The Media in the 2006 Israeli Elections: Who's Manufacturing Consent? Framing the Spin-Doctors

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Nahum Barnea, ‘History Lesson’, Ha'ain Hashviit, Vol. 61 (March 2006), pp. 6–7. 2. Gabby Weiman, Yariv Tsfati and Riva Tukachinsky, ‘Media Coverage of the 17th Knesset Elections’, Index of Public Confidence in the News Media—Report No. 5, Tel Aviv, March 2006. 3. Ruth Sinai, ‘Education for the Kids, Apartment, to Live’, Ha'aretz, 31 March 2006. 4. Daniel Ben-Simon, ‘Who Asked for a Social Revolution and Didn't Get Any?’, Ha'aretz, 31 March 2006. 5. Gianpietro Mazzoleni and Winfried Schulz, ‘Mediatization of Politics: A Challenge for Democracy?’, Political Communication, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1999) pp. 247–62; Paolo Mancini and David L. Swanson, ‘Politics, Media and Modern Democracy: Introduction’, in David L. Swanson and Paolo Mancini (eds.), Politics, Media and Modern Democracy, Westport, CT, 1996; James David Barber, The Pulse of Politics: Electing Presidents in the Media Age, New York, 1980. 6. Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, New York, 1922. 7. Aaron Delwiche, ‘Agenda-setting, Opinion Leadership, and the World of Web Logs’, First Monday, Vol. 10, No. 12 (December 2005), available at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_12/delwiche/index.html, accessed 2 March 2007. 8. Bernard Cohen, ‘Prologue: “The Game is Afoot”, in Maxwell McCombs, Donald L. Shaw and David Weaver (eds.), Communication and Democracy: Exploring the Intellectual Frontiers in Agenda-Setting Theory, London, 1997, p. 13. 9. See Spiro Kiousis and Maxwell McCombs, ‘Agenda Setting Effects and Attitude Strength: Political Figures During the 1996 Presidential Elections’, Communication Research, Vol. 31, No. 1 (February 2004), pp. 36–57; Maxwell McCombs, Esteban Lopez-Escobar and Juan Pablo Llamas, ‘Setting the Agenda of Attributes in the 1996 Spanish General Election’, Journal of Communication, Vol. 50, No. 2 (June 2000), pp. 77–92. 10. Salma Ghanem, ‘Filling in the Tapestry: The Second Level of Agenda Setting’, in McCombs et al. (eds.), Communication and Democracy, p. 8; Xu Wu and Trent Seltzer, ‘First- and Second-Level Agenda-Building and Agenda-Setting Effects: Exploring the Linkage Among Candidate News Releases, Media Coverage, and Public Opinion During the 2002 Florida Gubernatorial Election’, Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2006), p. 269. 11. Ibid., p. x. 12. Em Griffin, ‘Agenda-Setting Theory’, Chapter 28 in A First Look at Communication Theory, New York, 2003. 13. Robert M. Entman, ‘Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm’, Journal of Communication, Vol. 43, No. 4 (December 1993), pp. 51–58; Esteban Lopez-Escobar L, Juan Pablo Llamas and Maxwell McCombs, ‘Agenda Setting and Community Consensus: First and Second Level Effects’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1998), pp. 335–48; Wayne Wanta and Yu-Wei Hu, ‘The Agenda-Setting Effects of International News Coverage: An Examination of Differing News Frames’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1993), pp. 250–64; Shanto Iyengar and Adam Simon, ‘News Coverage of the Gulf Crisis and Public Opinion’, Communication Research, Vol. 20, No. 3 (1993), pp. 365–83; Vincent Price and David Tewksbury, ‘News Values and Public Opinions: A Theoretical Account of Media Priming and Framing’, in George Barnett and Franklin J. Boster (eds.), Progress in Communication Sciences, Greenwich, CT, 1997, pp. 173–212; John W. Rhee, ‘Strategy and Issue Frames in Election Campaign Coverage: A Social Cognitive Account of Framing Effects’, Journal of Communication, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 26–48. 14. Ibid., p. 52. 15. Ibid., p. 55. 16. Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, ‘The Evolution of Agenda-Setting Research: Twenty-five Years in the Marketplace of Ideas’, Journal of Communication, Vol. 43, No. 2 (1993), p. 65; McCombs et al., ‘Setting the Agenda of Attributes’, p. 78. 17. Griffin, ‘Chapter 28; Agenda-Setting Theory’. 18. Salma Ghanem, ‘Filling in the Tapestry: The Second Level of Agenda Setting’, in McCombs et al. (eds.), Communication and Democracy, p. 8. 19. Joe B. Hester and Rhonda Gibson, ‘The Economy and Second-Level Agenda Setting: A Time Series Analysis of Economic News and Public Opinion about the Economy’, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 1 (2003), pp. 73–90; Maxwell McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, ‘The Agenda-setting Function of the Mass Media’, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 17 (1972), pp. 176–87; David Weaver, Doris A. Graber, Maxwell McCombs and Chaim Eyal, Media Agenda Setting in a Presidential Election: Issues, Images and Interest, New York, 1981. 