Hillel Nossek | The College of Management Academic Studies (original) (raw)

Papers by Hillel Nossek

Communications, Apr 4, 2024

This study examines the theory of media systems, and the models offered by Hallin and Mancini (20... more This study examines the theory of media systems, and the models offered by Hallin and Mancini (2004) by focusing on critical junctures in which changes occur. Based on critical political economy and historical institutionalism, we analyzed the Israeli media system transition in the 1980s and early 1990s, seeking to understand the nature of this change and its theoretical implications. Our findings show a combination of government, market, and public forces in a unique situation where political, economic, and social circumstances change. Accordingly, we conclude that a distinction between politics and economy, as the media system theory and, specifically, the liberal model suggests, is invalid under neoliberalism. We argue that research attention should be paid to critical junctions and that a closer analysis of government and market interrelations can enrich theories of media systems.

Communications, Aug 21, 2008

Based on longitudinal research on the media coverage of terrorist attacks, this article suggests ... more Based on longitudinal research on the media coverage of terrorist attacks, this article suggests a model of how the coverage of these attacks may be conceptualized as a media event and explores the function this serves within society. The main assumption of the model is that journalists change their ritual of news coverage when dealing with exceptional terrorist attacks; they abandon their usual normative professional frame that encompasses such activities as critical scrutiny of governmental actions, and assume a national-patriotic coverage frame that seeks to reestablish normality and restore order. The model can be useful in clarifying the media's role following terror event. While media run the risk of reinforcing the terror event by giving it the public stage its perpetrators seek, by acting as patriots and not as professionals, journalists subvert the message of the terrorists, so that instead of passing on a message of terror, dread, and alarm, the media give the attacked country and society a message of solidarity, partnership, and stubborn endurance against the terrorist threat. The model may also be useful for understanding media coverage of other crisis situations apart from massive terror attacks.

Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2011

The main question addressed in this chapter concerns the function of book reading in fulfilling p... more The main question addressed in this chapter concerns the function of book reading in fulfilling personal psychosocial needs, such as knowledge acquisition, aesthetic pleasure, entertainment and escapism in the multi-channel media environment. We will first describe the two main approaches to date exploring communication research — the functionalist and the technological approaches — and then our proposed approach for interchangeable functionality that combines the two. We will then present our empirical findings using this combined approach to study the functions of book reading for Israeli readers and media consumers.

Communications, Nov 21, 2019

This study investigates the cross-media repertoires of news consumption of young adults in today'... more This study investigates the cross-media repertoires of news consumption of young adults in today's fragmented multi-media environment, and examines the interactions between those repertoires and the consumers' civic engagement and political participation. By using a Q-sort method, the respondents were asked to sort a number of elicitation cards on a relational scalar grid, which allowed for subsequent statistical factor analysis of these qualitative data and the generation of a sub-typology of media consumption repertoires as well as the discursive practices of the respondents. We also used a questionnaire which included questions about news consumption, political participation, and civic engagement. The findings revealed that most young adults used repertoires of digital and new media news consumption. The interviewees were highly conscious of their choices of news sources, and some young adults explicitly stated that they preferred to consume news from sources which reflected their own political views. In this study we were able to map news media repertoires of young adults in Israel and found that young adults do participate, and are largely involved, in activism and protests.

Since Israel became a state, the country’s media institution has leaned toward the continental Eu... more Since Israel became a state, the country’s media institution has leaned toward the continental European model, displaying remnants of both a British colonialist and a local European one adapted to Israeli reality. The theoretical significance of this framework is such that it swings between authoritarian characteristics of a media institution with newspaper licensing and military censorship, and democratic characteristics of a European model that considers free press a social right. Although in Israel this right is not anchored in a written constitution or law, it is exercised de facto, supported by Supreme Court precedents (Nossek and Limor, 2001). Public ownership of the broadcasting sphere is expressed as public radio and television, with public control over operating franchises for commercial terrestrial television and regional radio, cable television, and direct broadcast satellite. Commercial, local, and sectarian media—particularly newspapers, periodicals, and pirate radio—operate alongside the national media. Besides catering to separate regions, these media serve as functional community media for Russian immigrants, the religious ultra-orthodox, the Arab sector, and certain elements on the right wing, particularly settlers in Judea and Samaria (Nossek and Limor, 2001).

