Books by Jakub Machek
Popular Culture and Subcultures of Czech Post-Socialism. Listening to the Wind of Change. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2016., 2016
This book draws on wide range of inspirations to provide a well-balanced picture of the popular c... more This book draws on wide range of inspirations to provide a well-balanced picture of the popular culture and subcultures of Czech post-socialism. What were the continuities and discontinuities of the post-socialist popular culture, mentalities and society during the period of late state socialism? What were the different mechanisms of creating the Other in popular culture and subcultures? This volume shows the diverse trajectories of the late socialist (and older national) cultural practices and the related set of values and beliefs in new transitory circumstances. Whereas many scholars emphasize the tendency to sustain in a more or less adapted form under the new circumstances, the chapters and case studies of this book demonstrate a slightly different, more nuanced development.
The aim of this book is to show possibilities of applying concepts and theories of popular cultur... more The aim of this book is to show possibilities of applying concepts and theories of popular culture studies to Czech context. Besides, this publication is meant as an attempt to interlink gradually developing research of Czech popular culture in various fields of humanities and social sciences. Increasing interest in popular culture as a source of study for deeper understanding of Czech society in past and present remains fragmented among different disciplines. Scholars and their outcome are invisible for researchers from other fields of study. The editor’s effort to overcome this situation and to support future development of the field by their Centre for Study of Popular Culture (CSPK) culminated in conference Popular culture and Czech identity held in Moravská Třebová in May 2011. One part of the conference papers creates a base for the presented book. Final selection was aimed to create a collection of texts focused on paradigms and processes of identification as they are mediatized in Czech popular culture. Their authors combine various approaches and they are based in different fields of study. Most of them is in the early stage of their academic career.
![Research paper thumbnail of Počátky populární kultury v Českých zemích. Tištěná média a velkoměstská kultura roku 1900. [The Emergence of Popular Culture in the Czech Lands. Printed Media and Urban Culture around 1900]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/53868013/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The Emergence of Popular Culture in the Czech Lands. Pistorius & Olšanská 2017. 284 pp., 2017
The book focuses on the emergence of popular culture in the Czech lands at the turn of the 20th c... more The book focuses on the emergence of popular culture in the Czech lands at the turn of the 20th century. During this era, members of the lower social classes experienced an increase in economic and cultural power and thus the capacity to absorb the development of a new common culture generated by rapid industrialization and urbanization. The modern popular culture was distinctly urban, although based on residues of folk culture. Urban newcomers were seeking a new form of common culture that was facilitated by rapid technological developments that offered them new and cheap ways for circulating cultural products – the modern mass media.
It is impossible to pinpoint the emergence of popular culture in the Czech lands to one particular historical moment. Instead, it was a long lasting and continuous process of the development and the blending of what previously used to be folk and elitist cultures. Whilst various elements of popular culture formed only gradually, it is nevertheless possible to identify a period, when certain conditions enabled its emergence: a population sufficiently large to support the widespread distribution of consumer goods, one with sufficient leisure time and income to participate in and enjoy the common culture and finally the existence of cheap mass media that would play a fundamental role in the dissemination of popular arts and entertainment,
The book suggests that the emergence of the aforementioned elements took place during the period of the fin-the-siécle. It focuses on the two most dynamic forms of media of the period: illustrated sensationalist newspapers and popular magazines. These are significant for being both markers of the new modern urban experience and its social influences, as well as their interconnectedness with other emerging popular genres such as popular fiction, the theatre, café chantants (šantány) and ditties, film screenings and mass sports.
The first successful Czech penny press, the Illustrovaný Kurýr, started as an independent daily in 1893. The 1890s were also a period, when café chantants appeared as new forms of theatrical production that were attended by a completely new audience coming from the lower strata of the population. First time translations of classic American dime novels were published alongside their Czech counterpart – the Leon Clifton series - in the first decade of the 20th century. Several new popular magazine formats appeared during the same decade, such as the news as well as sensational “revolver” risqué weeklies and sport magazines The development of cinema that was to become one of the most important elements of popular culture in the following years is directly linked to the café chantants and popular arenas that were later replaced by specialized cinema houses. Sports became a form of mass entertainment in this period too. Global patterns of popular mass production were more or less modified to suit the Czech, and more specifically the Prague-dwelling audience, as its specific national and local beliefs, values and desires were different to those of the Western urban centre dwellers.
