From the US to China, By Way of Israel

Authors

Shakhar Rahav, University of Haifa

Date of this Version

8-11-2008

Document Type

Article

Citation

August 11, 2008 in The China Beat http://www.thechinabeat.org/

Comments

Copyright August 11, 2008 Shakhar Rahav. Used by permission.

Abstract

I have recently returned to my native Israel after a long sojourn in the USA. One of the things I have been looking for here is the way in which China is covered and portrayed in the Israeli media, and what images of China arise in local discourse.

As elsewhere, there is much media coverage of China these days–most of it fed by economic and commercial interests on the one hand, and by interest in the Olympics and the Olympic-hype on the other.

Indeed, most interest in China is generated by commercial interests and as such reflects our globalizing world, where economic opportunity determines interest in geography. Appropriately perhaps, most media coverage that I have seen tends to be “borrowed” [I suppose in fact purchased] from other media outlets, either the large press-agencies like Associated Press and Reuters, or respectable, and for the most part pro-market, American and British newspapers such as The Economist, Bloomberg, or The New York Times (often from the business section).

[Why these newspapers and not others deserves an inquiry in itself–is it propelled simply by the power relations between the countries? Are we partial to British newspapers because of the British Mandate that ruled historic Palestine between the end of WW I and 1948?]