Moran Yarchi

• Reichman University

In recent years, digital technologies have substantially impacted the world of diplomacy. From social media platforms and artificial intelligence to smartphone applications and virtual meetings, digital technologies have proven disruptive, impacting the norms, practices, and logics of diplomats, states, and international organisations. Although the...

In 2019–2020, Israel went through three consecutive elections in less than a year on grounds of alleged corruption by Prime Minister Netanyahu, and his lack of ability to form a coalition. This study aims to contribute to analyses of the media mobilization/malaise effect by examining the impact of such a prolonged period of campaigning on citizens’...

Purpose The study aims to examine the validity of the gender affinity effect on social media throughout election campaigns. Design/methodology/approach This paper examines the role of gender in political discourse, using citizens' conversations on Facebook in the days leading up to Israel's 2021 elections as its case study. The analysis measured t...

Leaders’ communication with their publics is a key component in contemporary governance. This is especially true in times of crisis, in which the public relies on their leaders to provide them with the information they need, along with a sense of hope. Traditional studies of leaders’ rhetoric and verbal communication have found gender differences t...

Ukrainian activity in the realm of image and perceptions during the 2022 Russian invasion provides a unique opportunity to examine deep understanding and creative usage of this important fighting arena in the current political reality. The current paper analyzes the actions of the Ukrainian leadership, which invested a lot of time and effort into g...

The literature dealing with undecided voters – a growing group of citizens in many democracies that can determine who wins in election campaigns – suggests two very different profiles. The first approach describes undecided voters as being generally uninformed about politics, while the second sees undecideds as sophisticated citizens who follow a c...

The growing number of undecided voters has attracted a lot of interest due to its important role in determining election results. Many studies have addressed the media consumption of undecideds but few have examined the role of undecideds’ attitudes towards the media institution. This paper is innovative in its attempt to address the issue of the r...

Given the scale of digital communication, researchers face a painful trade-off between powerful, scalable computational strategies, and the theoretical sensitivity offered by small-scale manual analyses. Especially in the study of natural discourse on digital media, the interactive, ever-evolving stream of conversations across multiple platforms re...

Purpose This study examines the impact of gender on Facebook campaign strategies and the reception of these strategies during the 2018 Israeli municipal elections. Design/methodology/approach The authors analyzed all the messages posted on 48 politicians' official Facebook pages during the week leading up to the elections. They analyzed messages p...

Political polarization on the digital sphere poses a real challenge to many democracies around the world. Although the issue has received some scholarly attention, there is a need to improve the conceptual precision in the increasingly blurry debate. The use of computational communication science approaches allows us to track political conversation...

Political polarization, seen as a key threat to contemporary democracy, has been tied to the rise of digital social media. However, how this process develops in the context of a social media environment characterized by multiple platforms—with differing norms, contents, and affordances—has not been sufficiently explored. In the present article, we...

This article addresses media coverage of soft-power threats, which are typical in modern wars between state and non-state actors. In doing so, the authors depart from the vast literature on the ‘rally ’round the flag’ phenomenon coined in relation to conventional military threats. They base their case study on the interplay between Israel and the g...

The current paper analyzes the recent wave of violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and especially the occurrences on the Gazan border since March 2018, from a less covered point of view – the battle over the image and narrative. The Palestinians’ main tools of resistance during this wave of violence have been civilian protests near the fen...

Based on the authors’ understanding regarding the effect of ethnocentric coverage, on one hand, and the tendency of the media to cover female perpetrators differently, on the other, the current study aimed to examine how leading Israeli news websites ( N = 1,832) covered female versus male perpetrators during the October 2015 wave of violence. Thei...

The media plays a crucial role in contemporary conflicts because an image war is occurring alongside the military confrontation. The Islamic state of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) sets a prime example for the usage of image as part of its fighting strategy, using various platforms to communicate its narrative. This study evaluates ISIS’s image front by a...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of politicians’ facial attractiveness on their online popularity as reflected in audience engagement with their Facebook posts during the 2015 Israeli election campaign. Design/methodology/approach Using Israel’s 2015 election campaign as the case study, the authors analyzed all messages...

The question whether online social networks allow political challengers equal access to incumbents (equalization) or perpetuate the gaps between candidates (normalization) during an election campaign is central to political science studies. While so far, studies have relied on top-down analyses of citizens’ engagement with politicians’ messages to...

In the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reflected in the wave of lone wolf terror attacks during October 2015 (and following months), the attacks were presented by the three leading Israeli news site media outlets (Ha’aretz, Ynet and Walla). The online newspapers represent different approaches – however they are still considered major...