Journal of Narrative and Life History, 1994

The mass media convey dominant values and attitudes through stories and myths that they circulate... more The mass media convey dominant values and attitudes through stories and myths that they circulate within a specific culture. As a narrative form, news coverage places events into social reality by retelling them within the framework of known stories or myths. Events acquire meanings and reactions by the ways in which these stories are told. In Israeli society, the Holocaust is a historical event that plays a prominent role in shaping national and cultural identity. An analysis of Israeli press coverage of terrorist attacks on Israel reveals that the Israeli press uses these events to convey the basic myth of the Holocaust and the revival of the Jewish state. Using Barthes' theories of narrative analysis, a composite story is constructed to illustrate the workings of this process. In this story the Jews, formerly helpless victims of Nazi aggression, are saved by Israeli soldiers as proof of the revival of the Jewish people in the state of Israel. The findings of the study suggest that the myth of the Holocaust may be used as a framework by the Israeli press in more serious emergency situations, such as war. At the same time, the study suggests that the analysis of news as narrative provides a means of understanding how terrorist events are reported by the press in other countries and in other media as well.(Mass Communication)

Journal of alternative and community media, Jul 1, 2019

Community media organisations are famously difficult to define, as this media field is highly elu... more Community media organisations are famously difficult to define, as this media field is highly elusive and diverse, even if there is a certain degree of consensus about a series of basic characteristics. One key defining component is the objective to serve its community by allowing its members to participate in self-representational processes. Yet this component raises questions about what 'community' means, and how the community that is being served relates to other parts of society. This article studies a particular social reality-Israel-where community television is the dominant model, community television production groups are separated from the actual distribution of the produced content and different configurations of 'us' and 'them' characterise political reality. Following the methodological procedures outlined in Voniati et al. (2018), a mapping of 83 Israeli community broadcasting groups was organised, allowing us to flesh out the different ways in which these community broadcasting groups deal with their community/ies and the 'other'. The analysis shows that many of these Israeli community broadcasting groups have fairly closed, singular-community articulations of 'their' communities. They rarely engage in interactions with other communities (limiting internal diversity) and their external diversity is even more restricted, with only one Arab-Israeli community broadcasting group able to be identified. The analysis did, however, identify a dozen groups with more open approaches towards their outer worlds, and thus the potential to assume a more conflict-transformatory role.

Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, Nov 24, 2016

This chapter uses the framework of journalistic professionalism to explore how the specific chall... more This chapter uses the framework of journalistic professionalism to explore how the specific challenges of climate journalism are affecting the profession. In particular, we consider how some key journalists from around the world reflected on the task of reporting climate change in general and on the IPCC AR5 in particular. 16 prominent professional journalists were interviewed to gather the data analysed in this chapter. The main findings were that while covering the field of climate, journalists adhere to professional journalistic norms, but as science journalists on one hand and environmental journalists on the other, also allow themselves to adopt more of an activist frame.

International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Mar 1, 1996

... We also thank Izchak Vulech and Smadar Shtraks for the excellent computer work as well as Neo... more ... We also thank Izchak Vulech and Smadar Shtraks for the excellent computer work as well as Neomi Kesler and Paul Frosh for their help in translating the paper and improving its language. © World Association for Public Opinion Research /gg6 ...

