Netanya Academic College (r”s) ‫המכללה האקדמית נתניה ע"ר‬

1 University St. 1 ‫רח' האוניברסיטה‬

Kiryat Yitzhak Rabin
‫קרית יצחק רבין‬
NETANYA 42365, ISRAEL
56324 ‫נתניה‬

School of Communication

Summary of Activities 2009-2010

June, 2010
 Table of Contents

Background .................................................................................................................... 1

A. Research and Publications ........................................................................................ 3

Public Diplomacy Project .......................................................................................... 3

Publications of Members of the Center in their Specific Fields ................................ 4

Opinion Pieces on the Internet (MAKO web site) – on the Television Series

“Kidnapped”, invited by the “Keshet” Company ...................................................... 7

B. Research Grants and Development ........................................................................... 8

C. Lectures and Conferences in which Members of the Center took Part ................... 10

D. Guests ...................................................................................................................... 13

E. Activities in the Field of Instruction ........................................................................ 14

Assistance to Masters and Doctoral Students .......................................................... 14

F. Future Plans ............................................................................................................. 16

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Background

"Fair Media": The Center for the Study of Conflict, War, and Peace Coverage began

operations at Netanya Academic College's School of Communications in the Spring

of 2007, headed by Professor Dov Shinar. The reasoning behind the establishment of

the Center was the notion that despite experience garnered by the Israeli and

international media in coverage of conflicts, wars and peace processes, research in

this field has revealed professional, institutional, and functional constraints that

prevent media professionals from performing their mission: providing credible and

relevant information, and clarifying the contexts of conflicts and peace processes in a

fair and accurate manner. The Center’s goal is to study the workings of the media and

improve their performance under conditions of war, peace processes and social

conflict, and broaden the scope of research, teaching and publishing on these topics.

The Center is based on a multidisciplinary approach provided by the faculty in the

School of Communication and other schools at the College as well as by external

Israeli and foreign academics, professionals, and institutions. In this endeavor, the

Center encourages the active participation of younger faculty and students in its

activities. All faculty members of the School of Communication are, as a matter of

course, members of the Center. In addition, scholars from other institutions, including

students at various levels of their studies, are also involved in the Center's work.

In the 2009/10 academic year the following were members of the Center:
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School of Communications, Netanya Academic College:

Professor Dov Shinar Professor Anat First

Dr. Motti Neiger Dr. Lea Mandelzis
Dr. Amir Har-Gil Dr. Eyal Zandberg
Dr. Reuven Pedatzur Dr. Muli Peleg
Dr. Arad Nir Dr. Michal Hamo
Dr. Yuval Dror Att. Moshe Negbi
Dr. Carmit Wiesslitz Dr. Sharon Remer-Biel
Hanna Kalderon Keren Dvir
Mushon Nachmias Haim Hagai
Meirav Paritzky Elie Friedman
Tally Gross Nimrod Shavit
Sagit Yakobovich
Researchers from other institutions:

Professor Arye Naor, School of Administration, Ben-Gurion University

Dr. Roei Davidson, Department of the Communications, Haifa University

Dr. Dalia Liran Alper, School of Communications, College of Management

(Academic Program)

Meir Shlomo, Doctoral student, Paris 8 University

The activities of the center are funded through grants, internal and external sources,

and donations.

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A. Research and Publications
Public Diplomacy Project

With the conclusion of the study and formal delivery of the research report, including

its detailed recommendations (The “Neaman Document”) to The Samuel Neaman

Institute at the Technion and to the management at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

(see www.neaman.org.il), the report has enjoyed high demand, as detailed by the

entries and downloads from the Samuel Neaman Institute web site, where the report is

published.

The leading publications of the Samuel Neaman Institute in 2009 were as follows:

Name of the Publication Number of

Downloads

Differences in the quality of higher education between Universities 14576

and Colleges: Evaluation based on contribution to the workforce

A secular, liberal, modern vision of Israel 13437

The Neaman Document -A study on Israeli Public Diplomacy; A 9635

Joint Project of the S. Neaman Institute, Technion And the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, Israel.
English downloads: 6849
Hebrew downloads: 2786

Innovating During Global Recession - Transforming Risk into 5080

Opportunity

Proceedings of the International Conference: "Privatization in 4428

Higher Education" January 7-8 2008

Evaluation of Israel R&D Plan – “Magneton”- Summary report 3707

Enlarging Water supply in Israel through Non Revenue Water 2951

(NRW) Reduction and Prevention of Sewage Leakage

Evaluation of the Space Industry’s Impact on the Israeli Economy 2660

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Members of the Center from the School of Communications and other institutions

(Prof. Anat First, Prof. Arie Naor, Prof. Lea Mandelzis, Dr. Roee Davidson, and Dr.

