Imrich Gazda, PhD. was born in 1982 in Vranov nad Topľou. He is an assistant lecturer at the Department of Journalism at the Faculty of Arts and Letters of the Catholic University in Ružomberok. He deals with ethics in journalism and coverageof religious issues in secular and religious media. He has taken part in the Research Study Exchange Programs in Radio Vatican (Rome) and at the School of Institutional Social Communications, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, (Rome). In 2007, he was Journalism Prize Laureate for the best commentary in 2006. He cooperates with many Slovak dailies and weeklies. Supervisors: Denisa Kollmannová and Diego Contreras Address: Catholic University in Ruzomberok
Faculty of Arts and Letters
Department of Journalism
Hrabovská cesta 1
034 01 Ruzomberok
Slovakia
Europe commemorates the 20th anniversary of not only the Fall of the Berlin Wall, but also falls ... more Europe commemorates the 20th anniversary of not only the Fall of the Berlin Wall, but also falls of totalitarian regimes in the states of former Eastern Bloc. The fall of Communism falls on November 17, 1989 and this day is the national holiday in the succession states of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia and the Czech republic.
One of the forms of antitotalitarian resistance was the samizdat, i.e. illegal reproduction of copies of various types (religious, historical, political) by hand, typewriter, mainframe printer or computers which could not be published legally because of political and ideological reasons (Ján Šimulčík, Svetlo z podzemia, 1997 “Light from Underground“). While in the Czech republic the liberal-laic orientation of samizdats prevailed, samizdats of Christian character were dominant in Slovakia. Their authors, contributors, distributors and customers were persecuted by the Communistic regime. In the period ofter 1989, several samizdats began to be published legally and they have been published till today (e.g., the Czech daily Lidové noviny, the Czech theological revue Teologické texty, the Slovak religious weekly Zrno and others). Their authors became politically active and performed important political function after the fall of Communism, e.g., Jan Ruml- Minister of Defence of the Czech republic, Ján Čarnogurský - Prime minister of the Slovak republic, František Mikloško – Chairman of the Slovak Parliament. The paper summarizes and orders basic information about the periodical samizdat in former Czechoslovakia, while it does not only follow the literature dealing with the theme, but it uses also archive materials and statements of witnesses of living authors of illegal periodicals that were one of the strongest proofs of resistance of many simple people against the Communistic totality.
The Slovak republic is markedly a Christian country. According to results of the last population ... more The Slovak republic is markedly a Christian country. According to results of the last population census in 2001, not less than 84 per cent of people claimed to be Christians. Catholicism prevails among Christian denominations. Despite the fact, in Slovakia there is not a strong periodical, besides the Catholic Newspaper, with Christian background, so an image of Christian/Catholic creed and religion is formed mainly by means of secular media. Diego Contreras (2004) from The School of Institutional Social Communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome led the extensive research in 1998 within which he analyzed 10 prominent dailies from five countries (Corriere della sera, La Repubblica; ABC, El País; The New York Times, The Washington Post; Le Monde, Le Figaro; The Times, The Daily Telegraph). The results of the research show that 85 % of texts covering any religious topic were related to the Catholic Church. The share was up to 90% in case of Italian and Spanish dailies. We may assume, and this is the first hypothesis of our paper, that we can gain similar numbers when analysing the Slovak dailies quantitatively. All the elite newspapers (the liberal SME daily, the mainstream daily PRAVDA which was officially a periodical of the Communistic Party before 1989 and the daily Economic Newspaper- Hospodárske noviny) cover issues from the Catholic Church mostly critically. We are planning to confirm or disprove this second hypothesis by means of the qualitative research of the Slovak dailies. At the same time, we plan to specify accurately reasons of the critical approach. The research sample of the qualitative and quantitative research will be the issues of the above-menationed dailies within the chosen months in the year 2011.
