Fourth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

Israel is a high-tech country, where new media has largely expanded, and so has the use of social media. What identifies Israel most is the combination of technology development and technology use, and this combination has been particularly apparent in politics. Social media provide enormous opportunities to political parties as they seek to engage with new policy spaces developing around the Internet, and the use of social media in Israeli politics is mounted by the diversity of the population as well as limitation on political campaigning on traditional media. As in election campaigns elsewhere, the role of social media became crucial in shaping the political discourse, but compared to other countries, the number of parties contesting in Israeli elections is relatively high considering the population size. Israel is composed of different ethnic groups and is considered a country of immigrants, and some of these parties represent segmented groups, mainly minorities (Ultra-Orthodox and Israeli-Arabs), and can communicate directly with their supporters through social media, bypassing the limitations and domination of traditional media sources. The paper examines the rise of new politics in Israel while concentrating on the wide use of social media and the way social media changes Israeli politics.