The Rabin Myth and the Press.

During the week following the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin in November 1996, the Israeli media were confronted with a liminal situation created by the unprecedented political violence. Among the problems that emerged were potential social disintegration and anomie. One of the major factors in re-establishing social integration was the reconstruction of Rabin's biography by the media as the collective biography, so that it represented the collective identity of Israeli society. A content analysis of the Rabin myth created during this event shows the practices used by the hegemonic interpretative communities to reinvent society, and the ramifications of excluding the voices of others from the process of national deliberation on the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]