Screening science,producing the nation: popular science programs on Israeli television (1968

Abstract

From 1968 on, the state of Israel deployed television as a tool in the service of its ongoing project of reproducing the nation and as a propaganda tool that targeted the population of the newly occupied territories and the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. With the collaboration of the scientific elite, the televising of original popular science programs, aired on the sole government-controlled channel at prime time, contributed immensely to these projects. Through these programs, the state disseminated a specific image of the nation’s scientific prowess for popular consumption in the euphoric aftermath of the Six Day War. This article examines the first 20 years of the state’s projects, during which the grip of Zionist collectivism was still strong, the monopoly of the government-controlled channel was not yet challenged, and the programs enjoyed astonishingly high ratings. My examination focuses on the ideology and motivations of the producers; the ways in which the communication elite and the scientific elite, enjoying a position of hegemony, collaborated by disseminating the nation’s accomplishments in both the Arabic and Hebrew programs; and the actual content of the programs at large and specifically that of four episodes of Tazpit, the popular science program of the 1980s.

Keywords

Israel nationality popular science programs public broadcasting television Zionism

From 1968 on – following the Six Day War from which Israel emerged victorious, after occupying vast amounts of land with a large Palestinian population – the state of Israel deployed television not simply to ‘broadcast education, entertainment and information programs’ (Israel Broadcasting Authority [IBA] Law, 1965) to its heterogeneous public, but as a tool in the service of its ongoing project of producing and reproducing the nation (aimed at its Jewish citizens) and as a propaganda tool that targeted the population of the newly occupied territories and the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. With the collaboration of the scientific and technological elite, the televising of original popular science programs, aired on the sole government- controlled channel (Channel 1) at prime time, contributed immensely to these projects. Science and technology, long understood in Zionism and Israel as a western, heroic, progressive, neutral and beneficial endeavor, serving both ideological and practical ends (Efron, 2007; Penslar, 2007), were indeed an apt focus for the state’s efforts. Through these programs, the state disseminated a specific image of the nation’s scientific and technological prowess for popular consumption, in the euphoric aftermath of the Six Day War.

This article examines the first 20 years of the state’s projects and its efforts to propagate a certain image of the nation to audiences via television. During these two decades the grip of Zionist collectivism was still quite strong, the monopoly of the government-controlled channel was not yet challenged by commercial channels or cable and the programs enjoyed astonishing high ‘ratings’.¹

My examination focuses on the ideology and motivations of the producers; namely the ways in which the communication elite (the producers) and the scientific elite (scientists and engineers), enjoying a position of hegemony, collaborated by disseminating the nation’s accomplishments in both the Arabic and Hebrew programs. It also looks at the actual content of the programs and specifically four exemplary episodes of Tazpit (‘Outlook’ or ‘Observation’), the popular science program of the 1980s.

Early in this decade, television became a dominant ‘cultural form’ (Williams, 1974) in Israel when the number of households with television sets reached its 20-year peak (Almog, 2004: 217–18; Katz and Haas, 1998: 525; Penslar, 2003: 12). At this time Tazpit enjoyed particularly high ratings during its bi-monthly broadcasts. This situation changed only in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when commercial and cable television became available and Israelis abandoned Channel 1 (Weimann, 1998). Along with the decline of the ideal of Zionist collectivism, the rise of individualistic lifestyles (Almog, 2004), neoliberalism and globalization (Ram, 2008), Tazpit and its spinoffs during the 1990s attracted much smaller audiences, were rescheduled out of prime time and eventually marginalized.

There has been no analysis of these programs. Similarly, the history of popular science on television has yet to be analyzed (Dunwoody, 2008; Gregory and Miller, 1998; see also LaFollette, 2008). However, given the status of the participating scientists, coupled with the importance of the content and the longevity of the run, there is no doubt that these programs and their context of production deserve attention. The state’s continuous support of their productions attests to its enduring commitment to shaping its citizenry via this genre and amply justifies the study of cultural production and ideology undertaken here.

My analysis is based on extensive archival research in Israel and six in-depth interviews with television producers and scientist-anchors.² After describing the theoretical and historical context, the article examines the production and content of the popular science programs in Arabic and Hebrew. My examination reveals how the two different intended groups of audiences, Jewish citizens vs. Arab citizens and the population of the occupied territories, dictated a distinct content suitable for specific popular consumption.

