Negotiating history in an era of globalization: The production of narratives of a nation's past in the Israeli mass media

This dissertation investigates the production, broadcast, and public reception of Tkuma, a controversial twenty-two part historical documentary series aired by the Israeli Broadcast Authority in the spring of 1998. Combining a multiperspectival analysis of both the series and the ensuing debates in the Israeli mainstream press, together with a Bourdesian analysis of the production processes of the series, the author explores the ways that collective memory is constructed and public history is articulated in a society that has become increasingly dominated by the electronic mass media.; The author suggests that despite the fact that the producers of Tkuma had incorporated material that had been taboo for the public broadcaster in the past, the series actually reinforced the traditional Zionist narratives they had wished to question. Hence, the dissertation contextualizes Tkuma both in terms of the social, political, and cultural struggles that were taking shape in Israel in the nineties, and in light of the rapidly changing telecommunication environment. It illustrates that while contemporary Israeli cultural producers mobilized images from the past in order to mend a national culture that they viewed as coming undone, they were also establishing their own positions in the hierarchy of a quickly changing field of cultural production.; Through textual analysis of the series and newspaper coverage, the dissertation traces the paths by which entrenched Zionist narratives were substantiated through the use of archival footage, while emerging counter-narratives of marginalized groups (the Palestinians and the Mizrahim, in particular) were incorporated, challenged, and rejected. Based on ethnographic interviews conducted with producers, IBA executives, and academic consultants, the dissertation explores the shifting relationship between independent film makers and executives and its impact on the narratives within the series. Additionally, the dissertation situates the production in terms of the struggles within the Israeli academe between so called post-Zionist historians and critical sociologists, on the one hand, and established historians and sociologists on the other. The author proposes that ultimately, the arguments over the production and broadcast of Tkuma were in part a struggle over the question as to who had authority to produce the narratives of the nation's history.