(2019) No 7, Issue 2  

Role of Technology and Innovation Messaging in the Public Diplomacy of Israel

Itzhak MASHIAH  ǀ  Eli AVRAHAM

Pages: 5-28

Abstract

In the modern era, technology and innovation discourse has become a natural part of society. Whether it is in organizations, NGOs, enterprises, financial corporations, educational institutions, businesses, cities or countries, it seems that the values of innovation and technology have become a significant part of the messaging set delivered to stakeholders. Similarly, the political-diplomatic field also reflects these values and plays an important part in empowering the excitement that surrounds innovation. As part of telling their stories and persuasively branding their countries, leaders and public figures often use technology terminology. The main goal of the current paper is to find the actual place of innovation and technology in public diplomacy. To do so, this research uses rhetorical analysis of eight UN speeches by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The findings indicate that technological values have a central role in shaping the new narrative of Israel. The research reveals the rhetorical techniques that perpetuate the branding of Israel as an innovation centre and success story.

Keywords:

Innovation, Technology, Start-up-Nation, Israel, Public Diplomacy, Benjamin Netanyahu

References:

Aharoni I and Grinstein A (2017) How to (re)position a country? A case study of the power of micro-marketing. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 13(4), pp.293-307. DOI: 10.1057/s41254-017-0055-9

Anholt S (2008) From nation branding to competitive identity – The role of brand management as a component of national policy. In K. Dinnie (Ed.), Nation branding: concepts, issues, practice (pp.22–23). Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Avraham E (2009) Marketing and managing nation branding during prolonged crisis: The case of Israel. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 5(3), pp.202-212. DOI: 10.1057/pb.2009.15

Avraham E (2017) Changing the Conversation: How Developing Countries Handle the International Media during Disasters, Conflicts, and Tourism Crises. Journal of Information Policy, 7, p.275. DOI: 10.5325/jinfopoli.7.2017.0275

Avraham E and Ketter E (2008) Media strategies for marketing places in crisis. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Bazerman C (1988) Shaping Written Knowledge. London, England: The University of Wisconsin Press.

Berger G (2007) Johnson & Johnson Innovation Guru: Innovation should be part of a work plan just like advertising and marketing. In TheMarker.

Bitzer L (1968) The rhetorical situation. philosophy and rhetoric, 1, pp.1-14.

Bloom L and Faulkner R (2016) Innovation spaces: lessons from the United Nations. Third World Quarterly, 37(8), pp.1371-1387. DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2015.1135730

Caspit B (2018) The appearance of his life: Netanyahu won the battle; the war is still ahead. In Maariv. (accessed 10 March 2019).

Cheney G (1983) On the various and changing meanings of organizational membership: A field study of organizational identification. Communication Monographs, 50(4), pp.342-362. DOI: 10.1080/03637758309390174

Chiapello E and Fairclough N (2002) Understanding the new management ideology: a transdisciplinary contribution from critical discourse analysis and new sociology of capitalism. Discourse & Society, 13(2), pp.185-208. DOI: 10.1177/0957926502013002406

Cull N (2006) “Public Diplomacy” Before Gullion: The Evolution of a Phrase | USC Center on Public Diplomacy. In Uscpublicdiplomacy.org. (accessed 10 March 2018).

Dan D (2005) You will make a speech by trickery: On a rhetorical structure of delay reflected in Isaiah Lev 11-14. Flight and action – Ahva College, 11, pp.113-125 [in Hebrew].

Fisher E (2011) Capitalism in the era of digital communication: the new economy and the discourse of technology. Tel-Aviv: Resling Publisher [in Hebrew].

Fowler R (1991) Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. Routledge.

Gilboa E (2006) Public Diplomacy: The Missing Component in Israel’s Foreign Policy. Israel Affairs, 12(4), pp.715-747. DOI: 10.1080/13533310600890067

Goren D (1986) Communication and Reality: Basic Concepts in Mass Media-Communication. Jerusalem, Keter Publisher [in Hebrew].

Hassman R (2008) The Israel Brand: Nation Marketing Under Constant Conflict. Tel Aviv University Press.

Heath RL (1992) The wrangle in the marketplace: A rhetorical perspective of public relations. In E. L. Toth & R. L. Heath (Eds.), Rhetorical and critical approaches to public relations (pp. 17-36). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Janks H (2005) Language and the design of texts. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 4(3), 97-110.

Jones C and Volpe EH (2011) Organizational identification: Extending our understanding of social identities through social networks. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32: 413-434. DOI: 10.1002/job.694

Kaneva N (2011) Nation branding: Toward an agenda for critical research. International Journal of Communication, 5, pp. 117-141.