Theorizing the interplay between nationalism, media and popular science

Historical research has clearly demonstrated the relationships between modern media and the construction of nationality and national identity (Anderson, 1991; Bhabha, 1990; Hobsbawm, 1984). Thus, television texts with their audio-visual capacities are understood here as prime agents of acculturation into the national discourse by continuously producing it (Frosh and Wolfsfeld, 2007; Matheson, 2006; Scannell and Cardiff, 1991; Wieten et al., 2000): they both mediate and represent the nation.

Mediation is taken here as intertwined with representation, especially the use of overt symbols (like the flag), the depiction, through images and narratives, of the assembly of the nation’s constituent parts (like physical locales), and the portrayal of a collage of everyday social domains, populations and activities (Frosh and Wolfsfeld, 2007).

Although still a vibrant field of study, research on the production and reproduction of nationalism in popular media has largely ignored the nexus between nationalism and popular science (see Ozkirimli, 2000; recent exceptions are Mizuno, 2009; Pandora, 2009; Papanelopoulou et al., 2009). As Daum (2009: 328) argued, ‘we have not yet examined closely enough how popular science narratives relate to political narratives’. Popular science is defined here as ‘a practice, an intellectual construct, a rhetorical strategy, and an economic endeavor, all at the same time’ (Daum, 2009: 326) that should be set within the paradigm of communication (Secord, 2004). As an intellectual construct or form of knowledge, it is generated by a variety of actors, pursues various interests, relies on the development of new technologies and takes the shape of various genres in different countries and national contexts (Topham, 2009).

The nature of the mediation in popular science programs and the content of the representations of the nation and nationhood are still unclear. Before turning to these questions, I clarify the Israeli historical context.

Ethnic nationality in Israel

Israel was founded on an unresolved tension between ‘civic’ and ‘ethnic’ nationalisms (Sznaider, 2000 in Frosh and Wolfsfeld, 2007). On the one hand, Israel is defined as the state of its permanent residents, irrespective of their ethnic or religious identity, so that legal rights apply equally (at least theoretically) to the country’s Jewish majority and its non-Jewish (largely Palestinian Arab) minority. On the other hand, Israel is defined as the state of the entire Jewish people, and a number of classic laws, as well as state symbols, flags, and the national anthem, enshrine this privileging of ethnicity over residence as the basis for citizenship. As Frosh and Wolfsfeld suggest:

While this tension between civic and ethnic nationalism is not confined to Israel, the perpetual conflict with the Palestinians has made the conflation of ethnic (Jewish) and national (Israeli) identity, and the routine performance of an ethnic ‘we’ which appears to be identical to nationhood, a paramount theme and problematic within Israeli media discourse. (2007: 110)

Thus, the analysis below deals with expressions of ethnic (Jewish Israeli) nationality in both Arabic and Hebrew programs.

Science and technology in Zionism and Israel

Science and technology came to play a prominent role within Zionism, which was established as a modern political movement in the late 19th century. Instrumentally and practically, the Zionist movement, with its colonizing mission of settling Jews in Palestine and establishing a state for the Jewish people, cherished science and technology as an essential tool for the realization of state power, exemplified by managing populations, forging an army, mapping and engineering space and providing health services (Barell, 2009; Efron, 2007). Ideologically, inspired by the Enlightenment and like many other national movements, Zionism perceived science and technology as having redeeming powers that symbolized human progress and the shaping of human destiny for the better. Zionism valued technology in its broader sense as social engineering, in that it helped to create a ‘New Jew’ in the new homeland and a well planned polity (Penslar, 2007). In addition, by embracing science and technology, Zionism associated the project of Jewish settlement in Palestine with the progressive West and achievements of generations of Jewish scientists elsewhere. Thus, Zionism perceived science and technology as a means of advancing the ideals of the West in the backward East, making the desert bloom, and ‘helping’ the uneducated locals (Efron, 2007; Katriel, 1999: 226–51).

Scientific research began in the Yishuv (the pre-state Jewish settlements) as early as the 1910s, with the establishment of an agricultural research center. It continued with the establishment of the Technion (1924), the technical school, the Hebrew University (1925) and (after the establishment of the state in 1948) most of Israel’s universities and research institutions as public research centers.

