-orient themselves toward each other within their national party systems with regard to their campaigns. To understand the role of Euroskeptic parties in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, we draw on a systematic content analysis of parties' posters and televised campaign spots. Our results show that it is Euroskeptic parties at the edges of the political spectrum who discuss polity questions of EU integration and who most openly criticize the union. Principled opposition against the project of EU integration, however, can only be observed in the UK. Finally, we find indicators for co-orientation effects regarding the tone of EU mobilization: In national political environments where Euroskeptic parties strongly criticize the EU, pro-European parties at the same time publicly advance pro-EU positions.
Political Communication in …, 2011
This chapter compares the 2009 EP election campaign in two countries that are known for their rel... more This chapter compares the 2009 EP election campaign in two countries that are known for their relatively ambivalent attitudes towards the EU and European integration, both among their political elites as well as among the general population. Although it might seem at ...
Kids onlineOpportunities and risks for children, 2009
Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic).
Politologický časopis - Czech Journal of Political Science, 2013
Political communication has been undergoing a profound transformation in recent years following t... more Political communication has been undergoing a profound transformation in recent years following the appearance and rapid spread of new media. The use of new media, such as social networking sites and other internet platforms, is increasingly being exploited by all types of political actors, but particularly by those involved in electoral campaigns. Attempting to explore the presence of these trends in the Czech Republic, this paper focuses on the Senate and Regional Council electoral campaigns that took place in October 2012 in the Czech Republic, with the primary aim of comparing the differences in new media usage between candidates. A comprehensive analysis was based on a dataset obtained by monitoring the use of various types of new media by candidates, namely traditional websites, blogs, and the online social networking sites Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The results show that younger candidates in regional elections engage in online campaigning more intensely than older candidates. The findings also demonstrate that Senate candidates use new media more extensively than candidates for the Regional Council. The most commonly used new media in both types of elections were traditional websites and the online social networking site Facebook. Regarding the candidates’ political affiliations, the analyses came to the conclusion that the usage of new media was generally similar for all major parties with one exception. The candidates from the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia used new media very sporadically and, moreover, most of them used no new media platforms at all in either type of election campaign.
Acceso de usuarios registrados. Acceso de usuarios registrados Usuario Contraseña. ...
... of nation; de-ethnization of citizenship; national identity; ethnic relations; perception of ... more ... of nation; de-ethnization of citizenship; national identity; ethnic relations; perception of Roma in the ... nationalism operates through merely passive imaginative forms of representing the nationalcommunity, anchored in ... p. 7);London does not see end of rebellion in Iraq(Právo, p ...