In the last decade, bio-politics and psychology studies indicated a link between conservatives’ attraction to emotion-based appeals and liberals’ attraction to logic-based appeals. This study seeks to contribute to current analyses by using an innovative approach, that of Aristotelian rhetorical analysis. This study examines the rhetorical strategi...

In light of past studies’ findings that male politicians usually receive more salient coverage in the traditional media, this study examines whether social media provide a more equal opportunity platform for female politicians to generate users’ engagement and mobilize their supporters. Our study focuses on male versus female politicians’ ability t...

The notion of soft power suggests that actions that contradict international standards will harm a country’s international image. The current study focuses on the impact of anti-democratic action taken by Israel during 2015 on its international image, as projected in the foreign press (N = 4,425 articles) and on social media (N = 23,797 tweets). Th...

The Arabic-language Facebook page of the Israeli Defense Forces' spokesperson has attracted a massive following in the Arab world and serves as an interesting and unique case study towards understanding the effect of a military public diplomacy initiative. Content analysis of the Facebook page reveals a mixture of power and deterrence messages, wit...

Though the use of social media for political campaigning has been widely studied, its correlation with electoral success has not received much attention. The current study uses the 2013 Israeli elections to examine the impact of social media on campaigns as a process. Findings indicate that parties and candidates that invest in social media are mor...

The present study aims to illustrate the point of view of a variety of female sports journalists as they relate to the unique and defining experiences within their line of work; this in the hopes of identifying the key elements at play in the shaping of the practice of women in sports journalism and its impact on the coverage of women’s sports. 17...

In an attempt to broaden our understanding on current uses of public diplomacy tools and their effectiveness, the study focuses on an Israeli citizens’ initiative (Israel Under Fire) that promoted messages via social media in the two recent rounds of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2012, 2014). The study examines the message strategies used by th...

To contribute to the mapping of negative campaigns effects , this study examines the engagement (shares and comments) and likeability (likes) effects of negative campaigning strategies on Facebook during Israel's 2013 elections. The analysis shows that attacks, contrasts, and responses to negative messages are highly shared and commented on, illust...

Political environment is an important factor in news coverage, both in terms of the news items selected (the amount of coverage) and the tone of the coverage. Through an analysis of news coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press, the current study examines the impact of the political circumstances and the contextual cues in news stories on the framing...

A substantial part of asymmetric conflicts is the ‘image war’ that takes place in the foreign media. This study examines the circumstances that explain the degree to which political actors successfully promote their preferred frames regarding the conflict in which they are involved to the foreign press. The study examines Israel and the Palestinian...

Much is known about the negative consequences of exposure to ethnic/racial stereotypes in the media, on White audiences. However, there is substantially less research addressing the effects of such media content on members of racial/ethnic minority groups. The present study examines this question using repeated cross-sectional national level data a...

Conflicts today are very much battles of ideas. Alongside the military confrontations, an “Image War” is taking place. The goal of the current study was to examine the usage of the international sports arena as a public diplomacy tool, through which political actors try to promote their goals by attracting public attention to their claims. More spe...

BOOK WEBSITE: http://www.igi-global.com/book/social-media-performance-evaluation-success/169445 There are many different social media platforms that provide a wide array of services. Exploring the results yielded by these platforms can enhance their usefulness and impact on society’s advancement. Social Media Performance Evaluation and Success Me...

Israel is covered extensively by the American press. Several studies have examined US news coverage during specific events, yet a systematic analysis of the nature of this coverage is still lacking. This article provides an in-depth investigation of the coverage of Israel from 1981 to 2013 in three leading newspapers in the United States. Using com...

What is covered (and what is not covered) by the media can shape the way the public perceives an issue. This is especially important with regards to foreign events where most people have little knowledge and are therefore dependent on the media for information. Most existing work on coverage of foreign issues focuses on events and therefore fails t...

Though the use of social media for political campaigning has been widely studied,its correlation with electoral success has not received much attention. The currentstudy uses the 2013 Israeli elections to examine the impact of social media oncampaigns as a process. Findings indicate that parties and candidates that investin social media are more li...

The Internet, particularly social media, has enhanced civic movements? ability to communicate and organize their activities. This study addresses this issue in the realm of sports and examines fans? online interaction while analyzing different platforms Hapoel Tel Aviv FC fans use (websites, forums, Twitter, and Facebook), especially during their 2...

