Reflective Summary - J. Cohen

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Jonathan Cohen’s paper studies the relation between the amount and type of Israeli television programs watched (rather than foreign programs) and the level of nationalism generated from them. And through his findings, he was able to conclude that active exposure and preference to Israeli television does not relate to increased national pride. However, he does discover that national pride is evident through popular characters in these programs. For his study, Cohen chose the construct of national pride. From that, he wanted to determine whether the amount of exposure and viewing of Israeli television programming affected the level of national pride in its viewers. And through his research and observations, he was able to determine several hypotheses. The first one suggests a correlation between the level of exposure to foreign programs (as opposed to Israeli channels) and the resultant level of personal pride in being Israeli. He discovered that there was a positive relationship in between both variables, where the more Israeli channels respondent views regularly, the greater his/her national pride. His second hypothesis focuses on determining the relationship between preference for local television and national pride. His studies show that there is a difference in the level of national identity to the type of Israeli programs the respondent favors. His third hypothesis is centered on the impact of viewing local versus foreign news programs. News programs were highlighted as it is argued that they posed more relevance to nationalistic sentiments as opposed to entertainment programs, thus making them more influential in shaping national identity. (Cohen, 2008) His studies hypothesized that there is a distinct increased level of nationalism when respondents view local news programs rather than foreign ones. This was the case regardless of the origins of the news
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