Intros: Objectivity/Relevance

Inge Günther

Reporting about the Middle East conflict as a German is a balancing act: Inge Günther’s gave the examples about the different lobbies in Israel, Palestine or Germany that pose a triple boundary. The freedom of international reporters compared to local ones seems to vary only in quality, not in quantity. However, according to her, the military censorship is less of a burden than the general sensitivity or aggressiveness. In between the frontlines, the use of provocative language is rather a boundary that blurs the most essential condition of free speech: making people understand the other.
Presentation: Reporting from the Front Lines – A Balancing Act

Yariv Lapid

German and Jewish relations is a major boundary for media up to the present day. Yariv Lapid diagnoses “exclusions” in the dialogue between the nations. The victims of the Holocaust were not only silenced by their own trauma, but also by the new identity discourse of Israeli society. On the other side, the German discourse still shows difficulties to fully integrate the responsibilities in the Holocaust not only on an abstract level but on a personal one too. This is an aspect that certainly influences the media reporting about the middle east conflict, even though it’s factual implications are yet to be explored. Lapids lecture provided a background analysis. The psychological dynamics rooted in the historical baggage of German and Israeli identity influence contemporary life and media symbols.
Presentation: Some Notes on the Historical Baggage of German-Israeli Relations: Exclusions in Mainstream Discourse

Christoph Schult

By recounting different experiences as a correspondent from “Der Spiegel”, Schult addresses many boundaries: Israeli and Palestinian sensitivities about the conflict, Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust. The biggest boundary he describes, however, is lack of context. Television, especially, sometimes confuses rather than disabuses. Political handshakes here and there are shown without link to political history. In the end, the audience knows as little as before after watching a clip. Schult addresses the very business of news-making: hard news. If they are, according to his impression, the biggest boundary, the ambivalence of the journalistic profession cannot be more obvious.
Presentation: Many Boundaries and One Big One

Ari Rath

Ari Rath, the former chief editor of the Jerusalem post explores the history of censorship in Israel from an editor’s point of view. There have been strong ties between the governments and the leading newspapers, like Jerusalem Post or Yedioth Ahronot. However, during times of crisis Rath reflects on how certain information was rather kept behind the scenes. Likewise, strategies of how to deal, for instance, with the hijackers of the Air France plane in 1976 had to be coordinated between Yitzak Rabin and the press. There are certain boundaries of freedom of speech which the former editor Rath considers relevant. He draws the connection to the Danish cartoons in 2005. The editor of that newspaper should have prohibited their publication in the last stance. A positive boundary of free speech? This perhaps would have prevented the reality of the growing rifts between the Muslim and the Western world.
Presentation: The Role of the Editor in Israels Media world

Meron Rapoport

Meron Rapoport, a journalist from Haaretz, talks mainly about one boundary of free speech: the self-censorship in Israel. He talks about his personal experience as one of the few Israeli reporters writing about the occupied territories. Editors act according to public opinion. This public opinion again is reflected by a specific choice of words for the same kind of events happening on both sides of the wall. Rapoport shows how through descriptions like “soldier” or “terrorist” reality in the Western or Israeli world gets shaped by words. They are powerful symbols that correlate with public opinion. What Rapoport calls self-censorship seems to be a boundary within society rather than one of their authorities.
Presentation: Israeli Self-Censorship: A Voluntary Boundary of Free Speech?

Mushon Zer Aviv

Mushon Zer Aviv, a graphic designer and activist, teaching currently at New York University, talks about the myth of freedom of speech in the internet. He tested the apparently unlimited realm of possibilities of publishing on the web in an experiment with the neutral search engine “google” on a publication of non-commercial advertisements. Even though he paid the regular price for the poem which they put up, it got removed within a very short time. Zer Aviv concludes, the free space on the net resembles a private shopping mall.
Likewise, reality does not only get shaped by the symbols of those with the power of speech. It is a product of the very structures of expression, possible or accessible for humankind. The internet is a space for expression, but only in private manners. Web blogs can say whatever they want. But they are personal boxes, distinctly separated from public space. If “google” is a comparably open space for the net, it has regulations that act according to market structures. These structures determine what can be seen and what stays invisible.
Freedom of speech correlates, therefore, with a public space. Zer Aviv elaborates on a very elemental boundary of expression: the rules and exclusions in any public space. Are boundaries therefore rooted in the most basic patterns of society?
Presentation: A Private Mall: Public Space in the Internet