A driving engine these days is not manual work, steam power or electricity, but information. Soci... more A driving engine these days is not manual work, steam power or electricity, but information. Social and economic life is especially based on formation, searching for and classification of information. New information and communication technologies enable a man to get it everytime, everywhere and via the simplest way, regardless whether he or she is at work or relaxing. Web pages, social networks, QR and AR codes help companies to target all potential customers and to persuade them of their need of offered products and services. This description may be applied not only to financial markets, but also to „market of religions“. One of the results of religious pluralism together with secularism is a wide range of spiritual offers and religiously clear societies are on the decrease. Particular religious societies active within information society must actively try to keep old and gain new “customers“. Besides that, the instruction to spread religion, termed in Christian context as evangelisation is a constitutional element of particular religions and, as a rule, it comes directly from their founders. In our paper we would like to describe activities of the Catholic Church in use of new media. Only recently pope’s twitter account has been covered by media worldwide. Together with efforts of Vatican to keep abreast of the times, we will pay our attention to similar activities of lower levels (diocesan, monastic or parish ones) and we will mention several examples from Slovakia and we will not avoid the theological concept of “evangelisation of the digital continent“.
Europe commemorates the 20th anniversary of not only the Fall of the Berlin Wall, but also falls ... more Europe commemorates the 20th anniversary of not only the Fall of the Berlin Wall, but also falls of totalitarian regimes in the states of former Eastern Bloc. The fall of Communism falls on November 17, 1989 and this day is the national holiday in the succession states of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia and the Czech republic.
One of the forms of antitotalitarian resistance was the samizdat, i.e. illegal reproduction of copies of various types (religious, historical, political) by hand, typewriter, mainframe printer or computers which could not be published legally because of political and ideological reasons (Ján Šimulčík, Svetlo z podzemia, 1997 “Light from Underground“). While in the Czech republic the liberal-laic orientation of samizdats prevailed, samizdats of Christian character were dominant in Slovakia. Their authors, contributors, distributors and customers were persecuted by the Communistic regime. In the period ofter 1989, several samizdats began to be published legally and they have been published till today (e.g., the Czech daily Lidové noviny, the Czech theological revue Teologické texty, the Slovak religious weekly Zrno and others). Their authors became politically active and performed important political function after the fall of Communism, e.g., Jan Ruml- Minister of Defence of the Czech republic, Ján Čarnogurský - Prime minister of the Slovak republic, František Mikloško – Chairman of the Slovak Parliament. The paper summarizes and orders basic information about the periodical samizdat in former Czechoslovakia, while it does not only follow the literature dealing with the theme, but it uses also archive materials and statements of witnesses of living authors of illegal periodicals that were one of the strongest proofs of resistance of many simple people against the Communistic totality.
The Slovak republic is markedly a Christian country. According to results of the last population ... more The Slovak republic is markedly a Christian country. According to results of the last population census in 2001, not less than 84 per cent of people claimed to be Christians. Catholicism prevails among Christian denominations. Despite the fact, in Slovakia there is not a strong periodical, besides the Catholic Newspaper, with Christian background, so an image of Christian/Catholic creed and religion is formed mainly by means of secular media. Diego Contreras (2004) from The School of Institutional Social Communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome led the extensive research in 1998 within which he analyzed 10 prominent dailies from five countries (Corriere della sera, La Repubblica; ABC, El País; The New York Times, The Washington Post; Le Monde, Le Figaro; The Times, The Daily Telegraph). The results of the research show that 85 % of texts covering any religious topic were related to the Catholic Church. The share was up to 90% in case of Italian and Spanish dailies. We may assume, and this is the first hypothesis of our paper, that we can gain similar numbers when analysing the Slovak dailies quantitatively. All the elite newspapers (the liberal SME daily, the mainstream daily PRAVDA which was officially a periodical of the Communistic Party before 1989 and the daily Economic Newspaper- Hospodárske noviny) cover issues from the Catholic Church mostly critically. We are planning to confirm or disprove this second hypothesis by means of the qualitative research of the Slovak dailies. At the same time, we plan to specify accurately reasons of the critical approach. The research sample of the qualitative and quantitative research will be the issues of the above-menationed dailies within the chosen months in the year 2011.
