conflict & communication online, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2019
www.cco.regener-online.de
ISSN 1618-0747

Sagi Elbaz & Daniel Bar-Tal
Voluntary silence: Israeli media self-censorship during the Second Lebanon War

This article describes the characteristics of self-censorship in general, specifically in mass media, with regard to narratives of political violence, including motivations for and effects of practicing self-censorship. It first presents a broad theoretical conceptualization of self-censorship, and then focuses on its practice in media. The case study examined the representation of The Second Lebanon War in the Israeli national media. The authors carried out content analysis and in-depth interviews with former and current journalists in order to investigate one of the reasons for the dominance of the hegemonic narrative in the media – namely, self-censorship. Indeed, the analysis revealed widespread use of self-censorship by Israeli journalists, their motivations for practicing it, and the effects of its use on the society.

The authors:

Sagi Elbaz completed his postdoctoral research at the School Of Education, Tel Aviv University in 2016. His research interests include Political Communication, Elites and Minorities Representation, Media-Military Relations, Peace Journalism, and Culture of Conflict.
Address: School of Education, Tel Aviv University, 3 Kadesh Barnea St., Tel Aviv, 6998603, Israel.
eMail: sagi74@gmail.com Website: http://www.sagielbaz.com/

Daniel Bar-Tal is Branco Weiss Professor of Research in Child Development and Education at the School of Education, Tel Aviv University. His research interest is in political and social psychology. He served as President of the International Society of Political Psychology.
Address: School of Education, Tel Aviv University, 3 Kadesh Barnea St., Tel Aviv, 6998603, Israel.
eMail: daniel@post.tau.ac.il Website: https://da4903.wixsite.com/danielbar-tal