Kayam A and Sober A (2013) Humor as a rhetorical tool in public discourse – and humor in Barack Obama’s speeches. Online humor– volume No. 2, pp. 43-60 [in Hebrew].

Kuypers JA, Cooper SD and Althouse MT (2008) The President and the press: The framing of George W. Bush’s speech to the United Nations on November 10, 2001. The American Communication Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3.

Laurie G, Harmon S and Arzuaga F (2012) Foresighting Futures: Law, New Technologies, and the Challenges of Regulating for Uncertainty. Law, Innovation and Technology, 4(1), pp.1-33. DOI: 10.5235/175799612800650626

Leach J (2000) Rhetorical Analysis. In Martin W. Bauer and George Gaskell, Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound, SAGE, pp. 207-226.

Leshem B (2017) Netanyahu – School of political marketing. Tel Aviv: Matar publisher [in Hebrew].

Levin B and Livnat Z (2016) Like every other nation, I was also moved: strategies to strengthen solidarity with the audience in Netanyahu’s speeches. Studies in language and society: interdisciplinary electronic journal of the Israel society for the study of language and society [in Hebrew].

Limor Y and Leshem B (2017) How to make a frog Prince? broad PR tips for personal and business success. Rishon Lezion: Yediot Aharonot [in Hebrew].

Lipsitz G (1990) Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

 Machin D and Mayr A (2015) Semiotic election analysis: words and images. In Bloom Kulka, S. and Livio, A. and Sofer, A (eds.). Dialogue and communication: reading (pp. 85-122). The Open University. Raanana [in Hebrew].

Malone G (1985)Managing Public Diplomacy, The Washington Quarterly, 8:3, pp. 199-213. DOI: 10.1080/01636608509450301

Manheim J and Albritton R (1984) Changing National Images: International Public Relations and Media Agenda Setting. American Political Science Review, 78(03), pp.641-657. DOI: 10.2307/1961834

Mann R (2010) Public diplomacy of Herzl and the fate of the Armenians. Kesher vol 40. Institute for the study of journalism and communications, Tel Aviv University [in Hebrew].

Marat E (2009) Nation Branding in Central Asia: A New Campaign to Present Ideas about the State and the Nation. Europe-Asia Studies, 61(7), pp.1123-1136. DOI: 10.1080/09668130903068657

Marmari H (2009) The Spotlight. In the7eye. (accessed 10 March 2018).

Mashiah I (2018) Innovation Buzz. In Blogs.timesofisrael.com. (accessed 25 March 2019)

Matney L (2018) Facebook Live gets new updates to simplify streaming setup for creators. In TechCrunch. (accessed 5 January 2019)

McLaughlin C and Penckansky R (1965) Diffusion of Innovation in Medicine: A Problem of Continuing Medical Education. Academic Medicine: May 1965 – Volume 40 – Issue 5 – pp. 437-447.

Nye J (2008) Public Diplomacy and Soft Power. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616, 1. pp. 94-109 DOI: 10.1177/0002716207311699

Nye J (2004) Soft power: The means to success in world politics. New York: Public Affairs.

Papadopoulos N (2004) Place branding: Evolution, meaning and implications. Place Branding, 1(1), pp.36-49. DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.pb.5990003

Schwartz Altshuler T (2017) Enough with the clichés of innovation. TheMarker. Available at: https://www.themarker.com/opinion/1.3193580 [in Hebrew].

Senor D and Singer S (2009) Start-up nation: the story of Israel’s economic miracle. Toronto, McClelland & Stewart.

Sheafer T and Gabay I (2009) Mediated Public Diplomacy: A Strategic Contest over International Agenda Building and Frame Building. Political Communication, 26 (4), pp.447-467. DOI: 10.1080/10584600903297240

Vidislavsky M (2016) Pedagogical innovation – meaningful learning in a caring community. Eureka magazine-science technology teaching in elementary schools. The National Teachers Center for Science and Technology, no. 39, pp. 5-14 [in Hebrew].

Yarchi M, Samuel-Azran T and Bar-David L (2017) Facebook Users’ Engagement with Israel’s Public Diplomacy Message During the 2012 and 2014 Military Operations in Gaza. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. 13 (4): pp.360-375. DOI: 10.1057/s41254-017-0058-6

Yarchi M, Wolfsfeld G Sheafer T et all (2013) Promoting stories about terrorism to the international news media: A study of public diplomacy. Media, War & Conflict, 6(3), pp.263-278. DOI: 10.1177/1750635213491179

Citing Literature

Itzhak Mashiah, Eli Avraham, Role of Technology and Innovation Messaging in the Public Diplomacy of Israel, Journal of Global Politics and Current Diplomacy, (2019), No 7, Issue 2: 5-28.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.