Abstract
This article proposes, as test cases, three TV documentaries that underwent economic censorship in Israeli media in 2001–2014. Economic censorship, very rarely exposed, is a relatively new concept, and is as yet uncommon in media research, although it has been flourishing throughout the neoliberal global media economy over the past three decades. Since the 1980s, Israel's successive military conflicts have been intertwined in a neoliberal hegemony, whereas from the 2000s, neoliberalism was transformed into an extreme version, destroying the former Israeli welfare state, its social order and ideology. The analysis reveals the prominent function of commercial and public TV Channels in the implementation and amplification of neoliberalism proper, neoliberal doctrine, and a culture of neoliberalism to or for Israeli audiences, while ‘Acts of Resistance’, drawn from a relatively autonomous field of production – the TV documentary – challenge neoliberal hegemony, also by continuing to stir activists' consciences before and throughout the social protests in 2011 and their aftermath.
Keywords: Israel, economic censorship, Israeli media, activist documentary, neoliberalism, Pierre Bourdieu, Nick Couldry, Michael Moore, Social Protests 2011
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.955659
:Correspondence to
,Miri Gal-Ezer
,Communication Department
Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee
Mobile Post Jordan Valley
Tzemach, 15132 Israel
Email: miri-gal@012.net.il; mirig(at)kinneret.ac.il
Journal link
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537121.2014.955659#abstract