Reporting the Middle East: Challenges and Chances

Numerous studies address the flow of information between nations and states — especially in the era of globalization — and its contribution to the development of relations across physical borders. By contrast, little attention has been paid to the circumstances under which parties in conflict initiate and build barriers to free flow of information. The conflict in the Middle East may serve as a test bed of controlled disruption of information flow, as covered in Reporting the Middle East: Challenges and Chances. Two parallel types of confrontations appear to take place in the Middle East: the actual physical conflict, and the "war of words," conducted via the media, with each side firing its own verbal missiles. Reporting the Middle East: Challenges and Chances aims to show that the media arena is a key element in understanding the Middle East conflict. Media coverage of Middle Eastern affairs remains critical, if only because of its power in determining sources of information, setting decision makers' agendas, and influencing management of the physical confrontation.

Readership: Students and academics studying political communications, media and communications; students and academics specialising in Middle Eastern politics.

The late Professor Dan Caspi was the former chair of the Department of Communications Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2004–2009) and the Founding Chair of the Israel Communication Association (ISCA) He filled several public roles, including Consultant for a communications program at Israeli Educational Television; Member of the Israel Broadcasting Authority Executive Board and other public roles. He was also a champion for the integrity of the media and one of the prominent voices in the fight against media concentration, and for quality and independent public broadcasting.

Professor Caspi studied Political Science and communications at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and received his PhD in 1976. He was a faculty member at the Open University from mid-1980s until 2000s, and helped lay the foundations for undergraduate communications studies in Israel. The textbooks he wrote were used until recent years for undergraduate teaching in all higher education institutions in Israel.

Throughout his career, Professor Caspi integrated research with public activity, publishing hundreds of articles in daily newspapers and online, including two regular columns in a local newspaper in Jerusalem and in the Israel Advertisers Association Journal Signals. He wrote a column in the Seventh Eye Journal and an opinion column on Ynet. He also wrote the blog "Dan in Communications" in Haaretz until his death on 22 January 2017.

Daniel Rubinstein is an Israeli journalist and author. He received his BA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1961, majoring in Middle Eastern studies and sociology. From 1967 to 1990, Rubinstein worked as a columnist and Jerusalem bureau chief for the now-defunct newspaper Davar. From 1990 to 2008, he worked for Haaretz, where he was a member of the editorial board. He wrote regular columns on the Arab-Israeli conflict and Palestinian affairs. He now writes a weekly column on the Palestinian economy for Calcalist, an Israeli business daily published by Yediot Ahronoth. Rubinstein teaches at the Department of Middle East history at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, and has published several books such as People of Nowhere (1991), The Mystery of Arafat (1995) and Camp David 2000 (2002).