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 DOI: 10.1177/1750698014523443

published online 7 March 2014Memory StudiesNeta Kligler-Vilenchik, Yariv Tsfati and Oren Meyers

individuals' perceptions of the pastSetting the collective memory agenda: Examining mainstream media influence on

  

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Setting the collective memory agenda: Examining mainstream media influence on individuals’ perceptions of the past

Neta Kligler-VilenchikUniversity of Southern California, USA

Yariv TsfatiUniversity of Haifa, Israel

Oren MeyersUniversity of Haifa, Israel

AbstractMemory studies scholars tend to stress the significance of the media in shaping collective memories. This study offers a quantitative–empirical examination of this phenomenon. Applying a “memory-setting” research design, inspired by agenda-setting theory, the study examines correlations between the “media memory-agenda” and “public memory-agenda,” to illuminate the influence of the media on the shaping of collective perceptions of the past. Findings point at a significant correlation between media and public memory-agendas, one that increases during periods of heightened coverage of past events. On the individual level, the role of media exposure to commemorative content is significant, surpassing that of direct participation in public commemoration. At the same time, some of the findings point to the resiliency of the public memory-agenda. Therefore, the study’s findings offer a novel understanding of the role of mass media in shaping collective memory, as well as the limits to its influence.

Keywordsagenda-setting, collective memory, commemoration, Israel, media memory

As the field of memory studies continues to thrive, memory scholars increasingly point at the sig-nificance of the media as offering powerful representations of the past, and as a major source for knowledge and attitudes regarding the past (e.g. Edy, 2006; Kansteiner, 2002). The media are seen

Corresponding author:Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, 3502 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. Email: kliglerv@usc.edu

523443 MSS0010.1177/1750698014523443Memory StudiesKligler-Vilenchik et al.research-article2014

Article

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2 Memory Studies

as having an “enormous influence” on the shaping of collective recollections (Huyssen, 2000: 29), due to their wide reach and pervasive messages, their adept use of narrative forms (Kitch, 2005), and their mnemonic collaboration with other social agents (Meyers et al., 2009). Yet decades of media effects studies have shown that the influence of the media on its audiences is often less direct and evident than expected. Most of the works that underscore the media’s role do not link public repre-sentations of the past with individual perceptions—the individual, in fact, is often absent in collec-tive memory studies (Kansteiner, 2010). This study aims to further probe media’s role as a mnemonic agent, by quantitatively examining its influence on individuals’ perception of the collective past.

Within the field of “media memory” studies—that is, “the systematic exploration of collective pasts, narrated by the media, through the media and about the media” (Neiger et al., 2011: 1)—there is a prevalent tendency to focus on mass mediated representations of memory, such as news coverage or documentaries, while overlooking the memories of individuals. Media texts are often used as a proxy for the collective understanding of the past. Yet, even Halbwachs (1952/1992: 182) claimed that while memory relies on social frameworks, it is individuals who recollect. Thus, the relations between public representations of memory and the memories of individuals remain a key debate in the field (Kansteiner, 2002, 2010; Olick, 1999; Ricoeur, 2004).

The following study contributes to this debate by examining one possible area of media influ-ence: how the past events most salient in the media may influence individuals’ perceptions of the most important events in history. To do so, this study borrows methods from media studies, and applies agenda-setting theory and methodology to the study of collective memory, using a “memory-setting” approach (Kligler-Vilenchik, 2011). The memory-setting research design incor-porates two methodologies—a content analysis and a survey—in order to examine the correlation between the past events most salient in mainstream media and those perceived by individuals as most important. In order to enable increased causal interpretation of correlative data, this research design was applied at two time points: at a time of routine, during which the media covered the past marginally; and during the celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary in May 2008, a time at which discussion of historical events was brought to the foreground of media discourse. Comparing the two points in time enabled us to examine how intensified media mentions of past events may affect individuals’ perceptions in the short term.

This design bridges between media scholarship and memory studies, applying methods and insights gained in media effects research to enrich the understanding of the processes of formation and change of collective memory. Empirically analyzing the associations between media and pub-lic memories can help us further establish the media’s role in shaping public recollection.