Over the years, terrorists have shot at the Sri Lankan cricket team, bombed the Boston Marathon, machine-gunned the Togo football team bus and taken hostages at the Olympics. Now, even more so, sport must be careful, for the filled stadium is the perfect target. Here, routinely, is found the largest collection of humankind at its happiest. To scare...

The current paper is looking into the way in which Qatar’s investment in sport, both directly and indirectly, is being perceived by the Israeli press. In order to accomplish the task set above, a content analysis of Qatar’s media coverage in the Israeli online press was conducted. Our analysis includes 1199 articles appearing in the mainstream onli...

In the last few decades, terrorism has become a global threat and challenge, which many countries have had to face and fight. Conflicts involving terror organizations are, to a large extent, battles of ideas, and are not focused only on physical violence or military confrontation. This reality creates a need to better understand the tools through w...

The world is becoming largely interconnected. This notion has thought-provoking implications due to the fact that this interdependence affords terrorist organizations opportunities to perpetrate attacks. It is inevitable that an increased risk of terrorism, especially on the forefront of megasporting events, is on the rise due to the global publici...

The role of the media in conflicts and wars is a central topic in political communication. There are few types of events that are as newsworthy as wars because they provide an extensive amount of drama and political significance. Many would claim that the media have become the central arena for modern wars. The relative level of independence that d...

In their 2014 article in Terrorism and Political Violence, Ayalon, Popovich and Yarchi proposed a different strategy for states to better manage asymmetric conflict, presenting the notion of ‘imagefare’ – ‘the use, or misuse, of images as a guiding principle or a substitute for traditional military means to achieve political objectives’ (p. 12). Th...

The question of whether social media grant challengers a fair opportunity to compete with incumbents, thus promoting equalization rather than normalization, is a key issue in studies of the web’s contribution to democratic systems. To contribute to the current debate, whose evidence so far strongly supports the normalization hypothesis, we examined...

Modern terrorist attacks are usually characterized by intentionally extreme public displays of massive violence to get wide propagation, courtesy of the media. This article uses large-scale, world sporting events, from the 1972 Munich massacre to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing to document and analyze how terror acts grew and acclimatized into a r...

The reaction of authorities to terror attacks or threats has the potential to attract both support and criticism. The current study aims to examine the international media’s discourse surrounding authorities’ reaction to sporting events that have suffered from terror attacks or terror threats. A comparison is made between events that are canceled a...

This study discusses changes in football fans’ perception of nationalism in recent years. A growing number of athletes, fans, and sports teams have been explicitly prioritizing their own particular individual interests over national ones. National football teams nowadays enjoy far less support from their fans, whose allegiances are often multipl...

This study examines the relationship between various forms of media use and political participation. The major argument is that in today’s high-choice media environment, individuals and groups with the highest level of political interest are more likely to develop richer political information repertoires that involve exploiting both digital and tra...

Other than the military confrontation, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is being fought in the image front. Each side attempts to justify its ideas and actions in the foreign media. The study's goal is to examine the messages political actors involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are trying to promote regarding terrorism, and the circumstanc...

The current study content analyzes the 345 most viewed U.S. television shows within 12 separate television seasons spanning the years 1987 to 2009. Using multilevel modeling, the results from this comprehensive content analysis then are used to predict national-level racial/ethnic perceptions (between the years 1988 and 2008) with data from the Ame...

Purpose To contribute to the mapping of the social media discourse involving politicians and their followers during election campaigns, we examined Israeli politicians' Aristotelian rhetoric on Facebook and its reception during the 2013 elections campaign. Design/methodology/approach We examined the Aristotelian rhetorical strategies used by Israe...

Conflicts in the 21st century differ from past conflicts based on two central factors: the level of asymmetry and disparity between the actors taking part in the conflict and the amount of foreign media coverage that a conflict receives. This article aims to develop a new theoretical perspective on the implications of these two factors on how the i...

The study examines the effect of female suicide attacks on foreign media framing of conflicts. Examining the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, 2,731 articles were sampled that covered terrorist events (American, British, and Indian press); 625 appeared in the week following a female's suicide attack, 97 reported an attack by a female perpetrator. The f...

Political actors often use public diplomacy in an attempt to promote their messages. This study deals with the frame-building process and presents the frames on terror used by political actors involved in three conflicts that utilize terror as a weapon: the conflict between the United States and Al Qaida, the conflict between the United Kingdom and...

Antagonists' images in the international news media can play a significant role in determining their level of political success in the international arena, which explains why so many political actors invest considerable resources in public diplomacy. The goal of the present study is to explain the level of success that various actors (countries and...