In this Paper I will examine the nature and the functions of the first Media Scandal in Palestine in 1909.
I'll show in this paper how the two central popular Hebrew newspapers in Palestine, Itamar Ben Avis's Ha-Zvi and Avraham Elmaliah Ha-Herut- squared off over a spat they ballooned into an ongoing sensationalist scandal. The paper tracks the evolution of this media spectacle into a quintessential media event, examine its nature, its functions, and its effects on the local public sphere.
It draws on Daniel Boorstein’s distinction between a spontaneous event and a “Pseudo-Event”, one manufactured by media and on the subsequent work of Elihu Katz and Daniel Dayan concerning “Media Events”, among other studies. This Media Scandal defined as 'Pseudo Event' or 'Media Event', will be analyzed here, following Victor Turner, as a 'Social Drama'. This drama is fabricated by the press and evolves according to a fixed scenario through different phases : from a starting point of discovering the misfit and the eruption of a moral crisis to final point of corrective action and reintegration.
The Media Scandal examined in the paper, called the Antebi affaire. This affaire marked the first use in Palestine of a Journalistic-Crusade strategy. The individual chosen was Albert Antebi, a powerful local manager of the French Jewish Educational Organization, Alliance Israelite. After the Young Trucks Revolution in 1908 which had established a freedom of the Press, among other reforms, Ben Avis believed an immensely powerful personality such as Antebi could be attacked in order to boost the circulation of his newspaper. Which faced growing competition in the new climate. The trigger for Ben Avi's six-week crusade against Antebi was a struggle over the selection of a candidate to represent the Jews of Palestine in the new Ottoman Legislature. Therefore, Ben Avi's newspaper Ha-Zvi launched a campaign of defamation and 'fake news' against Antebi, to whose defense Ha-Herut rushed. The mise-en scene included Sephardi-Ashkenazi discord and clashing business interests.
I will examine here step by step how this Media Scandal was fabricated by both newspapers? What kind, of strategies were used? how did the 'social drama' functioned? and finally, what were the short and the long term effects of this scandal.
In what way the application of the Turner model of 'social Drama' shows that the function of 'Media Scandal' in Ottoman Palestine wasn't to widen the gap between rival social and political Jewish groups, but to negotiate and bridge the difference between them. In what way one can consider the 'media Scandal' as a liminal Phase where personal and social crisis are solved through media rituals.
Bibliography
Ouzi Elyada, Hebrew Popular Journalism, Birth and Development in Ottoman Palestine, Routledge, 2019.
Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz, Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History, Harvard University Press, 1992
James Lull and Stephen Hinerman, ( Ed), Media Scandals, Morality and Desire in the Popular Culture Marketplace, Columbia University Press, 1997, pp. 1-33