Yadiln-Segal, A. & Meyers, O. (2014). “Like Birds Returning to Their Nest”: Immigration Narratives and Ideological Constructions in Early Israeli Children’s Magazines. Journalism History, 40 (3), 158-166.

Aya Yadlin-Segal is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University. Oren Meyers is a senior lecturer in the Department of Communication at the University of Haifa. This article is based on a Masters thesis Yadlin-Segal wrote (Thesis advisor: Dr. Oren Meyers).

Abstract:

This article explores the construction of national identity through the coverage of immigrants and immigration in 1950s Israeli children’s magazines. The study’s interpretive-narrative analysis employed two research trajectories focusing on the narrators of immigration stories and the main plot structures featured in the magazines’ articles. The study’s main findings point at the sharp contrast between the positive presentation of the phenomenon of Jewish immigration to Israel as a fulfilment of a prophecy and the negative depiction of the immigrants themselves as primitive, not ideologically committed and burdening the young country’s economy. Beyond the specific historical context, the study provides conceptual and methodological insights into the fabula’s role in the narrative process, as well as to the use of immigrants’ depictions as a social tool for collective self-definition. By doing so, the article illuminates the reciprocal relationships between culture and journalistic practices.