Part III - Scoop on the Past

Summary

The third part to this work employs a body of scholarly literature to both highlight the presence of the past in mass mediation and the reciprocal nature between mass media and the society it serves. By focusing on the existence of “mediated memories” in Israeli and Palestinian mass media, Scoop on the Past illustrates the usage of the past as a prospective memory in line with the society’s contemporary concerns. Both in Israeli-Jewish society and in Palestinian society, traditional forms of mass media are analyzed that in the period under review have enjoyed the largest readership and circulation and, consequently, constitute the most important cadres sociaux. An historical analysis of media content produced on the respective memorial days – Yom ha-Shoah and Yawm al-Nakbah – highlights the construction and maintenance of a national collective memory vis-à-vis these historical events. The primary focus on anniversary journalism is accompanied by a secondary analysis on the construction of daily Nakba and Holocaust media memories. In this context, semi-structured interviews held with Palestinian and Israeli journalists on their role as memory agents testify to the desire and need to include their societies’ respective pasts in routine media so as to continually evoke the past and its contemporary meaning.