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The present paper analyses the emergence and characteristics of Israeli Medical Association (IMA) discourse on health inequality in Israel during the years 1977–2010. The IMA addressed the issue of health inequality at a relatively late stage in time (2000), as compared to other OECD countries such as the UK, and did so in a relatively limited way, focusing primarily on professional or economic interests. The dominant discourses on health inequalities within the IMA are biomedical and behavioral, characterized by a focus on medical and/or cultural and behavioral differences, the predominant use of medical terminology, and an individualistic rather than a structural conceptualization of the social characteristics of health differences. Additionally, IMA discourses emphasize certain aspects of health inequality such as the geographical and material inequities, and in doing so overlook the role played by class, nationality and the unequal structure of citizenship. Paradoxically, by disregarding the latter, the IMA's discourse on health inequality has the potential to reinforce the structural causes of these inequities. Our research is based on a textual critical discourse analysis (CDA) of hundreds of documents from the IMA's scientific medical journal, the IMA's members journal and public IMA documents such as press-releases, Knesset protocols, publications, and public surveys. By providing knowledge on the different ways in which the IMA, a key stakeholder in the health field, de-codifies, understands, explains, and attempts to deal with health inequality, the article illuminates possible implications on health policy and seeks to evaluate the direct interventions carried out by the IMA, or by other actors influenced by it, pertaining to health inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the properties of ‘quality television’ as constructed within the field of television production. It does so by analyzing the discourse of television creators and critics in two countries, Israel and Flanders, taking a theoretical approach based in part on Bourdieusian theory. Most academic work about ‘quality television’ concentrates on Anglo-American television drama series. In this paper we offer a different perspective by focusing on two small but prosperous television markets outside of the Anglo-American world. Our findings suggest that the quality discourse in both countries contains autonomous-artistic alongside heteronomous-capitalist ideological elements, apparently under the influence of the Anglo-American discourse of quality. Our findings also suggest that both ideological elements contribute to the cultural legitimation of the television drama series in both countries, though the capitalist discourse plays a more evident role among creators than among critics. Finally, we also discuss the differences between the Flemish and the Israeli discourses of ‘quality television.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the end of the twentieth century to the present we have witnessed the effects of technology on the way we consume and distribute information. The print media, which in many ways was the natural product of the printing revolution, has given way to the electronic media with websites providing the new "town squares" in which the public discourse is held on political, economic and social issues among others. The Israeli legal system, like the legal systems in other countries, faces a variety of challenges and complex ethical and legal issues when required to regulate (often retrospectively) the manner and processes through which the discourse will be conducted in the virtual "town hall". In essence, this article focuses on one of the many questions occupying the Israeli legal system and that is whether website owners should be liable in defamation for speech published by third parties on the Internet (through blogs, tweets on Twitter, posts on Facebook,1 uploaded video clips on YouTube and the like) when no connection exists between the third party and the site owner apart from the fact that the third party has used the website as a platform to publish the offensive speech. The issue of the liability of the website owner has ramifications for the injured party's ca-pacity to institute an action for defamation against the website owner, as often only the latter will be in a position to compensate the injured party (financially) for the offensive speech. The Israeli legal system, which in many ways furnishes a unique and interesting framework for examining the question posed above, as we explain in the body of the article, presents a fascinating example of how the Israeli legislature and the courts have dealt and continue to deal with claims filed against website owners for damage to reputation as a result of speech published by third parties. The article offers a comprehensive review of the status of the right to freedom of speech, anonymity and the right to reputation in Israel, the considerations for and against the imposition of liability on website owners and the latest case law on these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the global governing apparatus of climate planning, has privileged the sovereignty of territorial states. Contemporary political geographical scholarship has since called into question the coherency of the state as a unitary entity and as the sole legitimate arbiter of international politics. This article extends these contributions to planetary climate change adaptation. Through discourse analysis and the multi-scalar institutional and political history of climate planning, this article examines how normative discursive parameters enact prevailing political dynamics that script material futures. Drawing on recent climate planning reports of Palestine and Israel, this article investigates how state discourses operate within an asymmetric geopolitical context where issues of territoriality, sovereignty, and statecraft remain fractured and contested. Climate planning in Israel/Palestine exposes two key institutional constraints of climate governance. First, technical-managerial principles prescribe ahistorical adaptation measures that inadequately address inherently political constraints. Second, the elision of political-economic and historical-cultural contingencies in favor of a universalizing geophysical representation of climate change elides the systemic production of differentiated vulnerability. Consequential of an anachronistic politics of recognition within the UNFCCC, the conditions of climate governance may ultimately embolden the asymmetric status quo. I conclude by highlighting the spatial manifestations (both material and symbolic) of Israeli sovereign violence and the chronic indeterminacy of Palestinian territoriality produced by discursive climate futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity transformation and stigma management have been widely acknowledged as significant factors in various drug-cessation pathways, such as self-change (SC) and treatment-change (TC). These processes involve the employment of symbolic boundaries within which people associate themselves with desired groups and/or distance themselves from less desirable ones. However, the relevance of the drug-cessation pathway to identity construction in an era of drug-use normalization has not yet been explored. The present study used thematic discourse analysis to compare the drug-cessation narrative and the reflected identity construction of 41 former drug users in Israel (25 SCs and 16 TCs). The findings revealed a shared trigger for drug cessation that was related to impaired functionality and a threat to their identity. However, the groups differed in other drug-cessation factors that served their identity-negotiation strategies. The SCs negotiated stigma by distancing themselves from other drugs users, minimizing drug risk, and denying the need for drug treatment. In contrast, the TCs negotiated stigma by distancing themselves from their former user identities, embracing the disease model of drug use, and confirming the necessity of treatment. This identity construction reflects continuous framing of ideals of subjectivity, such as self-regulation, which policy makers and treatment stakeholders should consider in developing services and conveying substance-use policy messages. • Impaired functionality was a trigger for drug cessation in both study groups. • The groups differed regarding other factors of the drug-cessation process. • The self-changers and treatment-changers negotiated stigma differently. • The self-changers drew on the tenets of drug-use normalization to negotiate stigma. • The treatment-changers drew on institutional narratives to negotiate stigma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]