Abstract
This case study of the 1973 Yom Kippur War Israeli ex-POWs’ (Prisoners of War) ‘silent
generation’ aims to draw milestone analyses along a forty year trajectory, to reveal parts of
the complex theoretical and empirical interactions between generations, media generation,
PTSD, produsage, culture, national habitus, and local, glocal and global political economy of
the media. The methodology of this ongoing study (2008- 2014) comprises ‘Multi-sited
Ethnography’ offline and online, as well as cross-media integrated ‘Multimodal Analysis’ and
semiotic CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis). The study discloses self-empowering processes
accomplished by means of social struggles by ex-POWs on a national level to achieve public
recognition and government policy change. This was carried out by research support of
academic professionals, enabling the bridging of unrecognised cases of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), and the ‘generation gap’ of their ‘actual’ ‘media generation’, with their specific national habitus and generational culture. Thus, using ‘produsage’ (produce + use) and diffusion of continuous offline and online activities in the public sphere and various media outputs, such as blogs, documentary, Israel’s trail march and more, and by acting as consultants in the production of an Israeli TV series, the ex-POWs succeeded in gaining public recognition, reconstruction of heritage and history, as well as government policy changes.Nevertheless, the analyses demonstrate that despite the ex-POWs’expectations while assisting production of the Israeli national commercial TV series Kidnapped , they were very disappointed by its hostile discourse suspicions of the POWs’ betrayal. Furthermore, the Kidnapped series’ authenticity and ‘truth claims’ authority discourse was again manipulated and recruited into the War on Terror ‘dominant’ ‘culture industry’ ‘paranoid style’ of ‘Homeland’: the US series, disseminated also globally, to its awarded and recognition by various audiences
Keywords: POWs, PTSD, generations, media generation, national habitus, produsage,
.‘Homeland’, dominant, culture industry, paranoid style
:Correspondence to
,Miri Gal-Ezer
,Communication Department
Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee
Mobile Post Jordan Valley
Tzemach, 15132 Israel
Email: mirig(at)kinneret.ac.il; miri-gal@012.net.il
:An open access journal, here is the link to the full article