Broadcasting National History to a Multicultural Society: Israeli Public Television at the Cusp of Change

Eric D. Saranovitz

Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Culture and Communication, New York University, USA

Abstract

Electronic media in Israel underwent rapid transformations in the early nineties, with deregulation, privatization and fragmentation of media channels.  At the same time, transformations in the social and political realms were quickly eroding long held ideas about the people as a nation, with a massive influx of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, a growing self-awareness of Mizrahi Jews (Jews of North African/Asian decent), a widening divide between religious and secular Jews, and a peace process that gave new voice to Israel’s Palestinian citizens.  This burgeoning identity of Israel as a multicultural society, together with the influx of neo-liberal ideas and the expansion of commercial media enterprises, called into question the role of the Israel Broadcast Authority (IBA) in serving its national constituency.

With these developments in mind, this paper addresses the ways in which the inundation of commercial media and the changing political environment of the early to mid nineties affected decision making processes of the managers and policy makers of Israeli public television.  In doing so, it focuses on the emergent conflict within the IBA between producing for the nation as a whole and producing for groups within the nation.  It investigates the views that executive managers began to develop about the “multicultural audience” and the new forms of organization (borrowed from commercial and foreign models) that would structure the way they produced and broadcast for it.  With this, it asks whether it is possible for a public broadcast station, held in the hands of the social elite, to find a common ground among the diverse subcultures of its citizenry.

Specifically, this paper presents a case study of the production processes of a documentary series that dealt with the history of Israel since the founding of the state.  Taking five years to produce, this budget-draining program was thought (by IBA executives) to be the highlight of public television’s contribution to the Israeli public. The paper illustrates that as public television began to redefine its mission, it saw itself being pulled in two directions: popularism and elitism.  Forfeiting its former role as ‘entertainment provider,’ public television refortified itself as a bastion of high culture, as it unconsciously targeted an elite audience over newly acknowledged sub-groups and what executives considered the mainstream.  With this, the paper proposes that executives’ limited social imaginary hampered the role that public service television could play in creating a vibrant cultural commons in the newly emerging multicultural society.

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