I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, University of Haifa. My scholarship is anchored in the cultural school of communication research - it addresses media contents as products of broader cultural conventions and media professionals as cultural interpreters. Within the context of this communicative process, I am especially interested in one interpretive community of media professionals – journalists, and in one process of meaning creation – the shaping of collective understandings of the past. In my studies, I rely mostly on qualitative interpretations of various media texts, semi-structured interviews and life histories; through at times, I also implement in my explorations quantitative methodologies, namely quantitative content analysis and surveys. My interest in research methodologies also guided me in the development of the core undergraduate communication qualitative methods course I teach in my department.
How can a society communicate a collective trauma? This book offers a cross-media exploration of ... more How can a society communicate a collective trauma? This book offers a cross-media exploration of Israeli media on Holocaust Remembrance Day, one of Israel's most sacred national rituals, over the past six decades. It investigates the way in which variables such as medium, structure of ownership, genre and targeted audiences shape the collective recollection of traumatic memories. Following their previous conceptual work on media memory, the authors argue that a combination of the aforementioned factors, anchored in the political arena as well as in the realm of media practices and conventions, lead Israeli media to operate on Holocaust Remembrance in a manner that 'acts out' the collective trauma. Thus, the underlying narrative that is performed by the media on Holocaust Remembrance Day frames the Holocaust as a current, ongoing Israeli event, rather than an event that took place in Europe and ended decades ago.
This volume offers a comprehensive discussion of Media Memory and brings Media and Mediation to t... more This volume offers a comprehensive discussion of Media Memory and brings Media and Mediation to the forefront of Collective Memory research. The essays explore a diversity of media technologies (television, radio, film and new media), genres (news, fiction, documentaries) and contexts (US, UK, Spain, Nigeria, Germany and the Middle East).
Against the background of the crisis in the journalism industry, many journalists have decided to... more Against the background of the crisis in the journalism industry, many journalists have decided to leave the occupation for other activities. We examine the reasons journalists give for leaving journalism, or remaining in it; the exit mechanisms they use; the destinations they choose and broader repercussions for Israeli journalism and the cultural industries. We base this examination on a sample of 60 life histories of active and former Israeli journalists, analyzed through the use of the “Exit, Voice and Loyalty” (EVL) typology developed by Albert Hirschman. Additionally, we investigate specific exit mechanisms and destinations using Bourdieu's notions of capital. We argue that applying the EVL typology to the data suggests the easy availability of exit routes out of journalism together with journalists' difficulty in voicing their occupational concerns within news organizations, given their chaotic organizational structure, contributed to news organizations' passive response to the crisis.
The establishment of Holocaust Remembrance Day as a day of collective ritualistic mourning has cr... more The establishment of Holocaust Remembrance Day as a day of collective ritualistic mourning has created a unique situation in which the memory of the Holocaust is addressed by the vast majority of the Israeli media, on the same day every year (Zandberg, 2010).1 In turn, this assists the tracking of the diachronic development of Israeli Holocaust media memory across time. Thus, the exceptional circumstances that shape the operation of Israeli media on Holocaust Remembrance Day — especially the ways in which they stress the tension between the conventions of Holocaust representation and the routines of media work — help elucidate the constructed and negotiated nature of ‘media professionalism’.
This article explores the uses and abuses of traumatic memory within the context of the multiface... more This article explores the uses and abuses of traumatic memory within the context of the multifaceted discursive representation of the Holocaust on social media. Combining computational, quantitative, and qualitative methodologies, the article offers a comprehensive mapping of the mnemonic spectrum extending beyond memory work conducted during official commemorative occasions. To do so, we examined a unique case: the Twitter manifestations of one Hebrew expression—“and their collaborators” (ATC)—which echoes the Israeli “Law for punishing Nazis and their collaborators.” In contrast to the complete phrase, the truncated collocation appears in a variety of contexts across Hebrew Twitter. Thus, our investigation shows that alongside traditional awe-inspiring commemorative (“good”) uses of ATC, the conjunction between social media affordances and user practices brings to the discursive forefront exploitative political (“bad”) ATC uses and misuses that contribute to political polarization...
