Experiencing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Children, Peace Communication and Socialization

Over the last eighty years there has been a global rise in 'peace communication' practice, the use of interpersonal and mass communication interventions to mediate between peoples engaged in political conflict. In this study, Yael Warshel assesses Israeli and Palestinian versions of Sesame Street, which targeted negative inter-group attitudes and stereotypes. Merging communication, peace and conflict studies, social psychology, anthropology, political science, education, Middle Eastern and childhood studies, this book provides a template to think about how audiences receive, interpret, use and are influenced by peace communication. By picking apart the text and subtext of the kind of media these specific audiences of children consume, Warshel examines how they interpret peace communication interventions, are socialized into Palestinians, Jewish Israelis and Arab/Palestinian Israelis, the political opinions they express and the violence they reproduce. She questions whether peace communication practices have any relevant structural impact on their audiences, critiques such interventions and offers recommendations for improving future communication interventions into political conflict worldwide.

Introduction: Peace communication and why study Israeli and Palestinian Sesame Street's media intervention model?; Part I. The Production and Encoding of Israeli and Palestinian Sesame Street: Introduction to Part I: Production and encoding methodologies; 1. The Israeli-Palestinian ethno-political nationalist conflict, the Arab-Israeli multi-state conflict and Israeli and Palestinian Sesame Street's disengagement with these conflicts; 2. The modern world, or interstate, system; 3. The encoding process for seasons one and two of Israeli and Palestinian Sesame Street; Part II.  Audience Reception of Israeli and Palestinian Sesame Street: Introduction to Part II: Audience reception methodologies; 4. Decodings by Palestinians-in-the-Making; 5. Decodings by Jewish Israelis-in-the-Making; 6. Decodings by Arab/Palestinian Israelis-in-the-Making; Conclusion to Part II: The utility of the series for all three partners to the conflict?; Part III. Situating the Reception of Israeli and Palestinian Sesame Street in Mundane Intractable Conflict Zone Practices: Introduction to Part III: Context analyses and conflict zones methodologies; 7. Pursuing justice: Palestinian children's schematic interpretations of the Israeli army; 8. Pursuing security: Jewish Israeli children's schematic interpretations of Palestinian day laborers; 9. Pursuing equality: Arab/Palestinian Israeli Children's schematic interpretations of constructs of opposing national and civic identities; Part IV. Conclusions and Recommendations to Improve Peace Communication research, (Evidence-based) Practice, and Conflict Intractability Interpretation: Introduction: The best case; 10. Lessons learned and their application to peace communication research, (evidenced-based) practice, and conflict intractability interpretation; 11. How to improve potential media effects and impacts–recommendations for peace communication practitioners; 12. Follow-up study of tween-age former audience members.

Yael Warshel is Assistant Professor in the Bellisario College of Communications and Research Associate of the Rock Ethics Institute at Pennsylvania State University where she is Founding Director of the Children, Media and Conflict Zones Lab. An expert on media and young people in Middle Eastern and African conflict zones, and specializing in peace communication, Warshel has worked for UNESCO, authored numerous articles, including in the Journal of Global Ethics, and coedited Election Studies: What's Their Use (2001) with Elihu Katz. She won three Top Dissertation Awards, from the International Communication Association, National Communication Association and Peace Studies, and a Top Paper Award from the Middle East Studies Association for her analysis of the fieldwork on which this book is partially based.