ABSTRACT

Television broadcasting was introduced in Israel late, after years of debate over its likely effects. The absence of television seemed more acute on the eve of the Six Day War of 1967 inasmuch as Television broadcasts were being received from the surrounding Arab states. Indeed, television was introduced in Israel shortly after this war— not only to right the ostensible propaganda disadvantage, but because it was thought, wishfully, that the new medium would make for effective communication between Israelis and people in the newly occupied territories. Perhaps even more important than the message or the medium, the influence of television may be related to the form of its institutionalization in a particular society. The manifest and latent effects of a monopoly channel, operated by an independent Authority, in a newly democratic society, with a strong collective will, may be altogether different from the competitive, mixed commercial/public, multi-channel system beginning to broadcast to a much more individualistic society of Israelis.