In the first two decades of its existence, the state – characterized by a remarkable degree of collectivism in which politics, economics and culture were intensely intertwined and all served the national cause – funneled considerable funds into traditional industries such as textiles and chemicals (Levi-Faur, 2001). In addition, it supported initiatives in the field of agricultural technologies originating in various venues. The late 1960s saw the emergence of a state-funded national military-industrial capacity based on its strong R&D tradition (Sachar, 1987). The late 1960s also saw state-led initiatives to develop indigenous high-tech industries with project ideas originating solely in private industry (Breznitz, 2007). Last, but not least, the early 1960s saw a major reform in the structure of the school system, influenced by American reformers, during which the sciences were prioritized (Gotlieb, 1999). The 1960s then witnessed the emergence of a public that increasingly, through the school system, developed a greater interest in the sciences and became avid audiences of the popular science programs in the next two decades.³

Hence the growing institutionalization of science during the 1950s and 1960 was accompanied by a parallel effort to develop state-led military and high-tech industries and broaden science education in the national school system. As Efron (2007: 243) states ‘the first two decades of the country’s existence … established Israel as a technocracy willing to devote great resources to developing science and technology, and persuaded that its economic, political and social success depended on science and technology’.

Popular science in the daily press, on the radio and in a special journal

The daily press regularly reported on science and technology issues (Golan, 1998; Magen, 1981), maintaining a tradition that was established in the pre-state era (Shavit, 2009). Through the years, radio, which was instrumental in the nation-building process (Liebes, 2003; Penslar, 2003), provided news coverage of science and technology as part of its newscasts. In addition, and influenced by the BBC, the educational component was central, and diverse programs on scientific topics were commonly broadcast (Almog, 2004: 93) in which Israeli scientists were advisers, editors (Pines, 1981) or prominent guests (Taragin, 1967).

The journal Mada (‘Science’, 1956–91), funded by both the government and academia, published semi-popular articles by top Israeli scientists for the educated public. While reaching only very limited audiences due to its relatively complicated content, Mada attests again to the importance that the government ascribed to disseminating popular science to educate the general public.

The birth of Israeli television

While politicians rejected television when it was first suggested as early as 1952, throughout the 1950s and 1960s three official commissions argued that television would be in the service of national and statist cultural needs (Schejter, 2009). These needs were finally reflected in the 1965 IBA Law and pertained to both radio and television. In the law, the IBA, which is still government controlled (Caspi and Limor, 1992; Schejter, 2009), was delegated the task of broadcasting:

education, entertainment and information programs in the fields of policy, society, economics, culture, science [emphasis added], and the arts, in order (1) to reflect the life of the State, its creation, achievements, and struggle; (2) to propagate good citizenship; (3) to strengthen the connection with the Jewish heritage and its values, and to deepen knowledge of; (4) to reflect the lives and cultural assets of all tribes of the nation from the different countries; (5) to expand education and to distribute knowledge; (6) to reflect the life of the Jews in the Diaspora; (7) to enhance the aims of mamlakhti [national] education as described in the Mamlakhti Education Law of 1953.⁴

In this law, science programs, among others, were geared toward a set of national goals, and as such performed a vital role in Israeli (Jewish) national life, including reflection and representation of state life, Jewish heritage, Jewish Diaspora and Israeli cultural assets, the promotion of good citizenship and dissemination of knowledge and education (Oren, 2004).

The law also delegated to the IBA the task of providing ‘broadcasts in the Arabic language for the needs of the Arabic-speaking population and for the advancement of understanding and peace with the neighboring states, according to the basic course set by the State’.

Schejter (2009) argues that the law made a clear distinction between the purpose of broadcasting for the Jewish population – supporting national and cultural goals – and the purpose of broadcasting to the Arab population, in that it did not specify the needs of the Arab population or the content of programs. In addition, the law grouped Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and the citizens of neighboring enemy states together, both in the definition of the service and in the actual provision of one service to both audiences. In other words, ‘broadcasts that supposedly serve the “needs” of “Arabic-speaking Israelis” in fact serve the propaganda needs of the state’ (2009: 132–3).

Although the law was passed, television was still debated for two more years. One key argument raised in these debates supported television broadcasts to the Arab world on the grounds that television has a capacity for self-representation. Television was thus perceived as a tool for ‘displaying Israeli industriousness, agricultural achievements and cultural and political advances’ (Oren, 2004: 124). This notion of self-representation eventually appealed to the political establishment and played a decisive role in the aftermath of the June 1967 Six Day War so that in September 1967 the government decided to launch emergency television broadcasts directed at the population of the newly occupied territories and the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel (Schejter, 2009).

Finally, in early 1969, after rescinding the emergency plan, when broadcasting became routine in both Hebrew and Arabic, the content of Arabic programming was ‘a much curtailed version’ of the emergency service, consisting of news programs, variety shows, imported films, and a children’s hour (Oren, 2004: 135).

