MEDIA PORTRAYALS OF REGIONS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC: SELECTED ISSUES

Amount of information provided by media is growing virtually every day. Surprisingly, attention devoted to the spatial implications of media information is far from sufficient. Existing researches bring ample evidence that TV coverage embodies media agenda in a satisfactory manner as it has rather profound impact on the public on the one hand and is representative enough on the other. Our paper deals with TV news reporting related to NUTS III regions in the Czech Republic. The main perspective adopted in this article is a qualitative one, which facilitates the evaluation of TV news contents. We are deliberately focusing on national TV broadcasting, which is the most influential one. Individual contributions we evaluate appeared in the framework of news reporting in public Czech TV and private Nova and Prima. In spite of severe limitations in media data, our paper covers the period between the years 2004 and 2011, which helps to underpin our conclusions in a sufficient way. Contributions, which are related to individual NUTS III regions and resonate at the national level, constitute the focal point of our research. TV reflection of material reality is of intangible character; nonetheless similarly to material categories, one can identify spatial as well as thematic differentiation and even patterns also in the sphere of TV news reporting. There are only little doubts that media landscape and closely associated mental maps have been largely underestimated so far. Thus, these topics represent one of pivotal theoretical and practical challenges in the field of spatial sciences, which holds true for post-transition country even more.