Doctoral student Ravid Oren presented her work on Mizrachi (Israeli oriental) music in Israel at a conference at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her paper was titled "Haperach Begani (The Flower in My Garden): Changes in the status of Mizrachi music between the years 1974-2010". the paper is based on her doctoral research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Ouzi Elyada and Prof. Motti Regev (Open University of Israel).

The dates of three colloquium lectures have been confirmed (updated schedule).

Prof. Jonathan Cohen has been appointed a member of the council of The Second Authority for Television and Radio. The Second authority regulates commercial television and radio broadcasters in Israel, both national and local.

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Prof. Yariv Tsfati. Credit: Lior Patel

Prof. Yariv Tsfati is the new chair of the Department of Communication. Tsfati replaces Dr. Rivka Ribak who completed her three year term as chair of the department. He is the first chair who is also a graduate (BA) of the department. He did his doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses on political communication, audience trust in the media and media effects.

Dr. Michal Hershman Shitrit has successfully completed work on her doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Jonathan Cohen. The title of her dissertation is "Why do they do it? Predictors of Reality TV participation".

Abstract:

Over the past two decades, reality TV has become a prominent television phenomena and now occupies a prominent place in broadcast schedules world-wide (Hall, 2006). Not surprisingly, as reality TV increased in audience popularity, the attention of media research to this genre has also increased. In particular, studies have tried to define reality shows and understand why these shows have become so popular and how they may affect audiences (Nabi, So & De Los Santos, 2013).

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The Family Communication division of NCA (National Communication Association) has awarded Dr. Roi Estlein, an MA graduate of the department, the Sandra Petronio Dissertation Excellence Award for his Ph.D. dissertation on "Manifestations of Responsiveness and Control in Husbands' and Wives' Marital and Parental Communication". Dr. Estlein did his Ph.D. work at Rutgers' School of Communication and Information. Dr. Estlein is a research associate at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya. The chair of his dissertation committee was Prof. Jen Theiss.

Masters student, Asfahan Bahalul, has won a Yad Vashem Award for Research given to research students. She was given this award for her ongoing thesis project titled "Between Al-Karitha and Al-Holocaust: Framing and Presentation of the Holocaust in Israel’s Arab-language Media". Her thesis advisor is Dr. Oren Meyers. Yad Vashem is The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel.

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Crowdfunding constitutes a novel distributed online approach for raising capital. It has the potential to restructure the culture industry and sideline traditional gatekeepers such as movie studios or publishers. Entrepreneurs have established a large number of crowd funding sites first in the United States and later in other developed economies. The most prominent of these sites, Kickstarter.com, focuses on creative projects. By early 2014 more than $1 billion had been raised through it. These platforms are a global phenomena. We will study their use in two countries - Israel and the U.S.

We (Roei Davidson and Nathaniel Poor) are studying how creators use crowdfunding platforms and whether they would consider using it again. Davidson is a lecturer in communication at the University of Haifa, Israel. Poor is an independent scholar based in Brooklyn, NY. Both did their doctoral work at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Over the past decade Davidson has been studying media and economics. Poor has been focusing on media technologies. Over the coming months we'll be interviewing film-makers, musicians, videogame creators, writers, painters with the aim of finding out what they think about these platforms. We will also conduct an online survey on this topic.

Our thanks go out to all those who have already contributed their time to answer our questions online or off!!! If you've received a request to participate in our online questionnaire, please do consider answering the survey! Thank you!

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Picture (from left): Gabriel Weimann, Nehama Lewis-Persky, Oren Livio, Yariv Tsfati, Oren Meyers, Jonathan Cohen, Eli Avraham, Rivka Ribak

Faculty members at the department of communication salute Prof. Elihu Katz, their teacher, on the occasion of his retirement. Prof. Katz, a sociologist by training, is a key figure in the study of the functions and effects of mass media, diffusion of ideas and innovations, and dynamics of public opinion. He is a founder of communication research in Israel. In addition, in the late 1960s, Prof. Katz headed the task force charged with the introduction of television broadcasting in Israel. On the occasion of his retirement from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania his many students among the department's faculty sent him this visual greeting.

Ph.D. student Matan Aharoni has been awarded a research scholarship by the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. The Scholarship will enable Matan to complete his Ph.D. dissertation on Ultra-Orthodox Community Film-making in Israel under the supervision of Prof. Tamar Katriel.