Connected Lives
Jewish and Arab Femicide in Israeli Hebrew Newspapers: A Case of Symbolic Boundary Work
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ina Filkobski
This paper explores how newspapers cover the murder of women by family members and intimate partners. We compared the coverage of Jewish and Arab victims and culprits in three major Israeli newspapers, examining media’s contribution to the construction of symbolic boundaries between minority and dominant social groups. We conducted a systematic qualitative content analysis, examining a sample of 459 articles published between 2013 and 2015. We found that the murder of Jews by family members or intimate partners was framed as a shocking and unusual event, a result of the individual personality or pathology of the culprit. Conversely, when Arabs killed family members, coverage focused on the culture of the ethnic group, described as traditional, violent, and patriarchal. A systematic comparison we conducted showing the varying degree of detail, empathy, and contextualization in the description of culprits, depending on their ethno-national identities. Articles on Jewish culprits included much more detail and depth. In these cases, every aspect of the perpetrator’s personal history was commonly examined, as newspapers cited psychiatry experts, family members, childhood friends, employers, and neighbors. Such treatment was mostly absent in the case of Arab culprits. Our findings also show that towns, villages, and neighborhoods characterized predominantly by an Arab population are constructed as dangerous and violent sites while predominantly Jewish locales remain merely places where violence took place. This tendency to associate the entire locale with violence was evident in generalizing headlines and emphasis on previous crimes that occurred in the locale. In articles on murders by Arabs, neighbors and community leaders felt the need to forcefully condemn the violence and highlight the otherwise peaceful nature of their village or town. Such renunciations often carried an apologetic tone, suggesting that the community needs to repeatedly refute the idea that it supports violence. Conversely, in cases of Jewish murders, the majority of community reactions are simply an attempt to deal with a tragedy We propose that the treatment of femicide by the newspapers contributes to the notion that Arab and Muslim cultures, religions, and nationalities are essentially misogynistic and adhere to norms of honor and shame that are radically different from those of modern societies, such as the Jewish-Israeli one. We suggest that the differential media and public treatment of femicide serves as one of the primary sites where the Jewish community draws and asserts the boundaries between “(Jewish) Israeli society” and its “others.” The portrayal of femecide can be seen as a site through which the assumed “hierarchy of moral worth” (Lamont and Molnár 2002:168) of Jewish-Israeli and Arab cultures is being reaffirmed, allowing Jews in Israel to claim superiority in other fields of life. While our analysis focuses on Israel, studies on the United States, Canada, and various European countries with ethnically and racially heterogeneous populations, make it clear that the stigmatisation and exclusion of visible, religious, and language minorities are not unique to the Israeli case (Bail 2008; Korteweg and Yurdakul 2010; Shier and Shor 2016; Wimmer 2013).
The Underrepresentation of Elder Women in Prime Time Television Advertising on Puerto Rico: Traits of Elderly on TV Commercials in Puerto Rico
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Miriam Ramirez
Primarily my academic interest revolves around how to interpret media messages; particularly studying the images, inferences, stereotypes, and prejudices involved in the media with special attention to television advertising. My particular research focus is on the representation of the elderly in Prime Time television advertising on the island of Puerto Rico. This study includes all commercials issued over two weeks, 280 hours, on four TV channels. We found that only sixty-six advertisements consisted of images of people over 55+ as a talent within 524 commercials (and of these sixty-six ads only six were exclusive of elders). We use quantitative and qualitative methodology. The Nielsen Company and some television producers provided data. The analysis of 524 publicity advertisements was made with two templates constructed to collect the data. The first is based on an authorized adaptation of the Global Media Monitoring Project, and the second template consisted of a table containing forty-four variables identified under the theme: stereotypes. Through these data, we were able to scrutinize the references of the context in which the elderly were represented and the stereotypes in those television advertising in Puerto Rico. The subrepresentation of elder women in TV commercials was patent. The elder presence on television promotions is not related to the percentage of the population of people over 55. Positive traits, negative traits, themes privileged by advertisers, the presence of elderly alone or accompanied, images, frequency, advertisers, and contradictions are considered.
