New Article: Gilboa and Magen, Crisis Communication Research in Israel

Gilboa, Eytan, and Clila Magen. “Crisis Communication Research in Israel. Growth and Gaps.” In The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research (ed. Andreas Schwarz, Matthew W. Seeger, and Claudia Auer; Malden, Mass. and Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2016): 327-36.

 

Extract

Gesser-Edelsburg and Zemach (2012) explored CC strategies used by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deal with the December 2010 Carmel forest fire disaster. Ostensibly, this crisis belongs to the national type, but the focus on the prime minister moves it to the individual crisis category… They concluded that Netanyahu made effective use of CC principles including inclusion, clarity, and addressing the public’s values and norms. They claimed, however, that those strategies were used to produce what they labeled “cover-up risk communication,” because the end result was a cover-up of a failure rather than an admission of malfunction and willingness to correct defects. The analysis is interesting but the conclusion ignored important measures applied by the government in the post-crisis era. While the government refused to admit guilt, it took immediate and bold measure to correct the defects.

 

 

New Book: Kuntsman and Stein, Digital Militarism

Kuntsman, Adi, and Rebecca L. Stein. Digital Militarism. Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age, Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015.

 

 

Israel’s occupation has been transformed in the social media age. Over the last decade, military rule in the Palestinian territories grew more bloody and entrenched. In the same period, Israelis became some of the world’s most active social media users. In Israel today, violent politics are interwoven with global networking practices, protocols, and aesthetics. Israeli soldiers carry smartphones into the field of military operations, sharing mobile uploads in real-time. Official Israeli military spokesmen announce wars on Twitter. And civilians encounter state violence first on their newsfeeds and mobile screens.

Across the globe, the ordinary tools of social networking have become indispensable instruments of warfare and violent conflict. This book traces the rise of Israeli digital militarism in this global context—both the reach of social media into Israeli military theaters and the occupation’s impact on everyday Israeli social media culture. Today, social media functions as a crucial theater in which the Israeli military occupation is supported and sustained.

 

Table of Contents

Preface

1 When Instagram Went to War: Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age
2 “Another War Zone”: The Development of Digital Militarism
3 Anatomy of a Facebook Scandal: Social Media as Alibi
4 Palestinians Who Never Die: The Politics of Digital Suspicion
5 Selfie Militarism: The Normalization of Digital Militarism

Afterword: #Revenge

Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Adi Kuntsman is Lecturer in Information and Communications at Manchester Metropolitan University, and author of Figurations of Violence and Belonging: Queerness, Migranthood and Nationalism in Cyberspace and Beyond (2009).

Rebecca L. Stein is the Nicholas J. & Theresa M. Leonardy Associate Professor of Anthropology at Duke University, and author of Itineraries in Conflict: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Political Lives of Tourism (2008).

 

 

New Article: Magen, Media Strategies and Manipulations of Intelligence Services

Magen, Clila. “Media Strategies and Manipulations of Intelligence Services. The Case of Israel.” International Journal of Press/Politics 20.2 (2015): 247-65.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1940161214556514

 

Abstract

Existing research on the relationship between Israeli intelligence services and the media is limited and fragmented. This work attempts to fill in the gaps by shedding light on four main strategies that have been commonly implemented by the Israeli intelligence community: ambiguity and concealment of media relations, the “if you would only know” strategy, exploiting patriotism and cooptation, and information manipulations and psychological warfare. These strategies were utilized frequently by Israel’s intelligence services, and thus have had an impact on the intelligence services’ accountability. However, significant changes in Israel’s society and media have created new challenges to the intelligence services in the public sphere. This study examines these changes and differentiates between the organizations within the intelligence community, domestic and foreign, which, facing differing challenges, tailor different methods for addressing the media as a result. This paper is based on several years of research and a large database of literature, media coverage, and in-depth interviews with key figures in Israel’s intelligence community (former Mossad and Israeli Security Authority directors), senior journalists, and politicians.