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Community News Websites and Political Communication among Palestinians Across the Green Line
Abstract
In this paper, I examine how new media – especially community news websites – mediate the complex relationship between Palestinians in the West Bank and Palestinians inside Israel. These two groups share a national identity, a language, and many cultural characteristics. They are geographically proximate to each other. Each group struggles against constraints of Israeli authorities regarding land use, criminalization of political activity, and full political representation, although these struggles are certainly different in each location. Together they comprise a sizable proportion of the territory under Israeli control. Yet, these two groups do not interact extensively with each other, largely because Israel has erected legal and physical barriers to contact that have generally grown only more severe over time. Yet, there are important political and cultural connections between Palestinians on each side of the Green Line. We might expect that new media should play a role strengthening these connections. Internet technologies have lowered the barriers to entry for journalists, and have allowed for the proliferation of Palestinian sources for news on both sides of the Green Line. Moreover, online news sources do not face the same challenges of distribution as have paper publications, which, for legal and other reasons, have historically and contemporarily tended to be confined to one side of the Green Line. Internet news sites also allow for more interaction among news producers and their audiences. Yet, preliminary research indicates that Palestinians on either side of the Green Line continue to primarily read their own publications, and that these publications tend to cover the other side of the Green Line in a relatively cursory way. In this paper, I will examine to what extent new media technologies create have increased possibilities for interaction between the two communities. To the extent that media have enriched Palestinians’ knowledge about Palestinian communities across the Green Line, what elements of news websites has been most effective, and what kinds of information – political, cultural, or economic – tends to generate the most attention? How does each side cover issues of shared concern across the Green Line, such as struggles over land? If media technologies have not been transformative, why is this? What do journalists have to say about prioritizing coverage of Palestinian communities across the Green Line? What does this tell us about the potential of internet technologies and other new media in promoting social and political change?
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Palestine
Sub Area
Media