Israel Affairs, Jul 1, 2006

During the 2003 war in Iraq, the manner in which the United States conducted relations with the m... more During the 2003 war in Iraq, the manner in which the United States conducted relations with the media, proved surprising to many, but an examination of the Gulf War of 1991, as well as the war in Afghanistan, provides early evidence of the contemporary relationship between the military, the government and the media. These two wars essentially gave rise to a new pattern of military–media relations whose foundations were laid a decade or two earlier. The essence of the new model is one of warfare managed, and waged, far from the eyes of the media, essentially deactivating the latter’s ability to act freely. From a historical point of view, one can define the Deactivation Model as the third stage in military–media relations in the modern era. The first stage, defined as the Self-Mobilization Model, reached its peak in World War II and was characterized by an identity of interests, wherein the media voluntarily rallied to the aid of the military. The second stage, the Parallel Model that developed in the wake of the Vietnam War, embodied rivalry between the media and the military, similar to the media’s relations with political institutions or other organizations in society. Recognition of the growing power of the media and the related structural processes on global and local media maps made politicians and military personnel aware that media interests—especially those of international media conglomerates—are not necessarily identical to those of the state and society in which these entities operate. The present study examines key global changes in military–media relations during the twentieth century, focusing on the inapplicability of known models to the realities of military–media relations and wars in the twenty-first century. It maintains that these one-dimensional models, that were never entirely consistent or perfect, are no longer capable of theoretical or practical conceptualization of the reciprocal relations between the military and the media. Consequently, the Multidimensional

Communications, Jan 3, 2003

Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, Apr 28, 2009

Journalism Studies, Oct 1, 2006

The central point of this article is that journalists accomplish their work through a narrative d... more The central point of this article is that journalists accomplish their work through a narrative duality. During everyday news, journalists apply a professional narrative that represents a balance between their core journalistic values and the social pressures from their working world. When society's core values are under threat *such as with physical or political violence or terrorist attacks *journalists switch to a cultural narrative that moves the public mind back toward the dominant cultural order. US and Israeli newspaper coverage of two terrorist events in Israel was analyzed to explore this idea. The analysis suggests that when news about terrorism is culturally proximate, the professional narrative tends to lead. When terrorism is culturally remote, however, cultural narratives must be relied on more heavily to assist journalists' sense-making, and the news is more mythically-laden. Findings show that cultural affinity affects the choice of myth used, with distant events more tied to cultural references.

Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, Aug 1, 2004

The theoretical assumption of this paper is that when a foreign news item is defined as ‘ours’, t... more The theoretical assumption of this paper is that when a foreign news item is defined as ‘ours’, then journalists’ professional practices become subordinate to national loyalty; when an item is ‘theirs’, journalistic professionalism comes into its own. Thus, the article argues that there is an inverse relation between professional news values and the national identity of the journalist and the journal’s editors. Expressed as a rule, we would say that the more ‘national’ the report is, the less ‘professional’ it will be, i.e. the closer the reporters/editors are to a given news event in terms of national interest, the further they are from applying professional news values. This claim is presented in the form of a flow diagram and is investigated using qualitative content analysis of the coverage of four events in three different countries (the USA, Britain and Israel). The four events, which were all presented as foreign news, were defined as political violence based on an observational definition. The theory which is empirically tested and presented in this article can help us to understand the coverage of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and further our understanding of how events were, and still are, covered as foreign news in general, and, in particular, how political violence is covered as foreign news.

The publication of the now famous twelve cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in Denmark in 2005 was foll... more The publication of the now famous twelve cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in Denmark in 2005 was followed by a heated controversy in the spring of 2006 that become a dramatic high point in (recent mediated) tensions between what has often been defined as the “Islamic world” versus the “West”. Although the actual news events provoked by the conflict during the spring of 2006 have now largely died down, it has become clear that the event has left an enduring residue in the form of a repertoire of images and assumptions. To a considerable extent, and from both “sides”, this residue has to do with modes of portraying each other as well reinforcing existing cliches that have been used to make sense of later news. At least on the short term the controversy seems to have become a defining moment, a landmark event. This volume is a selection of readings that exhibit many of the ways in which the controversy has illuminated important trends and developments in the current transnationally-mediated world of politics and social values. These interpretations are based on a two-year long transnational media research cooperation which began by examining the coverage or reception of the controversy over the Mohammed cartoons, as it played out in fourteen countries; then, in this second phase, this collaboration has tried to take stock of wider, transnational issues and questions.

Israel studies review, 2013

This article investigates the function of book reading in a society consisting of a multiplicity ... more This article investigates the function of book reading in a society consisting of a multiplicity of ethno-cultural communities, asking whether book reading functions as a unifying factor within each ethno-cultural community or as a dividing factor and as a signifier of boundaries between them. It is based on multiyear survey data among representative samples of Israeli urban adults