THE RABIN MYTH AND THE PRESS - RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ISRAELI COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

During the week following the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin in November 1996, the Israeli media were confronted with a liminal situa tion created by the unprecedented political violence. Among the proble ms that emerged were potential social disintegration and anomie. One o f the major factors in re-establishing social integration was the reco nstruction of Rabin's biography by the media as the collective biograp hy, so that it represented the collective identity of Israeli society. A content analysis of the Rabin myth created during this event shows the practices used by the hegemonic interpretative communities to rein vent society, and the ramifications of excluding the voices of others from the process of national deliberation on the media.