ABSTRACT This article considers the implementation of the life history approach in the study of m... more ABSTRACT This article considers the implementation of the life history approach in the study of media professionals, based on an analysis of the occupational life histories of 77 active and former Israeli journalists. The article first discusses the decisions made throughout execution of the project. Next, it explores three key features of the dynamics of life history interviewing. Finally, the article examines the ways in which data gathered through life history interviews can be generalized.
Previous studies of commemorative journalism have mostly stressed its integrative functionality a... more Previous studies of commemorative journalism have mostly stressed its integrative functionality and tendency to provide oversimplified narrations of the past. Correspondingly, this article explores the critical and at times subversive potential of commemorative journalism. It does so via the analysis of commemorative-photographic supplements, issued by Israeli dailies between 1968 and 2013. The study first identifies the storytelling building blocks used to construct the dominant commemorative narrative. Next, it illuminates three storytelling strategies – challenging the national voice, the national plot, and the national gaze – all contributing to an undermining of the national synecdoche. Finally, these findings are contextualized within the political and cultural rereading of the Israeli national past.
How can a society communicate a collective trauma? This book offers a cross-media exploration of ... more How can a society communicate a collective trauma? This book offers a cross-media exploration of Israeli media on Holocaust Remembrance Day, one of Israel's most sacred national rituals, over the past six decades. It investigates the way in which variables such as medium, structure of ownership, genre and targeted audiences shape the collective recollection of traumatic memories. Following their previous conceptual work on media memory, the authors argue that a combination of the aforementioned factors, anchored in the political arena as well as in the realm of media practices and conventions, lead Israeli media to operate on Holocaust Remembrance in a manner that 'acts out' the collective trauma. Thus, the underlying narrative that is performed by the media on Holocaust Remembrance Day frames the Holocaust as a current, ongoing Israeli event, rather than an event that took place in Europe and ended decades ago.
This volume offers a comprehensive discussion of Media Memory and brings Media and Mediation to t... more This volume offers a comprehensive discussion of Media Memory and brings Media and Mediation to the forefront of Collective Memory research. The essays explore a diversity of media technologies (television, radio, film and new media), genres (news, fiction, documentaries) and contexts (US, UK, Spain, Nigeria, Germany and the Middle East).
Against the background of the crisis in the journalism industry, many journalists have decided to... more Against the background of the crisis in the journalism industry, many journalists have decided to leave the occupation for other activities. We examine the reasons journalists give for leaving journalism, or remaining in it; the exit mechanisms they use; the destinations they choose and broader repercussions for Israeli journalism and the cultural industries. We base this examination on a sample of 60 life histories of active and former Israeli journalists, analyzed through the use of the “Exit, Voice and Loyalty” (EVL) typology developed by Albert Hirschman. Additionally, we investigate specific exit mechanisms and destinations using Bourdieu's notions of capital. We argue that applying the EVL typology to the data suggests the easy availability of exit routes out of journalism together with journalists' difficulty in voicing their occupational concerns within news organizations, given their chaotic organizational structure, contributed to news organizations' passive response to the crisis.
The establishment of Holocaust Remembrance Day as a day of collective ritualistic mourning has cr... more The establishment of Holocaust Remembrance Day as a day of collective ritualistic mourning has created a unique situation in which the memory of the Holocaust is addressed by the vast majority of the Israeli media, on the same day every year (Zandberg, 2010).1 In turn, this assists the tracking of the diachronic development of Israeli Holocaust media memory across time. Thus, the exceptional circumstances that shape the operation of Israeli media on Holocaust Remembrance Day — especially the ways in which they stress the tension between the conventions of Holocaust representation and the routines of media work — help elucidate the constructed and negotiated nature of ‘media professionalism’.
