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This paper analyzes the work experience of Israeli-Palestinian women journalists who reside and work in Israel for local news organizations or non-Israeli news agencies. It focuses on their experiences related to the intersected axes of their gender, ethnic, and national identities. Through thematic analysis of narrative interviews with 24 Palestinian women journalists, the study reveals that their work experiences vary between exclusion and inclusion among different news organizations. Israeli-Palestinian women journalists face barriers getting jobs at mainstream news agencies because of their accent; and when they apply to local Arab news organizations, they confront recruiting procedures based on a clan system that discriminates against women. However, a few of them report an advantage when trying to enter mainstream news organizations based on their image as an "authentic Arab woman." Additionally, the study finds that the professional identity of all interviewees is closely connected to their ideological perceptions and political aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For at least the past three decades journalism scholars have focused on two types of news - soft and hard - without reassessing these categories or adding to them. The present article investigates whether such neglect is warranted, through a questionnaire and in-depth interviews with 32 journalists and editors from the three main Israeli dailies: Yediot Ahronot, Maariv and Haaretz. The findings argue strongly for a third, intermediate category of news - 'general news' - as well as for more rigorous and comprehensive definitions of 'hard' news and 'soft' news that are here supplied. These three news categories were then tested on 465 news items of the above dailies which led to the categorization of a new newspaper type, lying somewhere between the elite and populist press. Methodological and substantive ramifications of this addition are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As populist campaigns against the media become increasingly common around the world, it is ever more urgent to explore how journalists adopt and respond to them. Which strategies have journalists developed to maintain the public's trust, and what may be the implications for democracy? These questions are addressed using a thematic analysis of forty-five semistructured interviews with leading Israeli journalists who have been publicly targeted by Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The article suggests that while most interviewees asserted that adherence to objective reporting was the best response to antimedia populism, many of them have in fact applied a "strategic bias" to their reporting, intentionally leaning to the Right in an attempt to refute the accusations of media bias to the Left. This strategy was shaped by interviewees' perceived helplessness versus Israel's Prime Minister and his extensive use of social media, a phenomenon called here "the influence of presumed media impotence." Finally, this article points at the potential ramifications of strategic bias for journalism and democracy. Drawing on Hallin's Spheres theory, it claims that the strategic bias might advance Right-wing populism at present, while also narrowing the sphere of legitimate controversy—thus further restricting press freedom—in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines perceptions of the significance and roles of new and mainstream media in protests, using interviews with 31 individuals involved in the 2011 protests in Israel: Activists and Campaigners, who organized the protests 'on the ground'; Techies, who operated the digital presence of the protests; and Journalists, who covered the protests. Findings indicate that the perceptions of media's significance and roles varied greatly. While Techies attributed a significant role to the Internet, Activists and Journalists placed greater emphasis on the enduring dominance of mainstream media. In addition, interviewees argued that the Internet, particularly Facebook, has a greater added value in supporting protests associated with peripheral than central regions. Finally, most interviewees argued that the Internet, particularly Facebook, was highly significant to the success of the protest in its early stages, but mainstream media coverage is necessary for achieving wider public recognition and legitimacy in subsequent stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the age of spirited debates about the mediating role of technologies, the other side of the coin is the state of direct experience in contemporary news production, that is, cases in which news reporters still rely on traditional channels such as “legwork,” “firsthand witnessing,” or “shoe-leather reporting.” The present study is a systematic attempt to identify journalists’ reasons for engaging in legwork, by recreating item by item the work processes and reasoning behind hundreds of individual news reports produced in the digital age, across Israeli print, television, radio, and online news outlets (N = 859). Insofar as legwork can serve as a proxy for painstaking journalism, journalists’ decisions make some difference in determining if more or less legwork will ensue. The data avail an opportunity to explore scholarly musings about journalists’ motivations behind legwork: be they knowledge related, medium related, or event related. We find support for all three possibilities and discuss the implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the representation of past, present, and future in print and online news, while establishing a link between the temporal orientation of news stories and the constraints of the news cycle. Based on a content analysis of top news stories in the Israeli media, the study shows that a future temporal orientation is more prevalent in print media, which assume the role of projecting upcoming events, analyzing potential outcomes, and shaping collective expectations. In contrast, online news tends to assume the more commonly recognized journalistic role of informing the public on recent-past events. The discussion introduces the notion of “temporal affordances,” referring to the temporal constraints and possibilities of media technologies, which in turn can lead to distinctive content characteristics. These affordances, which connect symbolic and material dimensions, contribute to the shaping and reshaping of the functions served by divergent communication outlets in changing media landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little attention has been paid to how new media foster public discussion of science-related issues. In this exploratory study, we examine discussions generated by articles on the most popular daily news website in Israel. All articles dealt with research studies that involved animal experimentation, a topic often linked to deep ethical conflicts. Based on analysis of 10 articles and more than 600 reader comments, we found that topics in both science and ethics are initiated both by the original article and in the linked discussion threads. The most fruitful topics (measured by number of comments) were initiated in the discussion threads, not in the articles themselves. We suggest that discourse in new media can be understood by thinking of the audience as a ‘growth medium’ in which seeds planted by individual stories can grow (through the affordances of new media) into both knowledge of the sort imagined by the story writers and new branches nurtured by the community itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that existing scholarship on paradigmatic crises in journalism neglects some of the fundamental dynamics that were explored in Kuhn’s original work. In order to fully conceptualize the creation and alteration of news paradigms, journalism scholars ought to study ‘paradigmatic challenges’: the multifaceted ways by which journalistic communities react to planned, methodical, and continuous challenges that offer comprehensive paradigmatic alternatives to existing core professional convictions. To operationalize this research interest, the article explores a salient case study: the multi-dimensional response of early Israeli mainstream journalism to the paradigmatic challenge posed by the radical and sensational weekly Haolam Hazeh. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigates mainstream U.S. newspaper discourses concerning the dividing wall that Israel built as a separation barrier from the West Bank. In so doing, it ultimately seeks to further explore news media's role as agents of social control and influence. Findings indicate that in invoking the nationalism dimension, the news did not handle the primordial element adequately, and that emphasis on violence and revenge as well as the tragedy of child victimization was particularly prominent. The study argues that while the media's role in social control and influence may be significant, the adequacy with which they perform this role is questionable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the threats facing professional journalism. It explores the rise of media technologies such as internet blogging and cellular phones with camera and internet features that allow anybody to be a journalist and deliver news that does not align with the professional standards of journalism. The author calls for journalists and media outlet owners to supersede technology and new trends. It mentions the kind of journalism practiced in Israel where print and television media are used together conveniently.

