Oren Soffer

Liquid language? On the personalization of discourse in the digital era:

Interpersonal digital discourse (CMC and SMS), currently performed by wide circles of users, is characterized by deliberate misspelling and exhibits a strong influence of orality on the written text. This article examines the social legitimation of such non-standard oral discourse and its socio-discursive implications. I argue that this digital orality has strong links to postmodern and post-structural ideas. Oral-written text ostensibly reflects a melting of linguistic structures, resembling the changes that occurred in social structures in the late modern era. However, I demonstrate, using De Saussure’s basic structural perceptions in analyzing how this oral-written text is formed, that this deliberate misuse of language is quite structural and systematic in nature. What seems to be an anarchistic use of language or a rebellion against modernist rigid linguistic structures is highly performative in essence.

Back to the Future: An Historical Perspective on the Pendulum-Like Changes in Literacy

This article focuses on the pendulum-like change in the way people read and use text, which was triggered by the introduction of new reading and writing technologies in human history. The paper argues that textual features, which characterized the ancient pre-print writing culture, disappeared with the establishment of the modern-day print culture and has been “revived” in the digital post-modern era. This claim is based on the analysis of four cases which demonstrate this textual-pendulum swing: (1) The swing from concrete iconic-graphic representation of letters and words in the ancient alphabet to abstract phonetic representation of text in modern eras, and from written abstract computer commands “back” to the concrete iconic representation in graphic user interfaces of the digital era; (2) The swing from scroll reading in the pre-print era to page or book reading in the print era and “back” to scroll reading in the digital era; (3) The swing from a low level of authorship in the pre-print era to a strong authorship perception in the print era, and “back” to a low degree of authorship in the digital era; (4) The swing from synchronic representation of text in both visual and audio formats during the pre-print era to a visual representation only in print, and “back” to a synchronic representation in many environments of the digital era. We suggest that the print culture, which is usually considered the natural and preferred textual environment, should be regarded as the exception.

“The noble pirate”: The Voice of Peace offshore radio station

This article analyzes the case of Abie Nathans “Voice of Peace” – an offshore pirate radio station that began broadcasting in 1973 off the coast of Tel Aviv. Although the station reflected the diffusion of this type of media transmission into the Middle East from Europe, particularly in its identification with pop music, the Voice of Peace was distinct in its political and ideological aims and in its positive reception. I argue that public enthusiasm for the Voice of Peace reflected not merely the yearning for pop music but the search for a “normal” life within the turmoil of Israel. By “tuning in” to the Voice of Peace, listeners found an escapist heterotopia – an alternative to Israels hegemonic national characteristics.

Opinion expression via user comments on news websites: analysis through the perspective of the spiral of silence

ABSTRACT User comments have become an essential part of news websites. In this article, we examine this mode of public expression via the theory of the spiral of silence. This is done while adopting alternative measures, with regard to three major issues on the Israeli agenda, and in comparison to expression in public, as in the traditional theory. Based on an Internet survey (n = 712), the present study results support the relevancy of the spiral of silence to the online comment sphere. Perceived support for one’s opinion by the majority was found to have a positive and significant effect on the willingness to express opinion in the online sphere. The explanatory role of fear of isolation was more significant in the online sphere than in face-to-face context.

User comments across platforms and journalistic genres

ABSTRACT This study introduces a comparative approach to study user comments on the same news content across online platforms while distinguishing between soft and hard news genres. Empirical analysis focuses on Israel’s popular news website Ynet. Using automated tools, we scraped 17,347 comments to analyze differences in the quantity, length, and topics of comments that were posted through Ynet’s comments section, Facebook Comment Plugin, and Facebook page. Our findings reveal that commenting patterns vary greatly across platforms and news genres. Specifically, the number of comments posted on Ynet’s Facebook page is significantly higher than the two other commenting platforms (for both hard and soft news), but these comments are shorter and more emotional. We discuss these findings in relation to the notion of ‘context collapse’ in social media, and argue that one of the outcomes of the convergence between news content and social media is the augmentation of consensual national sentiment.

To Post or not to Post

User comments have become an integral part of news websites. This study implements the well-validated theory of planned behavior (TPB) in order to understand the individual decision to post anonymous comments on news sites in Israel. We examine whether commenting is a spontaneous behavior, as has been argued in previous studies, or a reasoned behavior. Based on an internet survey (N = 707), the present study results support the hypothesis that the process involved in posting a comment in a specific socio-political context involves a reasoned action that can be understood by applying a generic theoretical model. Empirical support for TPB model hypotheses for intention prediction was evident, with the subjective norm-intention relation stronger than the attitude and perceived behavioral control–intention relations. In spite of the anonymous nature of the comments, findings highlight the relevance of the perceived socio-political context for individuals’ decision whether to post an anonymous comment.

The Oral Paradigm and Snapchat

In this short essay, I argue that the ephemeral nature of emerging instant-messaging applications, such as Snapchat, applies an oral paradigm. While online discourse of computer-mediated communication shares many qualities with oral communication, the case of ephemeral applications is unique, as the oral features are already integrated in the application technology design and as orality is often implemented on highly visual products. Snapchat applies technology that fades visual contents as if they were spoken words fading in the air after utterance. Moreover, Snapchat’s promise to delete all messages from its database after they are viewed echoes a key characteristic of primary oral culture: that is, the inability (and in our case, the obligation not) to store knowledge. In this, Snapchat demonstrates counter-logic to the contemporary grammar of new media, which is based on information aggregation.

Zionist Discourse and the Rabbinic Genre

The Zionist movement saw the Bible as the main source of the Jewish political tradition, national symbols and political terminology. Rabbinic literature, which was associated with exilic eras, was largely disregarded. This article focuses on the possible influences that rabbinic tradition nonetheless had on early Zionist political discourse. Using Bakhtins genre theory and his dialogical perspective, I analyse statements made by Herzl, Nordau, Sokolov, and others, and argue that there is evidence of an explicit awareness among the Jewish elite of the influence of rabbinic discourse on the communication patterns and characteristics of the Zionist discourse in eastern European communities. References to rabbinic influence on the political sphere usually arose in response to what was seen as the application of religious derash and pilpul perceptions of text—perceptions that aim to uncover the concealed truths within the text—to secular political Zionist discourse. These references posited that Zionist debates in eastern Europe were characterised by a tendency towards circuitous argumentation, negation and opposition.

Decrepitude as a source of symbolic capital: the case of the Israeli army radio station

Abstract The Israel Defence Forces radio station has been broadcasting to the general public for 68 years, becoming increasingly popular over the last few decades. Following the work of Nick Couldry, this article explores the cultural importance of the station’s production site. It argues that the Israeli army radio station is a special case in that the physical drabness of the media site legitimises its military provenance, strengthening a direct link between the media organisation and its staff, as well as between the army as a whole and the Israeli general public.

Assessing the climate of public opinion in the user comments era: A new epistemology

This article examines the role of user comments in evaluating the climate of public opinion. It aims to evaluate the relevance of quasi-statistical assessment of public opinion – which was tailored to traditional media – to the digital era. The article, based on 21 interviews with Israeli users of news websites, argues that comments-browsing on the Internet gives a new meaning to the notion of a quasi-statistical assessment of public opinion. The aggregation of different comments, each of which contains an implicit cue for the climate of public opinion, transforms them together into a direct cue. The effect of the merging of journalistic contents with user-generated contents side-by-side on the same website is also evaluated through the perspectives of persuasive press inference and exemplification theories.