This article explores the uses and abuses of traumatic memory within the context of the multiface... more This article explores the uses and abuses of traumatic memory within the context of the multifaceted discursive representation of the Holocaust on social media. Combining computational, quantitative, and qualitative methodologies, the article offers a comprehensive mapping of the mnemonic spectrum extending beyond memory work conducted during official commemorative occasions. To do so, we examined a unique case: the Twitter manifestations of one Hebrew expression—“and their collaborators” (ATC)—which echoes the Israeli “Law for punishing Nazis and their collaborators.” In contrast to the complete phrase, the truncated collocation appears in a variety of contexts across Hebrew Twitter. Thus, our investigation shows that alongside traditional awe-inspiring commemorative (“good”) uses of ATC, the conjunction between social media affordances and user practices brings to the discursive forefront exploitative political (“bad”) ATC uses and misuses that contribute to political polarization...
ABSTRACT This article considers the implementation of the life history approach in the study of m... more ABSTRACT This article considers the implementation of the life history approach in the study of media professionals, based on an analysis of the occupational life histories of 77 active and former Israeli journalists. The article first discusses the decisions made throughout execution of the project. Next, it explores three key features of the dynamics of life history interviewing. Finally, the article examines the ways in which data gathered through life history interviews can be generalized.
Previous studies of commemorative journalism have mostly stressed its integrative functionality a... more Previous studies of commemorative journalism have mostly stressed its integrative functionality and tendency to provide oversimplified narrations of the past. Correspondingly, this article explores the critical and at times subversive potential of commemorative journalism. It does so via the analysis of commemorative-photographic supplements, issued by Israeli dailies between 1968 and 2013. The study first identifies the storytelling building blocks used to construct the dominant commemorative narrative. Next, it illuminates three storytelling strategies – challenging the national voice, the national plot, and the national gaze – all contributing to an undermining of the national synecdoche. Finally, these findings are contextualized within the political and cultural rereading of the Israeli national past.
This study explores the multi-layered interrelations between the production of news and collectiv... more This study explores the multi-layered interrelations between the production of news and collective remembering. We investigate this phenomenon by analyzing television newscasts aired on Israel’s Memorial Day for the Holocaust and Heroism (MDHH), 1994-2007. These newscasts provide a rich research corpus because they stand at the intersection between two types of rituals: the everyday ritual of newsmaking, and the national commemorative ritual, for which the media serves as a main site of articulation. The article implements a ‘‘zoom in’’ perspective: first, we examine the broadcasting schedules, exploring the role of newscasts in the process of leading the audiences in and out of the commemorative ritual. Next, we suggest a typology distinguishing between (a) items dealing with current events, (b) commemorative items focusing on Holocaust remembrance, and (c) dog whistle items that are ‘‘attuned’’ to the specific cultural ear and thus enable mundane news items to be interpreted as related to Holocaust commemoration. We argue that the dual aim of the items featured in MDHH newscaststo provide both news values and commemorative valuesleads to the construction of ‘‘reversed memory,’’ a narrative that commemorates past events (the ‘‘there and then’’) by narrating present events (the ‘‘here and now’’). Reversed memory commemorates the difficult past through the achievements of the present, and thus not only eases the collective confrontation with painful traumas, but rather avoids this encounter altogether.
Uploads
Books by Oren Meyers
Papers by Oren Meyers
The article implements a ‘‘zoom in’’ perspective: first, we examine the broadcasting schedules, exploring the role of newscasts in the process of leading the audiences in and
out of the commemorative ritual. Next, we suggest a typology distinguishing between (a) items dealing with current events, (b) commemorative items focusing on Holocaust remembrance, and (c) dog whistle items that are ‘‘attuned’’ to the specific cultural ear and thus enable mundane news items to be interpreted as related to Holocaust commemoration.
We argue that the dual aim of the items featured in MDHH newscaststo provide both news values and commemorative valuesleads to the construction of ‘‘reversed memory,’’
a narrative that commemorates past events (the ‘‘there and then’’) by narrating present events (the ‘‘here and now’’). Reversed memory commemorates the difficult past through the achievements of the present, and thus not only eases the collective confrontation with painful traumas, but rather avoids this encounter altogether.
Keywords: Collective memory; Newsworthiness; Commemoration; Newscasts; Holocaust