Papers - English by Jakub Machek
Brendan Dooley, Alexandr S. Wilkinson (eds.): Exciting News! Event, Narration and Impact from Past to Present, 2024
This chapter will explore how anxiety was managed and expressed in late-socialist Czechoslovak me... more This chapter will explore how anxiety was managed and expressed in late-socialist Czechoslovak media. We will look for evidence of anxiety as it was conveyed through media reports on everyday accidents and violent crime, as well as in the themes dealt with in some of the most popular television series. In general terms, we argue that anxiety-related information as broadcast in the media followed two distinct phases. During the 1970s, anything threatening or unsettling to the viewer was generally avoided; when disquieting information was communicated, it chiefly related to foreign news, or domestic social groups perceived as problematic to the state. There was a shift in the 1980s, when more challenging narratives came to the fore and included domestic news topics. More attention was afforded to perceived problems within socialist society, with the aim of encouraging renewal from within. Nevertheless, the layer of anxiety-free media production which characterised the 1970s continued in the 1980s and functioned in parallel with this new more critical and reflective agenda.
Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe , 2022
Discotheques and later the club scene were the means by which several generations of young people... more Discotheques and later the club scene were the means by which several generations of young people met their entertainment and social needs in the Czech lands beginning in the late 1960s. While the late socialist dictatorship insisted that culture be a vehicle for education and enlightenment, the new market-oriented, postsocialist society focused on rapid profits over the quality of young people's entertainment. Nevertheless, young people managed to create spaces for their own preferred forms of entertainment under these different conditions with the help of various strategies. Drawing on interviews with DJs and regular scene participants, this study explores Czech(oslovak) dance venues and night life from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.
Global Dance Cultures in the 1970s and 1980s, edited by Flora Pitrolo, Marko Zubak. (Palgrave Macmillan)), 2022
For the entire period of state socialism in Czechoslovakia, the authorities viewed all cultural –... more For the entire period of state socialism in Czechoslovakia, the authorities viewed all cultural – and especially musical – influences from the West as suspicious if not downright dangerous. Popular new Western music was generally condemned and banned and its fans were sometimes even persecuted. In contrast, disco music was received positively by musicians and critics. Moreover, from the time it was first heard in Czechoslovak discos, it was tolerated by the authorities, who saw it as a kind of controlled diversion with an educational purpose.
In this chapter, I set out to show why disco was so readily accepted by the authorities and Czechoslovak society alike and what its role was in the late socialist period. At the same time, I explore the meanings that disco took on and how they were negotiated among the authorities, musicians and young, enthusiastic crowds of dancers and listeners.
Sociální studia / Social Studies, 2022
The article is engaged with the question of how viewers of Czech reality television programmes ne... more The article is engaged with the question of how viewers of Czech reality television programmes negotiate the social status of low-income participants in online discussions. The analysis is triggered by an enquiry into practices of stigmatisation and the processes of drawing, maintaining, and shifting boundaries between the normalised, well-ordered “self” and the poverty-stricken, socially unacceptable “other”. The public judgement of people lacking economic and cultural capital is analysed using Internet and social network debates related to the Czech adaptations of the reality TV programmes Výměna manželek (Wife Swap, TV Nova, 2005-present) and Prostřeno (Come Dine with Me, TV Prima, 2010-present). This method provides insight into the creation of consensual meaning, and allows the analysis of the positions, claims and arguments adopted by online discussants. The research outcome showed some important differences between the evaluations offered by the producers of programmes and th...
Jan Blüml, Yvetta Kajanová, Rüdiger Ritter (eds.): Popular Music in Communist and Post-Communist Europe. Peter Lang 2019, pp. .269-278., 2019
This study focuses on the depiction of the generational gap as featured in Czech musical films ta... more This study focuses on the depiction of the generational gap as featured in Czech musical films targeting the young, specifically their role in mediating the negotiation of hegemonic generational consensus. The cinematic representation of this gap was trans-muted over the course of the second half of the twentieth century in accordance with ongoing political and social changes. Successful youth films were produced by the elite of the established generation for the emerging generation and will be analysed as an example of the negotiation of the era's perception of the generational gap.
