Communication, Culture & Critique ISSN 1753-9129 ORIGINAL ARTICLE ‘‘Their Deeds are the Deeds of Zimri; but They Expect a Reward Like Phineas’’: Neoliberal and Multicultural Discourses in the Development of Israeli DTT Policy Roei Davidson1 &AmitM.Schejter2 1 Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel 2 College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802-5101, USA We examine how neoliberal and multicultural discourses were employed in the development of digital terrestrial television (DTT) policy in Israel as a case study of the deployment of media technology in a society that is characterized by deep social cleavages and rapid neoliberalization. We conduct a detailed analysis of official documents published over 6 years, including preparatory work, draft bills, parliamentary committee minutes, parliamentary plenary discussions, and the wording of the law enacted in February 2008. This study highlights how neoliberal multiculturalism operates as rhetoric that champions the cultural and economic rights of minorities, while masking policy stances that negate these rights. We demonstrate how this is linked to the composition of the channels eventually included on the DTT platform. doi:10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01089.x The transition to digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasting has been taking place worldwide since the mid-1990s. The technology enables the transmission of more channels than analog technology on a given portion of the spectrum. Picture quality is usually better, and the signal can include an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) and can also be encrypted. As Picard (2007) notes, more than in many other areas of broadcast regulation, the transition to digital television has taken on different formats in different countries and has been subject to very little, if any, transnational coordination of policy. In this study, we examine the forces that have shaped the development of DTT policy in Israel. We consider the discursive role of neoliberalism and multiculturalism, the emergence of a ‘‘neolibral-multicultural’’ discourse, and the structural role of clientelism in shaping this policy domain. We do so based on a detailed analysis of official documents published over 6 years, which include preparatory work, draft Corresponding author: Roei Davidson; e-mail: [email protected] Note: The authors contributed equally to this article. Communication, Culture & Critique 4 (2011) 1–22 © 2011 International Communication Association 1 Neoliberal and Multicultural Discourses R. Davidson & A. M. Schejter bills, Knesset committee minutes, Knesset plenary discussions, and the wording of the eventual law, which was enacted in February 2008. We argue that the uses of neoliberalism and the abuses of multicultural discourse through clientelist networks culminate in a DTT policy that misses an opportunity to enable television to play a progressive role in restructuring the Israeli public sphere. We thus aim to make a contribution to the understanding of the paradoxical role neoliberal discourses play in media policy debates. This study is the first analysis of DTT policy in Israel. It adds to a growing critical-historical literature on the transitions in Israeli media, which have been published in recent years and have focused mostly on existing electronic media—namely, analog television and radio (i.e., Schejter, 2009; Caspi & Limor, 1999; Liebes, 2003; Yuran, 2001). We begin with a historical background of Israeli society and continue with a brief discussion of neoliberalism, multiculturalism, and clientelism. Following a brief description of the Israeli media scene and the context of transition to DTT, we present an analysis of the policy process and a theoretical discussion of that process. Historical background: Israel and Israeli society Israel is a parliamentary democracy carved in 1948 out of the former British colony of Palestine. Its social fabric is a display of two parallel yet distinct social rifts: among Jews, and between Jews and Arabs. During the 1950s, a Jewish population of only 600,000, mostly of European (‘‘Ashkenazi’’) descent, absorbed more than 1 million Jewish immigrants, mainly from North Africa and Iraq (‘‘Mizrahi’’); in the 1990s, more than 1 million predominantly Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet republics found their way to Israel; and, in between, waves of Jewish immigration from scores of nations made Israel their new home. Immigrant absorption was guided in the state’s formative years by a ‘‘Jewish melting pot’’ model, but in the latter decades of the 20th century this model gradually lost its authority as the state has become home to ‘‘different dreams and often opposing aspirations’’ among its Jewish majority (Zameret, 2002, p. 156), serving as the backdrop for much of the social tension among Jewish Israelis over the years. As an outcome of wars that took place in 1948 and 1967, Israel dominates a large Arab minority. It is indisputable that the Arab citizens of Israel, many of whom have assumed a Palestinian identity and align themselves with a yet-to-be-formed Arab state, which was also envisioned in 1948, are economically and socially removed from positions of power in Israeli society and are systematically discriminated against (Hasson & Karayanni, 2006). Since its foundation, the Israeli political economy has undergone significant transformations. Following the 1967 war, it developed a military–industrial complex, which later morphed into a flourishing civil technology sector (Swirski, 2005), changing it from a ‘‘developing country to [a] post industrial country’’ (Sharkansky, 1987). These social rifts on the one hand and ideological transformations on the other have allowed for the development of a policy discourse rooted in three themes: neoliberalism, multiculturalism, and clientelism. 2 Communication, Culture & Critique 4 (2011) 1–22 © 2011 International Communication Association R. Davidson & A. M. Schejter Neoliberal and Multicultural Discourses The theoretical framework Neoliberalism Neoliberalism is a political-economic ideology that has been deployed to varying degrees in many developed economies from the 1980s onwards. It suggests that ‘‘human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade’’ (Harvey, 2005, p. 2; see also Clarke, 2004; Frow, 1999). Government, according to this approach, has an important role in shaping and enforcing the regulations needed to safeguard private property, commercial markets, and free trade but should shy away from participating in the market directly and step aside from the provision of social services. Markets rather than governments are presented as the purest expression of popular will (Frank, 2000). Israeli policymakers too have adopted a neoliberal agenda and argued for a move away from statist intervention toward more reliance on market forces (Ben Bassat, 2002). This transition from a social democratic state to a neoliberal nationalistic state is characterized by a new form of centralization that is dictated by wealthy individuals and corporations and is designed to benefit them and the state equally while excluding a large proportion of the population (see, e.g., Aronoff, 2001; Nitzan & Bichler, 2007; Yuran, 2003). In the telcommunications sector this change was reflected by a weakening of the national public broadcaster; by the corporatization and eventual privatization of the national telecommunications provider, Bezeq, and the introduction of privately owned mobile and fixed telephony providers; by the launch of commercial television in 1993, with a second channel added in 2002; and by the licensing of multichannel cable and satellite television in 1989 and 1999, respectively. Neoliberalism is also characterized by a disjuncture between the rhetorical cham- pioning of governmental minimalism and the reality of continuous governmental intervention to selectively protect certain rights for certain corporate actors, present- ing their protected right as reflective of ‘‘natural’’ economic law (Shenhav, 2006). This ideological aspect will be further demonstrated in the analysis of DTT policy that follows. Multiculturalism Multiculturalism as an intellectual approach can be seen as a reaction to the monocultural politics evident throughout the history of modern Western societies. Monoculturalism attempted to universalize one particular culture (often Western and middle class), through education and cultural policies, while denying that cultural creations produced by others count as ‘‘real’’ culture (Goldberg, 1994). In reaction to early attempts at challenging monoculturalism, evident in the 1960s in the civil rights movement in the United States and in the student movements in America and Europe, integrative policies were instituted that allowed social groups Communication, Culture & Critique 4 (2011) 1–22 © 2011 International Communication Association 3 Neoliberal and Multicultural Discourses R. Davidson & A. M. Schejter to retain their particular culture as minorities on the margins. However, full-fledged multiculturalism requires the provision of egalitarian expressive opportunities for all relevant cultures active in a defined social domain, and demands not just tolerance of ‘‘other’’ cultures by one hegemonic culture, but rather policies that enable the flourishing of all cultures in constant dialogue