Dalia Liran-Alper) completed their work on the Public Diplomacy Project headed by

Professor Dov Shinar. The project was initiated and funded by the Samuel Neaman

Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology at the Technion, in

cooperation with Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project sought to study,

analyze and recommend policy guidelines for effective Israeli public diplomacy that

will address Israel’s needs in this sphere, based on field work and existing data.

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Publications of Members of the Center in their Specific Fields

Avraham, E. & First A. (2010) Combining the Representation Approach with the

Framing Concept: Television News Coverage of the Arab Population in

Israel during Conflict. Journalism, 11 (4).

First, A., (2010). Enemies, Fellow Victims, or the Forgotten? News Coverage of

Israeli- Arabs in the 21st Century. Conflict and Communication Online, 9 (2)

First, A. & Hermann, T. (2009). Sweet Nationalism in Bitter Days: A Commercial

Representation of Zionism. Nation and Nationalism, 15 (3).

First, A. (2009). How Media Construct Regime Legitimacy. In: Y. Bar-Siman-Tov

(Ed.). The Disengagement Plan - and Idea Shattered. Jerusalem: Jerusalem

Institute for Israel Studies. [in Hebrew].

Hamo, M., Kampf, Z., & Shifman, L. (2010). Surviving the “Mock Interview”:

Challenges to Political Communicative Competence in Contemporary

Televised Discourse. Media, Culture & Society, 32(2).

Mandelzis, L. and Bernstein, A.(2010). 'Ichud Bnei Sachnin in the Documentary

Discourse: The Story of An Arab Cup Holder in a Jewish State', Social

Issues in Israel. Ariel University Center of Samaria, January 2010. [In

Hebrew[

Mandelzis, L. and Bernstein, A. (2009). "Bnei Sakhnin as Reflected in the

Documentary Looking Glass: the Story of Arab Cup-Holder in a Jewish

State", in Yair Galily and Amir Ben-Porat (guest Eds.) "60 years of sports in

the Israeli State", a special issue of Sport in Society, September.

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Neiger, M., Zandberg, E, & Meyers, O. (forthcoming, 2010). Communicating

Critique: Towards a Conceptualization of Journalistic Criticism,

Communication, Culture and Critique. 3:3

Shinar, D. (2009),"Can Peace Journalism Make Progress? The Coverage of the 2006

Lebanon War in Canadian and Israeli Media ", International Communication

Gazette 71(6), October.

Taub, G., & Hamo, M. (accepted for publication, 2010). Dialectic Textual

Negotiation: Redemption and Sovereignty in Manifestos of the Israeli

Religious Settlers' Movement. Journal of Language and Politics.

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Opinion Pieces on the Internet (MAKO web site) – on the
Television Series “Kidnapped”, invited by the “Keshet”
Company

A. Har-Gil, The Series “Kidnapped” compared to the movie “Prisoners of War”

E. Zandberg, “Sleeping with the enemy”: kidnapped or suspects? Why

“Kidnapped” and not “Prisoners of War”?

M. Hamo, The truth of Haim Cohen and the fabrication of Yael Ben-Horin.

S. Yakobovich, Nimrod is allured to the past, Uri chooses life.

M. Nachmias., “Kidnapped”: to be or not to be.

M. Neiger, When the myth comes down from the airplane plank; POWs in Ethos;

“I will die and keep on going”: between the world of the living and world of the

dead; Name as fate: Is Nimrod the rebel and Uri the mythological Tzabar?; The

secret charm of the Kidnapped.

A. First, I gave a flower to Nurit that she threw away in the yard.

S. Remer-Biel, “Kidnapped”: What are Nimrod and Uri hiding?

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B. Research Grants and Development

War and peace coverage: Prof. Dov Shinar completed and submitted an outline for

the development of a course in public diplomacy, within the framework of the faculty

enrichment program sponsored by the government of Canada and the Israeli

Association for Canadian Studies (grant 4,800 Canadian dollars).

The representation of “regular people” in conflict situations: Dr. Motti Neiger and

a group of researchers from Universidad Complutense in Spain submitted a request to

Spain’s Ministry of Education entitled: A proposal for investigating the

representations of "ordinary people" during conflict (24,000 Euro).