There is little doubt how much expectation has been generated by the end of the Cold War, expecta... more There is little doubt how much expectation has been generated by the end of the Cold War, expectations that were followed by academic reflections worldwide in all areas of social sciences and humanities. The area of cultural production and reception and their scholarly analyses was certainly no exception to this general trend. There is now a voluminous literature about the collapse of the bipolarity in 1989 and the following 'transformation' of the state socialism and more is to anticipate in the future. Nonetheless , the twenty fifth anniversary of the lifting of the Iron Curtain, offered an unique opportunity to look back and ask questions about the impact and reverberations of the socio-political changes in the cultural dynamics of the everyday life of people across generations in various East-Central European countries. It is also a chance to give voice to the youngest generation of scholars who grew up intellectually within the academic context of the social and cultural theories traveling across the ruins of the Berlin wall while combining their unique experience of the 'transitional' cultures with new opportunities to absorb and perhaps rewrite methodologies and conceptual frameworks established in the mainstream fields of cultural and media studies.
In FIŠEROVÁ, M., MACHEK, J. et al. New Mediation, New Pop-Culture? Prague: Metropolitan University Prague Press 2015, s. 70-91.
The chapter is exploring a broadening gap dividing Czech society and crystallising into categorie... more The chapter is exploring a broadening gap dividing Czech society and crystallising into categories of urbanites versus province dwellers and elites versus ordinary people. There is an obvious rise of the reciprocal delimitation, the construction of Us and Them with the emphasis on dividing attributes magnified during last years and gradual disintegration of the post-socialist hegemonic consensus (orientation towards Western values and attitudes) led by urban elites. The refused backwardness is related to the province dwellers characterised by elites as bearers of plebeian manners, regressive culture and inability to succeed under the new circumstances. As a result, a rising backlash was intensified by the economic crisis. Support of the existing course of development shrank and resistance to imposed culture and values rose. Popular discontent was transformed into an effort to establish and defend own values and culture, disdained by elites as well as majority of mainstream mass media. We analyse both, popular and elitist discourse in the internet discussions as a distinctive and easy accessible resource to the strengthening of the urban/rural divide. New consensual meaning is created in the discussions not moderated by mass media. Hence the internet discussions can be considered as a record of the continuous creation, reshaping and reinforcement of popular discourse.
SLOAN, B. a M. HAMMOND, eds. Uneasy Neighbours?: Rural-Urban Relationships in the Nineteenth Century. London: Routledge, 2016., 2016
This chapter focuses on the emerging Czech popular press in the period of rapid urbanisation and ... more This chapter focuses on the emerging Czech popular press in the period of rapid urbanisation and population movement at the turn of the 20th century, and on the experience of its readers, who found themselves caught between their traditional, rural mindset and the modernity of the city. The newcomers to urban areas needed a replacement for their oral traditions of sharing news and entertainment and were searching for a different cultural identity. The sensational illustrated press became not only a guide to life in the new environment, but helped readers to develop a shared sense of urban selfhood. The discussion that follows examines the specific way the Czech sensational press blended traditional folk culture with modern urban popular culture to attract its new audience. The key examples include Illustrirtes Prager Extrablatt (1879-1882), which was influenced by early print culture, such as murder ballads and popular fiction; and Pražský Illustrovaný Kurýr (Prague Illustrated Courier) (1893-1918) which, unlike other contemporary Central European sensational press publications, positioned itself between the rural and the metropolitan, the traditional and the modern. The latter will be discussed through analysis of its content as well as its illustrations, and by undertaking a comparison with other Central European press publications.
BERNARD, V. - Ö, TÜZÜN, eds. IMAGES (III) - Images of the City. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2014., 2014
The author of this article presents the relation between sensational pictorial press, its readers... more The author of this article presents the relation between sensational pictorial press, its readers and their collective memory creating the shared image of the emerging metropolis. He demonstrates the role of popular culture in forming collective memory using the example of Pražský Illustrovaný Kurýr [Prague Illustrated Courier] in the period of the rapid urbanisation of Czech lands at the turn of 20th century. In the emerging urban environment the traditional oral method of transmission of information ceased to be sufficient and popular newspapers assisted urban newcomers in developing a shared sense of urban self-identification.