As late as 1971, the Arabic department at the IBA, following its mission of representing Israeli scientific research, industriousness and agricultural achievements to the population of the newly occupied territories and the Palestinian Arab citizens, began broadcasting Tag’didat wa-Ichtira’at (‘Innovations and Inventions’).

Tag’didat wa-Ichtira’at: science as international endeavor

In 1969, Dalia Horvitz, who holds an MSc in genetics from the Hebrew University, was hired by the department as a scriptwriter. Soon after, she came up with the idea of Tag’didat, a popular science magazine inspired by the British Tomorrow’s World, which presented three segments on the latest achievements in Israeli science and technology. The management approved her general plan for the program but due to the department’s limited budget (Gil, 1986), suggested reliance on cheap foreign material. Eventually, upon Horvitz’s insistence on the importance of broadcasting original Israeli content, an agreement was reached in which the program would consist of three segments, two bought from foreign catalogues and one made in Israel, focusing on local achievements. First produced by Horvitz and from 1973 by Gila Bear, another IBA employee who was also committed to disseminating Israeli content, for 25 years, Tag’didat aired for some 15 to 20 minutes on a weekly basis during the Arabic hour.

To obtain information about contemporary Israeli inventions and innovations, producers Horvitz and Bear established contacts with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and the offices for public relations in all the universities and research centers. In addition, they regularly scanned the daily press for science and industry news. For example, Tag’didat aired an item on research on new construction methods at the architecture school of the Technion, another item demonstrated a new Israeli machine for packing apples, still another item reported on new findings on sea fish by the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Center, a governmental research center. However, and in contrast to the science programs in Hebrew, Tag’didat, as demonstrated in its catalogue, refrained from reporting on the Israeli military industry. In addition, it eschewed items on the (Jewish) homeland. (Israeli) science and technology, in short, were represented as international endeavor, that happened to be made in Israel.

It is unclear whether Tag’didat reached its primary intended audiences, Palestinian Arabs or others. However, the intentions of the architects of the emergency service and the producers of the programs were clear and, indeed, for a quarter of a century the program was one of the most important ways in which the achievements of Israeli scientific research and industrial developments were regularly broadcast.

During the 1970s and 1980s, most of the IBA budget was given over to the production of the daily evening newscast that was regarded as an authoritative source of information and interpretation of political affairs and functioned as a national ritual, summarizing the daily events (Almog, 2004: 194). Thus, unlike European public television services that had greater financial resources and could broadcast diverse popular science programs on several channels in parallel (Göpfert, 1996), the IBA allocated money for the production of one original popular science program in Hebrew.

Mada va’Da’at: the popular science program in Hebrew during the 1970s

Mada va’Da’at (‘Science and Knowledge’) first aired in 1968 and was broadcast until 1977 on a monthly basis, at prime time, usually at 8 p.m., 8:30 p.m. or 9:30 p.m., just before or immediately after the prestigious evening newscast, and lasted for 30 minutes.

Its producer, Oded Kapeliuk, graduated from the agricultural school Mikve Israel near Tel Aviv, studied political science at the Hebrew University and joined the IBA in 1968 as a producer-director of the program. Kapeliuk took pride in Israeli science and saw it as his mission to disseminate information on the fruit of Israeli research (Kapeliuk, 2008). He developed strong and lasting ties with all the Israeli research institutes. They in turn suggested new topics for programs based on their research projects and their scientists regularly joined the programs as advisers.

For the first time in Israeli history, science labs in the Weizmann Institute, the Police Central Labs, or the Nes-Ziona Biological Institute were filmed live and brought to the living rooms of many citizens. The broadcasts featured some of the most prominent Israeli scientists of the time, such as zoologist Lev Fishelzon, cardiologist Henry Neufeld, special education professor Reuven Feuerstein and psychologist Maurice Kleinhaus.

Some of the programs were documentaries devoted to one general topic such as ‘urbanization and its problems across the world’, featuring Israeli scientists and experts. Other programs were in the format of a science magazine covering several unrelated topics, focusing on Israeli scientific research and technological innovations. For example, one magazine featured reportage on three new studies in the fields of physiology, taste and smell, and agriculture conducted in Israel. Another program reported on the Golem, the first digital computer built in the Weizmann Institute, and new research by TAHAL, a government-owned water engineering company, ‘supporting Israel and an additional twenty four countries across the world’ (IBA program catalogue, 29 December 1969). This state of affairs, in which television, a central institution of public broadcasting, regularly reported on the achievements of Israeli science and technology, conveyed the importance of the scientific enterprise in general. Significantly, this state of affairs also served the state, since the televising of Israel’s great scientists and their achievements reinforced national pride.⁵

The program was well received and very popular. A survey conducted in the summer of 1970 found that it had ratings of 70% and was extremely popular among the better educated (Ribon, 1970); another survey conducted in the winter of 1975–6 found that the program was among the most popular, together with the weekly Friday evening newscast and a few foreign programs (undated newspaper clip in Kapeliuk’s archive).

