‘The new Middle East’: Jewish-Israeli exclusion of Palestinians in Facebook advertising

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i9.9734

Keywords:

Facebook, disconnectivity, targeting, filter bubble effect, digital advertising, exclusion, protracted conflicts, Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Abstract

Previous studies have pointed to practices of disconnectivity and disengagement on Facebook, both generally (Stroud, 2010; Sunstein, 2009) and in the specific context of the Israeli society as a divided society in conflict (John and Dvir-Gvirsman, 2015; John and Gal, 2017; Gal, 2019). Our study aims to expand on these previous findings by examining practices of disconnectivity and disengagement in a different setting: among a professional group of Jewish Israeli advertisers who discuss their attempts to exclude Arab-named profiles from responding to their Facebook campaigns. The analysis focuses on a major Facebook group of social media marketing experts in Israel. This group is an open group consisting of 15,789 members, most of them Jewish-Israelis. We examined posts that were published in this group between 2013–2017 and dealt with Israeli-Arab audiences. Our findings emphasize the moral and ethical aspects of practices of disengagement and disconnectivity that — in the case studied here — help normalize and justify exclusion.

Author Biographies

Yifat Mor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Postdoctoral fellow at the Swiss Center for Conflict Research, Management and Resolution, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her research focuses on political expression and discussion on Facebook in Israel, as a society embedded in a protracted ethno-political conflict.

Ifat Maoz, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Full Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism and Director of the Swiss Center and Graduate Program of Conflict Studies and holds the Danny Arnold Chair in Communication, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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Published

2019-08-31

How to Cite

Mor, Y., & Maoz, I. (2019). ‘The new Middle East’: Jewish-Israeli exclusion of Palestinians in Facebook advertising. First Monday, 24(9). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i9.9734