Media Research/Medijska Istraživanja , 2010
TV serials became the most important genre of the popular culture in Czecho¬slovakia during the p... more TV serials became the most important genre of the popular culture in Czecho¬slovakia during the period of so-called normalisation – the 1970s and the 1980s. The new post invasion regime shifted the propagandistic emphasis to the popular culture sphere and thus TV serials became a space, where the conscientiously controlled dominant ideology met the mindsets and opinions of the audience. The paper deals with the role of popular culture in the late so¬cialist society, particularly its participation in the process of reaching a con¬sensus between the communist authorities and subordinated citizens. How the consensus was created through a restricted consumer lifestyle is discussed. Adding to this is shown the institutional frame of the popular culture’s pro¬duction and function. It is related to the fundamental question of the applica¬bility of cultural studies concepts and theories to the situation of socialist so¬cieties. The remainder of the paper focuses attention on the analysis of one of the most popular period TV serials ‘Žena za pultem’ in a broader period con¬text as a useful tool to study gender relations represented by a period idea of socialist emancipation. It shows the division of characters and the function of communist festivities as examples of a manifested larger system of cultural be¬liefs mediated in the serials. The final part emphasises Žena za pultem as a typical soap opera with its characteristics that introduces an ideal world, where all significant inadequacies experienced in day-to-day living are solved. The main character of the TV serials represents an ideal socialist woman to promote the conception of the socialist way of women’s emancipation. The role of the both genders is discussed in closing.
DANIEL, O., T. KAVKA a J. MACHEK, eds. Listening to the Wind of Change. Popular Culture and Subcultures of Czech Post-Socialism. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2016., 2016
The aim of this chapter is to study the effect of the late state socialist and post-socialist TV ... more The aim of this chapter is to study the effect of the late state socialist and post-socialist TV programmes on a young audience, who had no direct experience with the late socialist nor the early transition period. The authors examined how their attitudes to the depicted content were formed, to what degree their understanding was influenced by the encoded meanings and to what degree it was influenced by an existing collective or family memory. The existing collective and family memory appeared to be the most important in the process of attributing meaning to the period programme watched. However, the authors also observed a rather strong influence of dominant discourse that was spread by the mainstream mass media and by educational institutions. This is because respondents from different social and regional backgrounds tended to produce similar narratives regarding recent history, even given their different backgrounds.
Papers - Czech by Jakub Machek
Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia, 2022
Disco music and closely related discos became a significant phenomenon in the late socialist peri... more Disco music and closely related discos became a significant phenomenon in the late socialist period. The virtually automatic hostility of communist authorities to new musical genres coming from the West did not apply to disco music. It thus became a music genre associated with the lifestyle of young people and officially representing youth at many levels in the society of the time, from regime celebrations to commercial promotion of services and products. This paper focuses on capturing the transformations that Czech disco underwent during the period of its greatest popularity. It uses the metaphor of two generations of disco performers who approached the disco music they produced in different ways, from the superficial adoption of a new sound and rhythm in the late 1970s to the more successful performers who presented themselves as the voice of the young generation in the 1980s.
Film a dějiny 8. Válka. Casablanca – ÚSTR, 2021, s. 146-161., 2021
Česká kinematografie se v době okupace nacházela v rozporuplné situaci. Tvůrci, podrobeni přísném... more Česká kinematografie se v době okupace nacházela v rozporuplné situaci. Tvůrci, podrobeni přísnému dohledu a mnoha omezením a zákazům, se snažili chránit (a rozvíjet) národní kulturu, ovšem jejich snahy vycházely paradoxně v mnohém vstříc ideologickým požadavkům okupační správy, potažmo nacistických špiček v Říši. V této kapitole se zaměřím na to, jaký „modus videndi“ nabízela česká kinematografie pro český národ v situaci protektorátu a probíhajícího válečného konfliktu, a to na příkladu vesměs komediálních filmů s pracovní tematikou Nebe a dudy (r. V. Slavínský, 1941), Karel a já (r. M. Cikán, 1942), Velká přehrada (r. J. A. Holman, 1941–42) a Zlaté dno (r. V. Slavínský, 1942). Analýza vychází z hypotézy, že zábavné filmy ukotvené v bezčasí neurčité přítomnosti byly svými tvůrci využívány k nabídce více či méně explicitních obrazů vyjadřujících hodnotový rámec vhodný pro přežívající národní kolektiv drobných lidí a nabízejících role a úkoly pro jeho další směřování.