The sale of television sets increased during the 1970s, as did the time that Israelis spent watching television, but television only became a key mover in Israeli cultural life toward the end of the 1970s. This growing popularity of television is related to the increase in the standard of living, and the ability of television to dramatize political events that so shaped society (Almog, 2004: 217–18).

Tazpit: the popular science program in Hebrew during the 1980s

In the late 1970s, when Mada Va’Da’at was taken off the screen, the IBA hoped to replace it with another popular science program. In 1979 B’naya Binnun stepped in as the producer of a prospective science program. Binnun, who joined the IBA in 1968 as a cameraman for Mada va’Da’at, submitted a 25-page proposal for a new science program entitled Tazpit. Its concept was immediately approved and Tazpit was endorsed as a prime time, bi-monthly magazine. In his proposal, Binnun listed several goals for the new program. Along with such aims as ‘entertainment’, ‘providing information, education and insights’, ‘educating for scientific thinking and supporting the decision making process’ he also mentioned ‘presenting science and technology, “Blue and White”’, a phrase designating ‘Made in Israel’ and the colors of the Israeli flag. Binnun explained that research institutions in Israel, along with the high-tech industry, were internationally renowned and Tazpit ‘would bring the achievements of the state in these fields to every home … striking the patriotic chord in each of us’. Tazpit sought to draw ideas for programs from the broad fields of ‘frontiers in science’, ‘news headlines’ and the ‘Jewish kupf [the vaunted Jewish genius] in Israel’, bringing ‘Israeli research, innovations and developments, members of research institutes and high-tech companies, as guests of honor’. In this statement of intent Binnun envisioned the science program as a combination of entertainment and education that aspired towards reinforcing national sentiment in viewers. Tazpit regularly employed staff to look for new material in the daily newspapers, publications of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and research institutions, and the growing high-tech industry.

As part of the new concept of Tazpit, and unlike Mada va’Daa’t, which included no studio footage, a scientist who was also a talented popularizer was chosen to anchor the program. When the program first aired in 1981, it was physicist Professor Yaacov Shaham of the Hebrew University and in 1983, when Shaham moved to the United States, Professor Yoram Laas, from Sakler Medical School in Tel Aviv University took the lead, along with journalist Yael Dan.

Tazpit was not only innovative in choosing top scientists to anchor the program, but also presented a new format compared to the usual science magazine. It regularly combined a series of two to three items that were thematically related, typically one or two filmed in the studio – usually a demonstration or a discussion with an Israeli scientist or engineer – and one or two in the field or incorporated from foreign material.

The nation publicly embraced Tazpit, as exemplified by regular positive reviews in newspapers, surveys⁶ and the prestigious David’s Harp Award in the field of Israeli culture that Binnun received in 1982 for the best television program, only a year after Tazpit first aired.

To illustrate the ways in which the nation was represented and mediated, my analysis below examines the dramatic narrative⁷ in 4 exemplary segments (out of the total of 60 watched) of Tazpit. My decision to focus on examples from the fields of the Israeli high-tech industry, the military industry, the agricultural industry and representations of the homeland is not arbitrary and reflects the focus of the program as exemplified in its catalogue. This focus also reflects the central ideological components of Zionism in its early incarnations (the importance of agriculture, military force and love of the homeland) and a more recent one (high-tech). I posit that in the case of these episodes, viewers were presented with a ‘demonstrative’ or ‘hot’ nationalism (Billig, 1995). Unlike banal nationalism that goes unnoticed, here there was a repeated intent to make it clear that the product was made in Israel.

Israeli high-tech makes a debut on screen: True ingenuity

During the 1980s, the preliminary output of state-led initiatives to develop a high-tech industry was regularly brought to the national screen by Tazpit. A segment entitled ‘New Israeli music software’ aired on 26 June 1985 and lasted for 7 minutes. As sometimes happened in Tazpit, when artists and performers would come to the studio, legitimizing the technological endeavor in their presence, the guest on this show was singer Danny Robas who performed one of his popular songs at the time playing an acoustic guitar. Robas then played the same song on an electronic organ that was part of a computerized system by an Israeli software company. Anchor Dan presented the theme of the segment, arguing that while in the past one had to master notes in order to compose a melody, today it is enough to sing your melody to the computer and it will translate it into musical notes that can be saved and replayed at a later time. Pointing to the computerized system she solemnly claimed that:

this is perhaps the most impressive feature of the system that we will soon present to you, a first by Israelis in the world: a computer that translates the melody that we sing into a microphone. … An Israeli company by the name of Xanadu developed this system.