20. John. A. Fortunato, ‘Public Relations Strategies for Creating Mass Media Content: A Case Study of the National Basketball Association’, Public Relations Review, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Winter 2000), pp. 481–97; Gerald M. Kosicki, ‘Problems and Opportunities in Agenda-Setting Research’, Journal of Communication, Vol. 43, No. 2 (1993), pp. 100–127; Oscar H. Gandy, Beyond Agenda Setting: Information Subsidies and Public Policy, Norwood, NJ, 1982, p. 266. 21. Gladys Engel Lang and Kurt Lang, Politics and Television: Re-Viewed, London, 1984. 22. John Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion, Cambridge, 1992; Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, ‘Choices, Values, and Frames’, American Psychologist, Vol. 39 (April 1984), pp. 341–50; Shanto Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues, Chicago, 1991. 23. Delwiche, ‘Agenda-setting, Opinion Leadership, and the World of Web Logs’. 24. William H. Riker, The Art of Political Manipulation, New Haven, CT, 1986. 25. Robert M. Entman, ‘Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm’, Journal of Communication, Vol. 43, No. 4 (December 1993), pp. 51–58. 26. Heinz Brandenburg, ‘Who Follows Whom? The Impact of Parties on Media Agenda Formation in the 1997 British General Election Campaign’, Harvard Journal of Press and Politics, Vol. 7, No. 3, (2003), pp. 34–54; Pippa Norris, John Curtice, David Sanders, Margaret Scammell, and Holli Semetko, On Message: Communicating the Campaign, London, 1999; Russell Dalton, Paul Beck, Robert Huckfeldt and William Koetzle, ‘A Test of the Media-Centered Agenda-Setting: Newspaper Content and Public Interests in a Presidential Election’, Political Communication, Vol. 15 (November 1998), pp. 463–81; Marilyn Roberts and Maxwell McCombs, ‘Agenda Setting and Political Advertising; Origins of the News Agenda’, Political Communication, Vol. 11 (1994), pp. 249–62. 27. Judith Elizur and Elihu Katz, ‘The Media in the Israeli Elections of 1977’, in Howard R. Penniman (ed.), Israel at the Polls: The Knesset Elections of 1977, Washington, DC, 1979, p. 244. 28. Including: Kadima, Labour (Am Echad and Meimad), Likud, Shas, Israel Beiteinu, the Pensioners party, and Meretz-Yahad. 29. See Dan Caspi, ‘Electoral Rhetoric and Political Polarization: The Begin-Peres Debates’, European Journal of Communication, Vol. 1 (1986), pp. 447–62; Dan Caspi, ‘American-style Electioneering in Israel: Americanization versus Modernization’, in Swanson and Mancini (eds.), Politics, Media and Modern Democracy, p. 181. 30. See Thomas Patterson, Out of Order, New York, 1993; Thomas B. Littlewood, Calling Election: The History of Horse-Race Journalism, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame press, 1999. 31. Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, Washington, DC, 1993; Kathleen H. Jamieson, Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and Democracy, New York, 1992. 32. John W. Rhee, ‘Strategy and Issue Frames in Election Campaign Coverage: A Social Cognitive Account of Framing Effects’, Journal of Communication, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 26–48; Gabby Weiman and Tamir Shefer, Media Coverage of Elections in Israel: An Introspective Study of Four Election Campaigns—Report No. 2, Tel Aviv, February 2004. 33. The political agenda included the parties’ televised campaign spots, as well as their few paid political newspaper advertisements; the media agenda included televised broadcasting news (channels 1 and 2), and the news items and columns of Ha'aretz, an Israeli Hebrew-language daily newspaper. It should be noted that the parties hardly used print advertisements in these elections. Advertisements were published solely by Meretz and Gil. The parties seemed to devote the energy and budget once invested in advertising to explicitly influence the news coverage and commentary on TV and in the press. 34. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding the Media: The Extensions of Man, London and New York: Routledge, 2001. 35. Tiki Balas and Sam Lehman-Wilzig, ‘The Editorial Gap Between Ideal and Real: Do Television News Editors/Journalists Broadcast What They Believe Their Audience Wants?’, in Angela Schorr and Stefan Seltmann (eds.), Changing Media Markets in Europe and Abroad: New Ways of Handling Information and Entertainment Content, Lengerich and Berlin, 2006, pp. 127–47. 36. Barnea, ‘History Lesson’; Amira Lam, ‘Rality Politik’, Yediot Ahronot, 31 March 2006. 37. Lam, ‘Reality Politik’. 