PhD Programme in Media and Communication Studies

The doctoral study program Media and Communication studies is designed for candidates who are deeply interested in following or related topics:

• Media Studies
• Journalism Studies
• Political Communication
• Social construction of reality
• Discourse studies
• Visual Journalism
• Sports Journalism
• Media History
• Strategic Communication, Marketing and PR
• Artificial Intelligence and Media, Big Data, Algorithms
• Cultural Studies
• Audience Studies
• Participatory Studies

The study program prepares students for independent academic work in the field of communication, media and marketing studies at universities, with substantial knowledge of communication and media theories and methodologies.

APPLICATION AND ADMISSION CONDITIONS

The study contributes to critical thinking about the nature of modern and late modern societies, about the nature of opportunities and risks of society-wide communication processes and changes in their institutionalization in the past and in the present.

​​​​​​Our Institute is the only one in the Czech Republic to offer a doctoral study field specialized exclusively in media studies. Each doctoral student automatically becomes a member of ECREA, one of the world's most important professional organizations in the field. Our Institute is systematically building a network of contacts with foreign universities, which doctoral students can make extensive use of

Research activities at ICSJ focus on the following areas, amongst others:

• Development of media, their position in society, and their relationship to other social institutions, from an historical perspective (with a focus on the period 1918-1989) and from a contemporary perspective;
• The state and role of journalism, and the journalistic coverage of social realities, including alternative forms of journalism (and media);
• The state and role of strategic communication and political communication/marketing;
• The discursive-ideological and mediated construction of social realities, such as the environment & nature, migration, nation and polis, home and everyday life, history and memory, and technology;
• Audience behaviours and audience interpretations of media content.

The graduate of the doctoral program of Media and Communication Studies knows methods of analysis of media production, media products, and content, audience, and users. He is an expert on the issues of the history and present of media and their position in changes in the social, political and cultural context, able to synthesize knowledge in the social sciences and humanities and to interpret current trends in media development and media and strategic communication.

Doctoral graduates are prepared for academic careers at universities in the Czech Republic and abroad, and for employment as media analysts in applied research. As social scientists, they can work in institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic or other scientific workplaces. They can also act as analysts of communication processes in the political or commercial sphere.

The programme can be studied in a full-time form and in a combined form. We recommend selecting the full-time form, as only this form entitles PhD students to a regular monthly scholarship. PhD students taking the combined form are not entitled to this scholarship.

Applicants choose the study form when submitting the application. The basic duties are the same for students of both forms of study (completion of compulsory subjects,  passing the State Doctoral Exam, passing the Small and the Main Defence, publishing and conference activities). Also, the expectations for having a presence in Prague are the same. PhD students taking the combined form are not entitled to the regular scholarship; they are not expected to be involved in teaching at the Institute, and they can spend more time studying abroad.

The standard study period is four years, and the doctoral program can be studied for a maximum of eight years. The maximum duration of full-time study is four years, i.e., after four years of study, the student automatically switches to the combined study and thus loses the right to a scholarship."