A driving engine these days is not manual work, steam power or electricity, but information. Soci... more A driving engine these days is not manual work, steam power or electricity, but information. Social and economic life is especially based on formation, searching for and classification of information. New information and communication technologies enable a man to get it everytime, everywhere and via the simplest way, regardless whether he or she is at work or relaxing. Web pages, social networks, QR and AR codes help companies to target all potential customers and to persuade them of their need of offered products and services. This description may be applied not only to financial markets, but also to „market of religions“. One of the results of religious pluralism together with secularism is a wide range of spiritual offers and religiously clear societies are on the decrease. Particular religious societies active within information society must actively try to keep old and gain new “customers“. Besides that, the instruction to spread religion, termed in Christian context as evangelisation is a constitutional element of particular religions and, as a rule, it comes directly from their founders. In our paper we would like to describe activities of the Catholic Church in use of new media. Only recently pope’s twitter account has been covered by media worldwide. Together with efforts of Vatican to keep abreast of the times, we will pay our attention to similar activities of lower levels (diocesan, monastic or parish ones) and we will mention several examples from Slovakia and we will not avoid the theological concept of “evangelisation of the digital continent“.
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Papers by Imrich Gazda
One of the forms of antitotalitarian resistance was the samizdat, i.e. illegal reproduction of copies of various types (religious, historical, political) by hand, typewriter, mainframe printer or computers which could not be published legally because of political and ideological reasons (Ján Šimulčík, Svetlo z podzemia, 1997 “Light from Underground“). While in the Czech republic the liberal-laic orientation of samizdats prevailed, samizdats of Christian character were dominant in Slovakia. Their authors, contributors, distributors and customers were persecuted by the Communistic regime. In the period ofter 1989, several samizdats began to be published legally and they have been published till today (e.g., the Czech daily Lidové noviny, the Czech theological revue Teologické texty, the Slovak religious weekly Zrno and others). Their authors became politically active and performed important political function after the fall of Communism, e.g., Jan Ruml- Minister of Defence of the Czech republic, Ján Čarnogurský - Prime minister of the Slovak republic, František Mikloško – Chairman of the Slovak Parliament. The paper summarizes and orders basic information about the periodical samizdat in former Czechoslovakia, while it does not only follow the literature dealing with the theme, but it uses also archive materials and statements of witnesses of living authors of illegal periodicals that were one of the strongest proofs of resistance of many simple people against the Communistic totality.
One of the forms of antitotalitarian resistance was the samizdat, i.e. illegal reproduction of copies of various types (religious, historical, political) by hand, typewriter, mainframe printer or computers which could not be published legally because of political and ideological reasons (Ján Šimulčík, Svetlo z podzemia, 1997 “Light from Underground“). While in the Czech republic the liberal-laic orientation of samizdats prevailed, samizdats of Christian character were dominant in Slovakia. Their authors, contributors, distributors and customers were persecuted by the Communistic regime. In the period ofter 1989, several samizdats began to be published legally and they have been published till today (e.g., the Czech daily Lidové noviny, the Czech theological revue Teologické texty, the Slovak religious weekly Zrno and others). Their authors became politically active and performed important political function after the fall of Communism, e.g., Jan Ruml- Minister of Defence of the Czech republic, Ján Čarnogurský - Prime minister of the Slovak republic, František Mikloško – Chairman of the Slovak Parliament. The paper summarizes and orders basic information about the periodical samizdat in former Czechoslovakia, while it does not only follow the literature dealing with the theme, but it uses also archive materials and statements of witnesses of living authors of illegal periodicals that were one of the strongest proofs of resistance of many simple people against the Communistic totality.