Collective memory and media memory

When Halbwachs (1952/1992) first introduced the notion of a social framework within which remembering occurs, he claimed that while individuals are those who remember, they obtain their memories in a social setting, and recollect in socio-cultural contexts. Conceptually, we can think of collective memory as consisting of two complementary aspects: on the one hand, the mnemonic signifiers found in our surroundings, such as memorial sites, museums, and media coverage. On the other hand, the term signifies the knowledge and perceptions of individuals in a society regard-ing its past (Bar-On, 2001; Olick, 1999). The two are seen as interrelated, but how?

For media memory scholars, the media are seen as a powerful tool in shaping perceptions of the past. Edy (1999) claims that the media’s crucial role can be attributed to their ability to simul-taneously reach mass audiences, and provide interpretations of the past that are hard to avoid. Moreover, the representations of the past conveyed by the mass media appear in a narrative form (Kitch, 2005), stressing an emotional aspect, rendering them more resonant than structured

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learning. This is true for both fictionalized representations and news. While intuitively, we would expect news to focus solely on the present, the past is nearly omnipresent in journalism (Meyers, 2007; Zelizer, 2008).

Media representations of the past have often been critically analyzed as cultural artifacts, usu-ally focusing on one specific event, yet they are rarely examined quantitatively. This may be partly due to the difficulty of operationalizing this complex phenomenon. In our quantitative content analysis scheme, we choose to focus on one aspect of media memory: the extent of mentions of past events. This approach enables to compare references to the past both synchronically, across different forms of media, and diachronically, in the same media outlet over time. Using the same categories and coding instructions to examine both the media and individual responses enables us to link the two types of data.

We conducted a content analysis to ask how prevalent the past is in the media, and how this prevalence changes over time. To answer these questions, media content was examined at two points in time. The first is a time of routine (T1), in which no commemoration was expected accord-ing to the national calendar. The second point in time (T2), set during Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations, was hypothesized to be one of enhanced media coverage of past events, as the media partake in national commemoration efforts. This includes both ceremonial televised “media events” (Dayan and Katz, 1992) such as the official Independence Day ceremony, broadcast live on all broadcast channels, and coverage of celebratory entertainment content.

While Israel’s 60th anniversary was expected to garner particular media attention toward past events, this tendency is repeated, to a lesser extent, around every Independence Day. The annual reiteration of this period is accompanied by media commemoration of what are deemed as the major national past events. Hence, the 60th anniversary was expected to serve as a particularly salient example of the commemorative role the media takes upon itself every year. The more per-tinent question was, how may this increased mediated commemoration shape individuals’ percep-tions of the past?

Between individual and collective memories

The controversy over the relations between individual and collective memories (see, for example, Kansteiner, 2010; Olick, 1999; Ricoeur, 2004) may very well have begun with its founder. While mostly known as a student of Durkheim, Halbwachs was also taught by Bergson, and was influ-enced by his individualistic notions of memory (Coser, 1992). While Halbwachs generally accepted a Durkheiman view of society as the significant source of influence on memory, Bergsonian indi-vidualistic influences can still be detected in his work (Ricoeur, 2004; see also Misztal, 2003). Halbwachs saw individuals as recalling memories, though the groups to which the individual belongs provide the contents for her memory, notably through other people with whom the mem-ory is shared.

Despite the extensive use of the term “collective memory,” there is a lack of empirical evi-dence regarding the extent to which large segments of the public share a common set of past events that are deemed most central. Methodologically and conceptually, analysis of public rep-resentations cannot serve to infer that a shared memory among groups of individuals exists (Bourdon and Kligler-Vilenchik, 2011; Schwartz and Schuman, 2000). Studies that do connect personal and collective memories rely mostly on in-depth interviews (e.g. Welzer, 2010) or focus groups (Volkmer, 2006). Yet, if we want to generalize and argue for a collective memory, shared by wide audiences, we need to implement methodologies that will enable us to reach these popu-lations. A series of studies conducted by Howard Schuman and his colleagues represents one attempt at this approach.

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In the first study, Schuman and Scott (1989) examined the effect of generational identity on the shaping of collective memory. The authors employed a survey, asking Americans—as an opera-tionalization of the concept of collective memory—which national and global events they per-ceived as most important. A generational effect was found, as people perceived events from their youth as most important. At the same time, there was a sense of a widely shared memory: 64% of respondents mentioned one of the top three events. This study spurred a series of subsequent inves-tigations, which examined the memories of individuals across different nations, generations, and events (for the Israeli context, see Schuman et al., 2003).

