Muting Israeli Democracy: How Media and Cultural Policy Undermine Free Expression (History of Communication) - Softcover

Schejter, Amit M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252076931 ISBN 13: 9780252076930

Verlag: University of Illinois Press, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

The result of years of critical analysis of Israeli media law, this book argues that the laws governing Israeli electronic media are structured to limit the boundaries of public discourse. Amit M. Schejter posits the theory of a "mute democracy," one in which the media are designed to provide a platform for some voices to be heard over others. While Israel's institutions may be democratic, and while the effect of these policies may be limited, this book contends that free speech in Israel is institutionally muted to ensure the continued domination of the Jewish majority and its preferred interpretation of what Israel means as a Jewish-democratic state. Analyzing a wide range of legal documents recorded in Israel from 1961 to 2007, Muting Israeli Democracy demonstrates in scrupulous detail how law and policy are used to promote the hegemonic national culture through the constraints and obligations set on electronic media.

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Amit M. Schejter is an assistant professor of communications and co-director of the Institute for Information Policy at Penn Sate University and a former attorney specializing in Israeli telecommunication and media law, policy, and regulation.

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Muting Israeli Democracy

HOW MEDIA AND CULTURAL POLICY UNDERMINE FREE EXPRESSIONBy AMIT M. SCHEJTER

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS

Copyright © 2009 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-252-07693-0

Contents

Preface................................................................viiIntroduction: The Makings of a Muted Democracy.........................xi1. Culture: Features and Institutions..................................12. The Building Blocks of Official Israeli Culture.....................83. Media Space and Political Culture in Israel.........................244. Israeli Electronic Media as a System of Control.....................455. Broadcasting........................................................636. Cable and Satellite.................................................877. Transborder Broadcasting............................................1068. The Palestinian Minority............................................115Conclusion: Is Israeli Democracy Muted?................................135Notes..................................................................149References.............................................................161Index..................................................................179

Chapter One

Culture FEATURES AND INSTITUTIONS

In order to identify the dominant elements of Israeli culture in the legal landscape in which the electronic media operate, I describe my understanding of the meaning of the term "culture" in this chapter. I discuss how myth and ritual, the building blocks of culture, are subordinated to serve a dominant group in society as they are transformed into their rational and institutional format in the form of ideology and ceremony, which help establish collective memory and identity. The infusion of ideology and ceremony into the legally prescribed media fare is one of the mechanisms by which dominance of a particular interpretation of culture is preserved and by which democracy is muted.

The Building Blocks of a Culture

Culture can be defined as both the story people tell themselves about themselves and the mental-intellectual connection among a group of people that makes their lives possible (Geertz 1973, 448). It is both the whole way of life and its common meanings as well as the arts and learning (Williams 1989, 4). A culture is a set of beliefs and assumptions developed by a given group in order to cope with the external process of adaptation and the internal process of integration (Inglehart 1990, 4). It is "the stock of knowledge from which participants in communication supply themselves with interpretations as they come to an understanding about something in the world" (Habermas 1984–1987b, 138). And because culture serves as the basis for understanding social reality, the development of a national culture is essentially the outcome of a power struggle. Carey (1992) describes culture as a process of "the making of meaning ... of wording the world together" (57) that involves struggle and conflict. He points to two social arenas in which this conflict plays out (although he acknowledges that the process "suffuses social space") and that he identifies as "particularly important": the mass media and the educational system. Lasswell (1948), Wright (1960), and McQuail (1987) argue that one of the functions of mass media in society is the process of transmitting culture, or "socialization." McQuail refers to socialization as "continuity" and sees it as a process by which generations communicate what they perceive as important within the culture to the young.

This approach also involves analyzing communication in terms of power. Because the meanings expressed through myth and ritual are subjective, power plays an important role in the creation of an individual's perception of culture. According to Keesing (1974, quoted in Aronoff 1983), culture not only refers to the belief system of the individual and what he or she believes about his or her world but also to what he or she theorizes about the beliefs of others, beliefs that may contribute to an individual's image of the state of public opinion and to his or her reasons for expressing ideas opposed to it (Noelle-Neuman 1974). The symbolic forms of myth and ritual serve as the building blocks of culture and help the individual determine what these beliefs are (Aronoff 1983, 4).

Theoretical descriptions of this power struggle differ. Gramsci's theory of hegemony argues that the study of the cultural product provides evidence that it represents an unconscious ideological bias favoring the ruling class, a result of the subordination of the subconscious of the working class (McQuail 1987). Hegemony is a condition that Gramsci perceives to be separate from actual visible political power. Because it lies in the subconscious, it determines what is truly the ruling class. The ruling class's control of government is a consequence of the legitimacy to rule that is achieved by reaching a hegemonic status (Forgacs 1988, 422–424). Hutchinson offers a different analysis in his theory of cultural nationalism, which he defines as a movement to recreate a distinctive national civilization (Hutchinson 1987, 16). According to Hutchinson, cultural nationalism is independent of political nationalism and can be seen as a bottom-up effort to revive what binds a nation together. This process originates from the people as individuals instead of from what the state defines as social order. Cultural nationalism has a different goal than political nationalism: It seeks the moral regeneration of the national community rather than the achievement of an autonomous state. Historical memory serves to define the national community. Cultural nationalism arises from a crisis of identity and function, is embraced by secular intellectuals and the intelligentsia, and is generated by the formation of the modern state. (It may also inspire an assault on that very same state.)

Regardless of whether the Israeli experience is a top-down hegemonic process or a bottom-up creation of cultural nationalism, it clearly is an example of the institutionalization of culture, a process that derives its content from both rational and nonrational cultural resources. Aronoff (1983) identifies the prominent nonrational cultural resources as myth and ritual, while he identifies ideology and secularized forms of civil ceremony as culture's rational components (7). Myth and ideology are a culture's reservoir of symbols; ritual, civil ceremonies, and memory are the tangible formats through which a society maintains these symbols. Communications are the avenue over which these symbols travel.

According to Connerton, myth is a collective symbolic text that constitutes a reservoir of meanings that can be used in different structures and contexts (Connerton 1989, 53–56). Myth provides members of a culture with a fundamental model of society that gives practical meaning to values and beliefs. It is a taken-for-granted aspect of everyday life (Bennet 1983). The use of myth, according to Habermas (1984–1987a, 46), provides a "gigantic mirror-effect, where the reciprocal image of man and the world is reflected"; as a result, "everything can be explained using a symbolic order." Like myth, ideology is a symbolic representation, and like myth, ideology can be understood within the contexts of defined groups. However, unlike myth, which seems to "emerge," ideology is a symbol system that is created for a purpose and embraced by only some of the members of the culture. At the same time,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Illinois Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0252076931
• ISBN 13: 9780252076930
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 192
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar