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

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.

Popularization of Science in Colleges and Universities in the New Network Media Environment Based on Artificial Intelligence

“…According to the development process of object-oriented software engineering, the literature discusses the development process of personal information service system for a popular science website from actual demand analysis to system design and implementation [6]. This paper analyzes the characteristics and advantages of the system, analyzes the system business process, describes the system requirements analysis and technical platform selection, analyzes the system architecture design and system database design, gives the specific implementation of each functional module of the system, and carries out the application and testing of the system [7][8].…”

Introduction: Communicating Science: National Approaches in Twentieth-Century Europe

“…Further pieces of the picture have emerged, partly in exchange and collaboration with authors of this issue: some of the Polish organs and uses of popular science (Zasztowt 2009; Włodarczyk 2009; Zasztowt et al 2012), some of particularly French kinds of popular and public science like song and cabaret (Raichvarg 2009), and some of Spanish popular paleontology, which analyzed the remains of the oldest Homo sapiens and declared him a “Spanish national” (Hochadel 2009 and 2013). Another fascinating case study combining a truly European understanding of scientific culture with a peripheral geographic location and a host of efforts to communicate science to a diverse people is Israel, which established two different popular science programs on TV, one in Hebrew and one in Arabic, thus representing a rather different national approach to science communication (Katz-Kimchi 2012 and 2013).…”

Communicating Science: A Global Perspective

“…In 1968 public television began broadcasting a monthly prime-time science magazine program, Mada va'Daat [Science and Knowledge]. This was followed by a prime-time weekly science magazine, Tazpit [Observation] and a science magazine aired by Israeli television in Arabic called Innovations and Inventions that ran from 1977 to 1996(Katz-Kimchi, 2012). All were very popular, but science coverage has been considerably reduced since the introduction of commercial television in Israel in the 1990s.…”