As part of the debate over the individual and collective aspects of memory, this method was met with some critique. For instance, Olick (1999) claims that “collected memory”—the aggregation of disparate individuals’ memories—“misses a great deal of what is going on” (p. 342). He con-tends that there are collective phenomena that cannot be predicted through the responses of indi-viduals, as well as aspects which social institutions stress, even if individuals try to avoid them. His final point, however, is that individual and collective memory cannot be treated as separate.

The approach embraced by this study attempts a middle ground between Schuman’s approach and Olick’s cultural critique. Like Olick, we see public culture as a key arena for retelling the col-lective past and shaping the public memory. Like Schuman, we believe that collective memory can also be examined through the aggregation of individuals’ memories of past events. As Schwartz and Schuman (2000) claim, analyzing individuals’ memories and cultural representations of the past do not contradict but complement each other. We propose bridging these traditions not only because we see both as offering valuable ways to understand how societies perceive their past, but also because we see collective representations of memory and individual memories as potentially mutually shaping one another. To examine how this operates, this study borrows from agenda-setting theory, a media effects theory designed to analyze the media’s influence on its audience.

Applying agenda-setting toward the study of collective memory

Originating from the work of McCombs and Shaw (1972), agenda-setting theory posited that the press “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (Cohen, 1963: 13). In its basic version, agenda-setting theory seeks correlations between the public agenda and the media agenda. The media agenda examines the salience of issues mentioned in the media, usually obtained using a quantita-tive content analysis. The public agenda refers to the issues perceived as important by the public at a certain point in time, usually measured through surveys. The agenda-setting effect of the media on the public agenda “seems to hold under a variety of conditions, for a diversity of issues, and when explored with diverse research methods” (Dearing and Rogers, 1996: 92).

To apply agenda-setting theory to the study of collective memory, we examine the correlation between the media memory-agenda: the past events salient in the media, and the public memory-agenda: past events deemed as most important by the public. This process, which we call “memory-setting,” is based on several conceptual and epistemological assumptions which agenda-setting and memory studies share (Kligler-Vilenchik, 2011). Clearly, the richness of collective memory cannot be fully captured by mentions of past events alone. Yet referencing events cues wider narratives about the collective past, or, as Zelizer (1995) vividly argues, “events give mem-ory a platter on which to serve historical accounting” (p. 231).

In fact, both agenda-setting and “memory-setting” can be thought of as functioning on two lev-els. In agenda-setting research, the distinction is made between “first-level agenda-setting,” which asks which issues are the most salient on the media agenda, and “second-level agenda-setting,” which analyzes the salience of attributes through which these issues are discussed (see,

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for example, Kiousis et al., 1999). Similarly, the media can be conceptualized as shaping public memory in two interrelated ways: first, by highlighting or marginalizing what is remembered, and, second, by shaping the nature of these memories. Much memory studies work attends to the second aspect, discussing the ways in which the media shape differing narratives of past events (e.g. Zelizer, 1992). These rich narrative aspects cannot be captured in our content analysis. However, the first stage of setting the memory-agenda—determining which events are salient in public memory—is in itself a key source of power and influence. This is particularly true when some past events have acquired insistent political meanings over time (Kligler-Vilenchik, 2011; Misztal, 2003).

Relying on the general concept of agenda-setting theory, if we assume that the media influence individuals’ memories, this would manifest in a correlation between media and public memory-agendas. Therefore,

H1: The media memory-agenda (a rank-order of the past events mentioned in the media) and public memory-agenda (a rank-order of the past events mentioned as important by individuals) will be significantly correlated.

Due to the expectation that the extent of media memory will increase in T2, as the media partake in commemorating Israel’s 60th anniversary, it is assumed that the media’s influence on individu-als’ memories will increase as well, resulting in stronger associations between the two:

H2: The correlation between the media memory-agenda and the public memory-agenda will increase in T2, in comparison to T1.

By randomly assigning the survey respondents to one of the points in time, T1 or T2, a quasi-experimental setting is enabled. The increased media coverage of past events expected between T1 and T2 can be seen as a natural manipulation, enabling to gauge the influence of increased media memory on collective memory perceptions among individuals. The aim of this research design is to increase our ability to infer causal relationships when using correlational data.

Despite this methodological addition, such a correlational analysis does not rule out the possi-bility that factors other than media are responsible for the effect. A second stage of analysis in this study includes individual-level regressions conducted on the survey data. These enable us to con-trol for the effect of variables such as direct participation in commemorative rituals, while pointing to the specific role of the media in predicting the naming of certain past events as most important:

RQ1: Which individual-level variables best predict naming the past event most salient in the media?