After a 3-minute presentation of the abilities of the system, starring Robas and a Xanadu engineer, Dan moved on to point at a circuit board that, together with the accompanied diskettes, revealed ‘the Israeli ingenuity of the system … this is the real breakthrough.’ Robas summarized the segment by applauding the ‘combination of advanced technology with music learning’. Within this 7-minute piece, viewers were presented with a striking contrast between a traditional musical instrument and an ultra-new computerized system that had multiple capabilities; the contrast emphasized the difference between the old and demanding way of composing music and the new easier method. The element of Israeli technology was associated with primacy, originality, ingenuity, ease and innovation, and was legitimized by the presence of what seemed to be its opposite, the art world.

The inventiveness of the Israeli military industry: the Lavi jet on screen

The local defense industry has acquired a reputation for technological innovations and Israel is one of the world’s major arms exporters. In 1980, three years after the right-wing Likud party won the election for the first time in the history of Israel, the government approved an ambitious project of producing a military jet plane that was claimed to be a technological breakthrough, giving Israel an head start in future battlefields. Following the government’s decision and based on its years of experience, the Israel Aircraft Industry (IAI), a government enterprise, embarked on its most sophisticated project, manufacturing the Lavi as a prospective replacement for the American F-16. The project was controversial from its inception due to its immense budget that threatened other military and civilian projects, and was highly debated in the Israeli press (Mizrahi, 2007).

The program that aired on 31 December 1986, the day of the first test flight of the Lavi, was some months in the making, as with the rest of Tazpit programs. However, the segments on the test flight were edited and added to the previous material that same day and aired just before the prime-time evening newscast, increasing Tazpit ratings.

Unlike standard programming, this broadcast opened with no introductory notes, emphasizing the triumphal moment, in a segment lasting 25 seconds, in which the final preparations for the takeoff of the Lavi and the takeoff itself were televised. At that time it was already known that the flight had been successful and anchor Dan seriously but victoriously announced, while the camera escorted the jet in the air, above the panoramic views of the land:

for some ten years IAI has been waiting for this moment in which the Lavi would take off. And today it took off. This can be called a historic moment that marks a milestone in the technological development of Israel.

Describing the festive moment for the thousands of engineers, technicians and supporters, Dan continued to reflect on the heated controversy over the project. However, back in the studio (and again later in the program), she insisted that Tazpit ‘has no intention to debate the economic value of the project’. And while ‘the media is deliberately fueling the controversy about the Lavi, we will turn tonight to a non-economic behind-the-scenes perspective on the project’. The remainder of the program in fact made no mention of the political debate and focused instead on celebrating the technical and scientific achievements of IAI, showing its labs, its well-known test pilot and technical experts at work in various sites. A repetitive theme during the 29 minutes of the program was the fact that although some parts of the jet, like the engine or the wings, that are supposedly less essential, were imported from the United States, its significant ‘brain’ or ‘heart’ that constitutes the ‘flying electronics’ and ‘the overall design of the project’ were all ‘Israeli developments’ or ‘purely blue and white’. The program ended with an additional segment from the first flight, showing Minister Moshe Arens (who enthusiastically supported the Lavi project) at the airfield with military personnel. At the very end, when the test pilot was getting out of the cockpit to an enthusiastic reception with bottles of champagne, Dan exclaimed ‘in IAI today they think that this is a flag, waving in front of the camp, a flag that rises high in the state’s sky’.

The program celebrated the Lavi project as an Israeli technological project in its choice of dramatized televising of the first takeoff, the victory celebrations, its insistence on the Israeli origins of the parts designated as the most important, and the showcasing of the labs and the people involved in the production side of the jet for many years. Tazpit used this occasion to promote its status in the mass media; the government used the media to cultivate its image as a benefactor and producer of innovative technology, and the technological elite applauded itself and its products.

The fact that the program refrained from discussing the political debate about the immense costs of the project, and focused solely on the technical achievement of IAI and by extension, the state (while also kowtowing to the political echelon), was symptomatic of a wider phenomenon in which Tazpit represented science and technology as existing independently of the context of their economic production. This would not be so significant were it not for the fact that science and technology, especially in Israel, are political, and a source of power and status for the scientists and engineers as well as for the state that supports and funds scientific endeavor. The technological achievements and, more generally, science, function here as an ideology that serves to legitimize the political decisions made by the bureaucratic elites (Hornig, 1990).