Fraktál 2021/3, s. 137-142, 2021
Československé televizní seriály sedmdesátých a osmdesátých let, pokrývající široké spektrum prac... more Československé televizní seriály sedmdesátých a osmdesátých let, pokrývající široké spektrum pracovních prostředí i lidských osudů, jsou dnes badateli vnímány převážně jako nabídka různorodých rolí, které si socialistické publikum mělo či mohlo osvojit k bezproblémovému životu v okupované, normalizované zemi. Jejich dobová popularita ukazuje, jak nabídka obrazů ideálního světa, kde dominují hodnoty spojované s osobní sférou, byla pro diváky podobně lákavá jako dnešní oblíbené nekonečné seriály či reality show. V nejpopulárnějších televizních programech seriálové hrdinky naplňovaly oboje krajní polohy oficiálně akceptovaného ženství, příkladně socialistického a častěji i domácky uzavřeného. Záleží tak na tom, na jaký seriál se zaměříme. Pokud měl akcentovat ženské role, jsou hrdinky příklady normalizačního pojetí ideálního emancipovaného ženství, aktivního a pracujícího. Ale pokud se tvůrci soustředili na hlavní mužské hrdiny, taktéž ideově nezpochybnitelné, jejich ženské protějšky ustupují do soukromí a vytvářejí domácí idylu, nezbytný servis pro muže k plnění pracovních úkolů a výzev, v opačném případě jako partnerky selhávají.
Evaluation of music by its listeners and fans is influenced by large social categories, such as a... more Evaluation of music by its listeners and fans is influenced by large social categories, such as age, gender, ethnicity, race, (dis)ability, socioeconomic profile, and social class. In the paper, the authors focus on the role that the complexity of cultural capital plays in the evaluation of music. In this respect, they follow Pierre Bourdieu, who considered taste to be the most significant manifestation of habitus, which he understood as a field of cultural practices in which a person or group feel comfortable, but which is also strongly determined by socio-economic status. The authors aim to open a debate about the evaluation of pseudofolklore and hybrid forms of folk and popular music, even in relation to the category of world music. Specifically, they are primarily interested in debates devoted to these musical forms that are led both by their listeners, fans, and their opponents, and secondly, in the expert debate of music journalism and the academic community. At the same time, these debates reflect topics of deep social relevance, which have long been facing not only Czech, but also, for example, Serbian and Austrian societies. The authors extend the questions of social cohesion or fragmentation into bubbles determined by taste. They point out some transgressive musical practices, which, however, confirm the general logic of colonization or gentrification of so-called lower musical forms.
![Research paper thumbnail of Od jízdy vzduchem po řádění zvrhlého nemravy v Karlíně. Lidová kultura jako základ vznikající populární kultury na konci 19. století. [From Flying Through the Air to the rampage of the Perverse Libertine in Karlín: Folklore as a Basis for Popular culture emerging at the end of the 19th century]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/62179046/thumbnails/1.jpg)
MACHALÍKOVÁ P., PETRASOVÁ T. WINTER T. eds. Zrození lidu v české kultuře 19. století. Praha: Academia., 2020
Rozšiřující se masy městských obyvatel vyrostlých často ve venkovském prostředí se stávaly zdroje... more Rozšiřující se masy městských obyvatel vyrostlých často ve venkovském prostředí se stávaly zdrojem pro zvětšování čtenářské obce nových typů populárních tiskovin. Jejich pražští vydavatelé se inspirovali úspěšnými formáty z evropských metropolí, které přizpůsobovali předpokládaným zájmům místního publika, podle obsahu novin mnohem silněji ukotveného ve venkovské mentalitě. Více či méně úspěšné a zároveň velmi specifické snahy o propojení lidové a tištěné kultury se projevily už v prvních ilustrovaných novinách Illustrirtes Prager Extrablatt z počátku 80. let 19. století, pokračovaly v úspěšném Pražském illustrovaném kurýru a prvky lidové orální kultury formovaly i specifický formát pestré palety titulů, které můžeme charakterizovat jako senzační a pikantní týdeníky 10. let 20. století.