Method

Content analysis

The goal of the content analysis was to quantify mentions of past events in the media, as an opera-tionalization of media memory. In each of the study’s time points, content analysis was held for 7 days, prior to the administration of the survey. The corpus included television (Israeli channels 1 and 2, Israel’s leading public and commercial broadcast channels) and daily newspapers (Yediot A’haronot, the most popular daily newspaper at the time, and Ha’aretz, considered Israel’s leading

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elite newspaper).1 Television content consisted of prime-time broadcasts (8:00–11:00 p.m.), includ-ing commercials. Newspaper content included the main news-section, and all supplemental sec-tions, including all advertisements.

Coders identified mentions of past events according to a coding scheme list. This list consisted of past events mentioned as important in the survey, as well as additional past events that were salient in the media during preliminary coding. The final list included 19 events,2 listed in Table 1. The unit of analysis was defined as a single mention of a past event (n = 4001 mentions), which could be explicit: the name of the event (including multiple possible names for some events) or an implicit mention of that event. For example, the statement “Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary” was considered as one (implicit) mention of the establishment of the State of Israel. An event could be mentioned multiple times in the same newspaper item or television program, and each mention was counted separately. The entire coding corpus consisted of 84 hours of television broadcasts (1267 mentions), and 22 newspaper issues (2734 mentions of past events). The content was coded by two coders. Inter-coder reliability was tested on 20% of the corpus. Nominal Krippendorff alphas were at over 0.89 for unitization (number of mentions per article or per 5 minutes of broad-cast), and over 0.97 for the event mentioned. The media memory-agenda was defined as the rank-order of the aggregate frequency of past events mentioned in the media, according to the content analysis.

Survey

The aim of the survey was to establish the public memory-agenda: the aggregate frequency of past events mentioned by the public. The survey further elicited amount and content of media exposure over the past week, as well as demographic variables. The phone survey was administered to a representative sample of the adult Jewish Hebrew-speaking population3 by the University of Haifa’s Computerized Survey Center, beginning on the first Sunday following the week of the content analysis. The first wave, 3–6 March 2008, consisted of 251 respondents; and the second wave, 11–15 May 2008, consisted of 266 respondents.4 Of the 517 respondents, 46.8% were male and 53.2% female, with a mean age of 47 years. Israeli-born respondents made 66.7% of the sam-ple, while 33.3% were born elsewhere. There were no significant differences on demographic vari-ables between respondents at T1 and T2.

Measures

Most important past event. This variable served to establish the public memory-agenda. Building on the work of Schuman et al. (e.g. Schuman and Scott, 1989), the first question of the survey asked respondents: “Of all the events and changes that occurred in Israel and the world over the past 100 years, please mention the two events that seem to you as most important.” Respondents could mention any event (in fact, some mentioned purely personal events), and their responses were coded into the same list of events used for the media coding. Inter-coder reliability for 20% of the responses elicited almost full agreement (Krippendorff’s alpha = .99).

Naming the event most salient in the media served as the dependent variable, only for the second stage of the analysis (the logistic regressions). Based on the first survey question (the most impor-tant past event), this measure was coded as a binary, where (1) meant naming as the most important past event the same event that was overwhelmingly most salient in the media: the establishment of the State of Israel, and (0) meant choosing any other event.5

Amount of television exposure. This variable was determined by averaging two questions: “In the past week, how much television did you watch on an average weekday,” and “In the past weekend,

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how much television did you watch on average per day?” The questions refer to the past week, as this week was examined in the content analysis.6 Answer categories included, less than an hour, or none (1); between 1 and 2 hours (2); over 2 hours but less than 4 hours (3); and 4 hours or more (4) (M = 2.04, standard deviation (SD) = 0.91).

Amount of newspaper reading. Respondents were asked, “In the past week, how many times did you read newspapers?” If asked, respondents were told to include reading online news as well. Answer categories included, not at all (1); about once a week (2); two–three times a week (3); and four times a week or more (4) (M = 3.05, SD = 1.16).

Amount of television exposure related to Israel’s 60th anniversary. In this question, asked only in T2, respondents were asked to estimate: “Out of the television contents you watched this week, how much was related to Israel’s 60th anniversary? For example, Independence Day celebrations, pro-grams and documentaries about events in Israeli history, and celebratory entertainment shows?” Pos-sible answer categories ranged from “none of the contents were related to Israel’s 60th anniversary” (1) up to “all of the contents were related to Israel’s 60th anniversary” (5) (M = 2.96, SD = 1.19).