Israeli high-tech agriculture: improvement by scientific manipulation

Zionist national redemption was tightly linked from its inception to the idea of redeeming the land so that the new native Hebrew, the Tsabar (Sabra), would be closer to his biblical forefathers who were farmers than to his exilic parents who worked in various service and managerial jobs (Zerubavel, 1994). While this notion of collective redemption through working the soil held true, agricultural work in Palestine and later Israel never really adhered to ancient methods of cultivating the land and was supported by scientific experts and extensive research (Troen, 2003) that made Israel an exporter of agricultural technologies and products.

The segment ‘Israeli bonsai’ was aired on Tazpit on 29 October 1986. Bonsai (in Japanese: tray cultivation) is a 1000-year-old Japanese tradition of growing trees in tiny containers. The creation of bonsai demands meticulous effort and ingenuity from the professionals that produce these miniature trees.

The segment, lasting for a brief 3.5 minutes, opened with a short introduction by anchor Professor Lass contrasting the old Japanese tradition with new Israeli creativity and technical skill:

In Japan there is an old tradition of cultivating miniature trees, bonsai! This is an extremely complicated and expensive method. Israeli scientists have recently managed to develop miniature trees, blue and white, using much simpler methods and new agricultural technology.

Lass then continued to illustrate an assortment of locally produced bonsai trees as the camera zoomed into a masterfully arranged tray of trees in the studio: ‘here is a bottle tree that got Israeli treatment’, exclaimed Lass. He moved on to provide the scientific explanation for Israeli ingenuity, focusing on the ways in which ‘Israeli scientists managed to manipulate the hormonal cycle of the plant, using simple spraying methods of special materials.’ The camera then panned to the guest agronomist who received a warm welcome. Lass presented him as being in charge, along with his staff, of ‘the blue and white plants that are with us in the studio’. The guest provided his own explanation for the hormonal manipulation, and summarized by stressing the economic rationale for the whole endeavor. Whereas traditional bonsai cost hundreds and thousands of dollars due to endless labor, ‘our plants are cheaper, between $15 to $25 dollars’. Israeli bonsai were presented here as a new and cheaper method in contrast to the older and complicated method of traditional bonsai. Its supremacy stems from the scientific research involved in its production.

During the short 3.5 minutes, viewers were presented with the Israeli originality and cleverness some five times, in a way that consistently emphasized the superiority of the new scientific technique in comparison to the traditional and expensive ways of cultivating bonsai trees.

Israel’s country and nature: reproducing the homeland

Billig argued that ‘a nation is more than an imagined community of people, for a place – a homeland – also has to be imagined’ (1995: 74). During most of the 1980s, before its budget dwindled, Tazpit quite regularly broadcast features on Israel’s country and nature, supporting the visual and verbal reproduction of the homeland.

The continuous broadcasting of these items reflects the historical importance of education of the love of the homeland and the homeland’s nature in Zionism. Since the beginning of the 20th century, and especially from the 1920s onward, the Hebrew school curriculum reinforced the Zionist views of Jewish history, the values of pioneering, heroism, sacrifice and love of the country. Consequently, it placed major emphasis on the study of geography, nature and agriculture, as part of the return to the nation’s roots in the land. Yedi’at ha’aretz (knowing the land) or Moledet (homeland) studies thus became an important focus of Hebrew education (Zerubavel, 1994). This view of geography and space in national terms exemplifies a strong commitment of Hebrew education to the national agenda (Ram, 2006). Moledet classes combined topics in nature, agriculture, geography, Jewish history and Hebrew literature, and together helped instill in students the basic ideological message of Zionist nationality. Supporting these homeland studies were occasional field trips, taken by school children of all ages. On these trips the students learned about the flora and fauna, national history, topography and geography of the homeland at first hand, moving beyond abstract classroom teaching (Almog, 1997).

The segment ‘flowers of Mt. Hermon’ that aired on 5 October 1984 was an ultimate expression of the Yediat ha’aretz ethos. Lasting for a concise 6 minutes it combined the didactic Moledet class with the adventure of the field trip in a dramatic televised manner.

Mt. Hermon in the northern part of Israel was captured during the Six Day War from Syria, and was dubbed the ‘eyes of the state’ for its strategic importance for Israel, after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, during which the mountain was re-occupied by Israel.