Critical Consumption of Media within the context of the conflict: the Center

received from the European Union (through a partnership with the Vento Region in

Italy and the Palestine-Israel Journal) a grant of approximately 90,000 Euro for the

development of educational materials on the topic of critical consumption of media

within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pilot projects in Israeli and

Palestinian teacher-training institutions. Prof. Dov Shinar is coordinating the project

with members of the Center: Dr. Lea Mendelzis, Haim Hagay, and Elie Friedman, as

well as external staff, such as Carol Daniel-Casbari. Jewish and Arab students will

take part in the project.

Project for the training of Israeli and Palestinian journalists in conflict coverage:

Prof. Dov Shinar was appointed to the advisory committee to a project sponsored by

the Search for Common Ground International NGO, for the training of young

Palestinian and Israeli journalists in the coverage of conflict. The committee includes
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media personnel, businessmen, and academics (Israeli and Palestinian). The

committee convened for the first time on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea in

January, 2010, and formulated an action plan for the project.

People to People Platform (PtPP( : A Revival of Community Video?: Following

the UNESCO Power of Peace Network (PPN) call for proposals, the center submitted

a proposal for the funding of a project that will advance civilian communication

between populations divided by hostility and policy. The use of new technologies is

expected to rejuvenate community media, following its downgrading at the end of the

previous century.

In parallel, a proposal was submitted to the organization Open Video to hold a

workshop during a conference that will take place in New York in October, 2010. The

proposal was submitted by Dr. Amir Har-Gil, Mr. Moshe Nachmias, and Prof. Dov

Shinar, in partnership with researchers from the Veneto region in Italy. If the project

will be approved, the initiators plan to request support for research to evaluate the

project through an analysis of content, discourse, form, and technology.

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C. Lectures and Conferences in which Members of the
Center took Part

Members of the Center participated and presented their papers at numerous

conference and meetings in Israel and abroad, dealing with the activities topics of the

Center, including:

First, A. (May, 2010) Enemies, friends, and what is between them: the representation

of Arabs in the media over the last decade within the framework of

multiculturalism, seminar at the School of Communication, The

Interdisciplinary Center, Herzlia.

First, A. (April, 2010) Within the framework of the Walter Lebach Institute, Tel-Aviv

University.

Friedman, E. (May, 2010) Talking back in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: rational

dialogue and reconciliation or emotional shouting match and confrontation?,

The Annual Association of Israel Studies Conference, University of Toronto.

Mandelzis, L. (June 2009) "A Study on Israeli Public Diplomacy: Strategies, Frames

and Methods". Paper presented at the 25th Annual Association for Israel
Studies Conference on Center and Periphery. Israel.

Mandelzis, L. and A. Bernstein. (June, 2009) "Between "Reality" and Its

Representation: Documenting Arab Football in a Jewish State". Paper

presented at the 25th Annual Association for Israel Studies Conference on

Center and Periphery. Israel.

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Mandelzis, L. and A. Bernstein. (August, 2009) Football Seminar: The Role of

Football Journalism in Imagining Community and Constructing Identity and

Values, Karlstad, Sweden.

Mandelzis, L. and A. Bernstein. (January, 2010) "New Media – New Discourse?

Football, Arab Minority and national Identity in Israel. Paper presented at the

41st Annual Conference of the Israeli Sociology Association. The Western

Gallilei Academic College, Israel.

Neiger, M., E. Zandberg & O. Meyers. (April 2010) "Television News,

Representation and Commemoration: Israeli newscasts on Holocaust

Memorial Day", Representation Now: the sum of it all. Saint Louis

University, Madrid Campus,

Neiger, M. (March, 2010) - Criticism during Conflicts, "Crisis in Democracy"

Conference, University of Haifa.

Neiger, M. (November 2009) - Invited key-note on "Journalism and the Military",

Universidad Complutense, Aranjues Campus, Spain.

Shinar, D. (August 2009) Invited Lectures "War Journalism and Peace Journalism in

the Middle East" Brazil: Sao Paulo (Casper Libero College), Rio de Janeiro

(Univer-cidade), Porto Alegre (Federal University).

Shinar, D. (May, 2009) “Security and Media,” a workshop dealing with Israeli

society and national security, held by the Strategic Dialogue Center at

Netanya Academic College and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Shinar, D. (sabbatical September-December 2009), taught Graduate Course on

Political Communication (International Communication), New York

University Steinhardt School, Department of Media, Culture and

Communication

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 Shinar, D. (December 2009) Invited Lecture "The Media in the Middle Eastern

Conflict", New York University, Department of Middle Eastern Studies

Shinar, D. (January, 2010) Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania - "War Discourse,

Peace Discourse: More of the Same?"