38. Offer Shelach, ‘Bye Bye Ideology, Hello Circus’, Ynet-Elections 2006, 28 March 2006, available at www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3233490,00.html, accessed 2 March 2007. 39. Weiman et al., ‘Media Coverage of the 17th Knesset Elections’. 40. Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyham, All the President's Spin: George W. Bush, the Media, and the Truth, New York, 2004. 41. Randy Sumpter and James W. Tankard, ‘The Spin Doctor: An Alternative Model of Public Relations’, Public Relations Review, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1994), pp. 19–27. 42. Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson, Age of Propaganda, New York, 1992, pp. 5–6. 43. Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Cambridge, MA, 1994, p. 216. 44. Atara Frenkel-Faran and Sam Lehman-Wilzig, ‘La Bell(e) Epoque? A Comparison of Party Platform and Television Propaganda Ideology in the 1999 Israeli Elections’, Israel Affairs, Vol. 7, Nos. 2–3 (Winter/Spring 2001), pp. 245–268. 45. Fritz et al., All the President's Spin, p. 10. 46. Randy Sumpter and James W. Tankard, ‘The Spin Doctor: An Alternative Model of Public Relations’, Public Relations Review, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1994), pp. 19–27. 47. Ibid. 48. Wu and Seltzer, ‘First- and Second-Level Agenda-Building and Agenda-Setting Effects’, p. 268. 49. Ibid.; Herbert J. Gans, Democracy, and the News, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 50. Ibid.; Lynda Lee Kaid, ‘Newspaper Treatment of Candidate's News Releases’, Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 53 (1976), pp. 135–157; Karen M. Lancedorfer and Byoungkwan Lee (August 2003) ‘Agenda Building and the Media: A Content Analysis of the Relationships between Media in the 2002 Michigan Governor's Race’. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Kansas City, MO. 51. Weiman et al., ‘Media Coverage of the 17th Knesset Elections’. 52. Elizur and Katz, ‘The Media in the Israeli Elections of 1977’, p. 243. 53. Fritz et al., All the President's Spin, p. 31. 54. Delwiche, ‘Agenda-setting, Opinion Leadership, and the World of Web Logs’. 55. Jerry Palmer, Spinning into Control: News Values and Source Strategies, London and New York, 2000, p. 141. 56. Fritz et al., All the President's Spin, p. ix. 57. Ibid., pp. 3–4. 58. Sumpter and Tankard, ‘The Spin Doctor: An Alternative Model of Public Relations’. 59. Frenkel-Faran & Lehman-Wilzig, ‘La Bell(e) Epoque?’, p. 63. 60. Weiman et al., ‘Media Coverage of the 17th Knesset Elections’. 61. Ibid. 62. Steven Erlanger and Greg Myre, ‘Voters in Israel Support Parties Vowing Pullout’, New York Times, 29 March 2006. 63. Fritz et al., All the President's Spin, p. 9. 64. Eric Louw, The Media and the Political Process, London, 2005. 65. Karl Marx, ‘The German Ideology: Chapter 1, Section B’, Marxist Internet Archive, available at www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm, accessed 10 February 2007. 66. Weiman et al., ‘Media Coverage of the 17th Knesset Elections’. 67. Barnea, ‘History Lesson’; Lam, ‘Reality Politik’. 68. Weiman et al., ‘Media Coverage of the 17th Knesset Elections’. 69. Sinai, ‘Education for the Kids, Apartment, to Live’. 70. Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, ‘Agenda-setting Function of Mass Media’, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 36 (1972), pp. 176–184. 71. Elizur and Katz, ‘The Media in the Israeli Elections of 1977’, p. 229. 72. Ibid., p. 235. 73. Weiman and Sheffer, Media Coverage of Elections in Israel, p. 31. 74. Fritz et al., All the President's Spin, p. 255. 75. Ran Binyamini, ‘The Most Vulgar Spin’, Ha'ain Hashviit, Vol. 60 (July 2006), p. 36; Chris Anderson, ‘People Power’, Wired (March 2006), available at www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/people.html, accessed 2 March 2007. 76. Sam Lehman-Wilzig, ‘Worth an Agora? 2003 E-lection Party Sites and Public Discourse’, Israel Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Summer 2004), pp. 242–62. 77. Fritz et al., All the President's Spin, p. 251. 78. Steven H. Chaffee and Miriam Metzger, ‘The End of Mass Communication?’, Mass Communication and Society, Vol. 4, No. 4 (2001), pp. 365–379. 79. Philip N. Howard, New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen, New York, 2006. 80. Slavoj Zizek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates, London, 2002. Additional informationNotes on contributorsATARA FRENKEL-FARANAtara Frenkel-Faran is a lecturer in the department of communications at Sapir College and Sam Lehman-Wilzig is an associate professor in the department of political studies at Bar-Ilan University.The authors wish to thank Shani Tzur and Cobi Yaacobi for their help in compiling the data used in this study.