Eschewing the politics of the Middle East, anchor Dan in the studio preceding the segment, remarked that ‘the mountain is not only snow and rocks but also the beautiful flowers that adorn it’. The theme of the contrast between the cruel mountainous appearance of the cliffs and the hidden secrets of its flora was repeated again at the beginning of the segment when the narrator asked the viewers to take a deeper look and search for the hidden beauty of the summer flora.

This search was accompanied by expository information about the topography and climate of the mountain that was intertwined with the national baggage of the Yom Kippur War: the narrator reminds the viewer that the harsh climate of the mountain is not accidental and that ‘the eyes of the state blink from top altitude of 2224 meters’. In this way the panoramic scenery was verbally framed as loaded with historical national meaning.

Viewers then followed the camera and the narrator while they began their field trip, ascending towards the peak of the mountain. On the way up, encountering flowers and bugs that were named and meticulously described, the viewers also met top Israeli botanist, Dr. Avi Shmida who reported on his 10-year research into the mountain, and then joined a typical group of Israeli hikers on a guided trip. As in the traditional hikes of earlier generations that ended with emotional catharsis upon approaching the peak and viewing the homeland from above (Almog, 1997), the steep climb in this segment was rewarded by intimate knowledge, and actual viewing of, the flora of a recent addition to the homeland. In this segment the homeland was reproduced, using older cultural topoi of the ‘Israeli field trip’.

Conclusion

The Israeli endeavor of production and dissemination of popular science, as inspired by the scientific ethos of Zionism, was legalized in the IBA Law of 1965. The law emphasized broadcasting in the service of a set of statist and national goals that reinforced the dominant power structure and formed the basis for the actual production of the IBA popular science programs in Hebrew starting in 1968.

Following the Six Day War in 1967, this endeavor took on special importance due to what was considered one of the most significant national priorities at that time: the self-representation of Israel and its industrial and scientific achievements to the population of the new occupied territories and Arab citizens via the new medium of television. Nowhere was this special concern with self-representation more conspicuous than in the Tag’didat wa’Ichtira’at program produced by the Arabic Department of the IBA, which for some 25 years aired the latest news on a weekly basis from the Israeli frontier of science and technology, while avoiding reports on Israeli military technology.

As of the inception of broadcasting in 1968, following the IBA Law, and thanks to the ongoing commitment of both producers and participating scientists and engineers to Zionist ideals, television with its audio-visual capabilities became an ideal ideological state apparatus. In both Mada va’Da’at and Tazpit, it disseminated images of Israel’s scientific elite, progressiveness, innovative technological capabilities and homeland (unlike the program in Arabic that eschewed items on the (Jewish) homeland).

These popular science programs, as symbolic representations of scientific research, scientific institutions, individual scientists and engineers, were a product of social work, fueled by the scientific ethos of Zionism, one of the last representatives of the Enlightenment movement (Jarvie, 1990) and at the same time supported the production and reproduction of a social-national order that hailed science (Jasanoff, 2004). The televising of science while producing the nation contributed effectively to the social power and legitimization of the scientific establishment, and the communication elite.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s Channel 1 lost its exclusiveness when Israelis were exposed to multichannel information and entertainment content delivered over privately owned and operated digital television, radio and online outlets. Along with this unprecedented explosion of broadcasting channels, the state of Israel also went through an ideological transition from a social democracy to a neoliberal populist regime (Aronoff, 2001). Nevertheless, and despite these two major and dramatic changes, Channel 1 continued to broadcast original popular science programs in both Hebrew and Arabic, attesting to its commitment to dissemination of this kind of content. While the programs themselves attracted dwindling audiences,⁸ science and technology remain at the core of Israeli (Jewish) identity to this day (Efron, 2007).

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Noah J. Efron and Barbara Prainsack for their comments on an earlier draft of the article.

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Screening science,producing the nation: popular science programs on Israeli television (1968–88)

Abstract

Keywords

Theorizing the interplay between nationalism, media and popular science

Ethnic nationality in Israel

Science and technology in Zionism and Israel

Popular science in the daily press, on the radio and in a special journal

The birth of Israeli television

Tag’didat wa-Ichtira’at: science as international endeavor

Mada va’Da’at: the popular science program in Hebrew during the 1970s

Tazpit: the popular science program in Hebrew during the 1980s

Israeli high-tech makes a debut on screen: True ingenuity

The inventiveness of the Israeli military industry: the Lavi jet on screen

Israeli high-tech agriculture: improvement by scientific manipulation

Israel’s country and nature: reproducing the homeland

Conclusion

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Notes

References