Uploads
Books by Jakub Machek
It is impossible to pinpoint the emergence of popular culture in the Czech lands to one particular historical moment. Instead, it was a long lasting and continuous process of the development and the blending of what previously used to be folk and elitist cultures. Whilst various elements of popular culture formed only gradually, it is nevertheless possible to identify a period, when certain conditions enabled its emergence: a population sufficiently large to support the widespread distribution of consumer goods, one with sufficient leisure time and income to participate in and enjoy the common culture and finally the existence of cheap mass media that would play a fundamental role in the dissemination of popular arts and entertainment,
The book suggests that the emergence of the aforementioned elements took place during the period of the fin-the-siécle. It focuses on the two most dynamic forms of media of the period: illustrated sensationalist newspapers and popular magazines. These are significant for being both markers of the new modern urban experience and its social influences, as well as their interconnectedness with other emerging popular genres such as popular fiction, the theatre, café chantants (šantány) and ditties, film screenings and mass sports.
The first successful Czech penny press, the Illustrovaný Kurýr, started as an independent daily in 1893. The 1890s were also a period, when café chantants appeared as new forms of theatrical production that were attended by a completely new audience coming from the lower strata of the population. First time translations of classic American dime novels were published alongside their Czech counterpart – the Leon Clifton series - in the first decade of the 20th century. Several new popular magazine formats appeared during the same decade, such as the news as well as sensational “revolver” risqué weeklies and sport magazines The development of cinema that was to become one of the most important elements of popular culture in the following years is directly linked to the café chantants and popular arenas that were later replaced by specialized cinema houses. Sports became a form of mass entertainment in this period too. Global patterns of popular mass production were more or less modified to suit the Czech, and more specifically the Prague-dwelling audience, as its specific national and local beliefs, values and desires were different to those of the Western urban centre dwellers.
Papers - English by Jakub Machek
In this chapter, I set out to show why disco was so readily accepted by the authorities and Czechoslovak society alike and what its role was in the late socialist period. At the same time, I explore the meanings that disco took on and how they were negotiated among the authorities, musicians and young, enthusiastic crowds of dancers and listeners.
Papers - Czech by Jakub Machek
It is impossible to pinpoint the emergence of popular culture in the Czech lands to one particular historical moment. Instead, it was a long lasting and continuous process of the development and the blending of what previously used to be folk and elitist cultures. Whilst various elements of popular culture formed only gradually, it is nevertheless possible to identify a period, when certain conditions enabled its emergence: a population sufficiently large to support the widespread distribution of consumer goods, one with sufficient leisure time and income to participate in and enjoy the common culture and finally the existence of cheap mass media that would play a fundamental role in the dissemination of popular arts and entertainment,
The book suggests that the emergence of the aforementioned elements took place during the period of the fin-the-siécle. It focuses on the two most dynamic forms of media of the period: illustrated sensationalist newspapers and popular magazines. These are significant for being both markers of the new modern urban experience and its social influences, as well as their interconnectedness with other emerging popular genres such as popular fiction, the theatre, café chantants (šantány) and ditties, film screenings and mass sports.
The first successful Czech penny press, the Illustrovaný Kurýr, started as an independent daily in 1893. The 1890s were also a period, when café chantants appeared as new forms of theatrical production that were attended by a completely new audience coming from the lower strata of the population. First time translations of classic American dime novels were published alongside their Czech counterpart – the Leon Clifton series - in the first decade of the 20th century. Several new popular magazine formats appeared during the same decade, such as the news as well as sensational “revolver” risqué weeklies and sport magazines The development of cinema that was to become one of the most important elements of popular culture in the following years is directly linked to the café chantants and popular arenas that were later replaced by specialized cinema houses. Sports became a form of mass entertainment in this period too. Global patterns of popular mass production were more or less modified to suit the Czech, and more specifically the Prague-dwelling audience, as its specific national and local beliefs, values and desires were different to those of the Western urban centre dwellers.
In this chapter, I set out to show why disco was so readily accepted by the authorities and Czechoslovak society alike and what its role was in the late socialist period. At the same time, I explore the meanings that disco took on and how they were negotiated among the authorities, musicians and young, enthusiastic crowds of dancers and listeners.
KEYWORDS popular press – illustrated press – Czech lands – sensationalism – Prague – ordinary people – urbanisation – Habsburg monarchy