Shinar, D., and V. Bratic. (March, 2010) "Asymmetric Peace in the Middle East and

the Western Balkans: Real Realities and Media Realities", presented at the

Eleventh Mediterranean Research Meeting, Florence and Montecatini Terme,

organized by the Mediterranean Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre

for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute.

Shinar, D., and V. Bratic. (May, 2010), "Asymmetric Peace in the Middle East and

the Western Balkans: Real Realities and Media Realities", Conference on

"Media, Psychology and Representations in Asymmetric Conflict", Smart

Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Shinar, D.,(June 2010), "What Do We Really Know About War and Peace

Coverage"? Training Project for Young Israeli and Palestinian Journalists by

the Search for Common Ground International Organization, Tel Aviv.

Zandberg, E., M. Neiger & O. Meyers. (May, 2010) Your remember the songs: radio

broadcasts in Israel on Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the conference:

Radio in Israel: between nationalism and escapism, the Open University.

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D. Guests

Arturo Marzano – a research fellow at University of Pisa, Italy, at “Yad V’Shem”,

and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Expert in the field of Italian Jewry and in

the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Clark McCauley – professor of social psychology at Bryn Mawr

College in the United States, Co-director of the Solomon Asch

Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, founding editor of the

journal Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict: Pathways toward

Terrorism and Genocide and consultant for the evaluation of research proposals for

the Harry Frank Guggenheim foundation.

Viktor Mayer-Schonberger – a professor for public

diplomacy, Director of the Director of the Information

and Innovation Policy Research Center at the LKY

School of Public Policy, National University of

Singapore and lecturer at Harvard University. Owner of a start-up company,

consultant to businesses, governments, and international organizations. Author of the

book Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, which the author presented

at a joint event of the School of Communication, the Strategic Dialogue Center, and

the “Fair Media” Center at Netanya Academic College on 15.6.2010, followed by a

discussion with the participation of Dr. Yuval Dror, Mr. Giora Rosen, and Prof. Elihu

Katz.

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E. Activities in the Field of Instruction

Dr. Lea Mendelzis, Dr. Reuven Pedatzur, and Prof. Dov Shinar teach in the School of

Communication courses and seminars dealing with war and peace in the media, the

media coverage of security issues, Israel’s security approach, and the media and

nuclear issues in the Middle East.

Within the framework of the grant awarded by the European Union (see above), Dr.

Lea Mendelzis is developing the course: “critical consumption of media within the

context of the Middle East conflict”, which will be used as a pilot for research

activities.

Assistance to Masters and Doctoral Students

Prof. Dov Shinar

The following PhD. theses were approved:

 Dr. Rachel Baruch (supervision with Dr. Eli Kozminsky, Ben Gurion University)

– “Gender and information technology: characteristics of approaches, attitudes,

and discourse of teaching students within online learning environments”.

 Dr. Carmit Weislitz (supervision with Prof. Binyamin Gidron, Ben Gurion

University) – “Internet, democracy, and civil society – online activities of civil

society organizations in Israel”.

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 Dr. Keren Tamam (supervision with Prof. Elie Podeh, Hebrew University of

Jerusalem) – “The civilian aspect of foreign news during periods of war and peace

– the Israeli-Arab conflict as a test case”.

 Dr. David Meron – supervision of post-doctoral work at Ben Gurion University.

Works in progress:

 Ms. Adi Zamir Nizan (supervision with Prof. Noah Ephron, Bar Ilan University)

– “Conflicts on the Internet and the Internet in conflicts: the Israeli-Palestinian

case.”

Dr. Motti Neiger

Karni Rimer (thesis at University Haifa with Uzi

Elida, completed in January, 2010): “The war that

wasn’t in the news – representations of nationalism

in daily newspaper supplements in Israel during the

Second Lebanon War.

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F. Future Plans

 Submitting proposals for future projects and studies.

 Continuation of producing publications and participation in conferences.

 Increase of cooperation with bodies in Israel (the Strategic Dialogue Center) and

abroad (universities, UNESCO, the European Union, and foundations).

 Increase in cooperation with researchers and professionals from Israel and abroad.

 Broadening and deepening of cooperation with Masters students in the Center's

projects.

FAIR MEDIA
The Center for the Study of Conflict, War, and Peace Coverage
Netanya Academic College
1 University St.
Kiriyat Yitzchak Rabin
Netanya 42365
Tel: +972-9-860-7416
Mail: fairmedia@netanya.ac.il

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