An innovative methodology of face-to-face reconstruction interviews with the reporters who had authored a sample of news items allowed wide and systematic research access to one of the most sensitive and virtually unapproachable spheres of journalism - leaks. The main findings were that (1) leaks were highly prevalent - each fifth item involved the sensitive practice; (2) the dominant leakers were senior sources; (3) the favorite channel for leaks was the telephone; (4) leaked stories were initiated equally by reporters and sources; and (5) leaks were cross-verified with additional sources much more frequently than non-leaked items. The study, which took place in Israel, focused on national daily press reporters and their contacts with news sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops the concept of non-closure in sustained news stories, based on the case study of Ron Arad, an Israeli soldier who was taken captive in 1986 and whose story still continues to produce headlines in the Israeli press. Coverage of the Arad case was examined in the three major Israeli daily newspapers for a period of 17 years, and the textual mechanisms through which the story has been kept alive were identified. The article offers an analysis of three central non-closure strategies: maintaining suspense, thickening the plot, and keeping the protagonist alive. It is suggested that these strategies enhance readers' involvement with the journalistic texts and function as a bridge between the ritual and information transmission functions of news. Non- closure is thus conceptualized as a force that operates alongside the well-studied forces of closure and renders individual news pieces as episodes in a serial narrative rather than self-contained narrative units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As noted by Jaworski et al. (2003a, 2003b, 2004), a significant amount of news items refer to future events. This article examines the ‘discourse of the future’ in order to identify its extent and different types. The research examined headlines in Israeli newspapers over a period of 18 years (1985–2003) and found that approximately 70 percent of the main headlines deal not only with past events but with future ones as well. Thus, contrary to the conventional perception of journalism, this type of journalism does not report what has already happened, but speculates on future events, whether directly or by quoting military or political figures. The qualitative analysis suggests four types of discourse of the future: Predictable Future, Informed Assessment, Speculative Assessment, and Conjectured Future. During the last two decades, we can witness a gradual rise of speculation levels. ‘The discourse of the future’ carries cultural significance and political import. From the cultural standpoint, journalists encourage us to raise questions regarding the future of the community: What will happen next? Where do we go from here, in the short, medium and long term? What are our hopes? What do we fear most? Nevertheless, in the highest levels of speculation, such discourse bears political import because it provides fertile ground for releasing trial balloons, magnifying threats, creating solidarity, and justifying acts of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequent referencing of service to the public interest as a core professional journalistic value raises the question of the correspondence between the perception of journalists and the public as to what constitutes good and bad journalism. In this study, a sample of lsraeli journalists and a sample of the lsraeli public were asked a series of questions about the core values and practices of journalism. Results suggest four major conclusions: first, lsraeli journalists have a clear, relatively uniform perception of what constitutes worthy journalism. Second, journalists and the public differ in the degrees of significance they assign to various journalistic norms and practices. Third, the public is slightly more positive in its overall assessment of the lsraeli media in comparison with the journalists. Finally, the two general assessments are constituted by different, or even opposing, components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores to what extent new communication technologies have played a revolutionizing role in the ways in which news reporters acquire information. Reporters reconstructed how they used different technologies in order to obtain each of their sampled items, both before and after the introduction of new communication technologies into the Israeli daily press. Changes appear to be minor. Reporters continued to contact sources directly, negotiate their versions orally, and use technologies to replace physical presence at news scenes and face-to-face interviews. This relative stability might reflect the fact that, in the interplay between forces for continuity (represented by the ongoing patterns of newswork) and forces for change (suggested by the new technologies), the role of the former has been dominant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the ways in which the interactions between female Israeli journalists and their male news sources are gendered and sexually structured. The article is grounded in feminist critiques of journalism as well as feminist organizational and work studies and it is based on examination of the narratives of individual experiences of 32 female Israeli journalists, working for 10 newspapers. I set forth the attitudes of the male sources toward the female journalists as the journalists perceive them, and then I examine the practices that the journalists adopt in order to cope with these attitudes. Finally, I both set forth and examine the views that these female journalists express concerning the legitimacy of their own practices. The research findings illustrate how gender and sexuality interact in journalism by showing the dynamic character of this process in organizations. The findings demonstrate that gender and sexuality are key aspects of the relationship between the female journalists I studied and their male sources in the Israeli context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]