Amount of newspaper reading related to Israel’s 60th anniversary. This question, appearing only in T2, asked respondents, “Out of the contents you read this week on the newspaper, how much was

Table 1. Frequency and percentages of past events mentioned in the survey and content analysis by time point.

Event Survey Newspaper coverage TV coverage

T1 n (%) T2 n (%) T1 n (%) T2 n (%) T1 n (%) T2 n (%)

Establishment of the State of Israel

123 (27.7%) 125 (28%) 61 (14.7%) 594 (68.7%) 54 (24%) 813 (78%)

World War II 76 (17.1%) 74 (16.6%) 78 (18.8%) 83 (3.6%) 13 (5.8%) 22 (2.1%)9/11 50 (11.3%) 40 (9%) 4 (3%) 3 (0.1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)Holocaust 40 (9%) 49 (11%) 145 (34.9%) 239 (10.3%) 41 (18.2%) 45 (4.3%)Six-Day War 13 (2.9%) 29 (6.5%) 12 (2.9%) 53 (2.3%) 14 (6.2%) 32 (3.1%)Collapse of USSR 20 (4.5%) 18 (4%) 3 (0.7%) 5 (0.2%) 4 (1.8%) 0 (0%)Second Lebanon War 17 (3.9%) 20 (4.5%) 45 (10.8%) 109 (4.7%) 32 (14.2%) 58 (5.6%)Rabin’s Assassination 15 (3.4%) 21 (4.7%) 10 (2.4%) 49 (2.1%) 13 (5.8%) 3 (0.3%)Inventions 15 (3.4%) 17 (3.8%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)Moon Landing 15 (3.4%) 12 (2.7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)Peace with Egypt 12 (2.7%) 11 (2.5%) 4 (1%) 7 (0.3%) 0 (0%) 9 (0.9%)Gaza Disengagement 12 (2.7%) 9 (2%) 5 (1.2%) 56 (2.4%) 36 (16%) 5 (0.5%)World War I 8 (1.8%) 5 (1.1%) 2 (0.5%) 8 (0.3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)Tsunami 6 (1.4%) 7 (1.6%) 3 (0.7%) 7 (0.3%) 0 (0%) 5 (0.5%)Gulf War 9 (2%) 3 (0.7%) 11 (2.7%) 9 (0.4%) 3 (1.3%) 3 (0.3%)Yom Kippur War 4 (0.9%) 3 (0.7%) 11 (2.7%) 63 (2.7%) 5 (2.2%) 23 (2.2%)First Lebanon War 3 (0.7%) 3 (0.7%) 7 (1.7%) 13 (0.6%) 1 (0.4%) 8 (0.8%)Operation Entebbe 4 (0.9%) 0 (0%) 11 (2.7%) 18 (0.8%) 8 (3.6%) 16 (1.5%)Lebanon Withdrawal 2 (0.5%) 1 (0.2%) 3 (0.7%) 3 (0.1%) 1 (0.4%) 0 (0%)Total 444 (100%) 447 (100%) 415 (100%) 2319 (100%) 225 (100%) 1,042 (100%)

USSR: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.Survey responses are for mentioning an event as one of the two most important events. The total of 100% for survey mentions is for responses that correspond to categories in the content analysis. Responses with no parallels in the content analysis (e.g. events from personal life) were omitted.

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related to Israel’s 60th anniversary? For example, content about Independence Day celebrations, non-fiction accounts of events in Israeli history.” The same categories were used as for the previous question (M = 2.76, SD = 1.00).

Participation in ceremonies commemorating Israel’s Fallen Soldiers. Respondents were asked, “This year, did you participate in ceremonies commemorating Israel’s Fallen Soldiers, conducted at a public venue or a school?” Answer categories were, yes (48.1%); I did not participate but watched a ceremony on television (29.3%); and no (22.2%). In the regression, since the variable of interest was direct participation, the variable was recoded with participation coded as 1, and no participa-tion or watching on TV coded as 0.

Participation in public celebrations of Israel’s Independence Day. Respondents were asked, “Did you participate in public celebrations of Independence Day this year (e.g. attend a public ceremony, celebrations at a public venue, etc.)?” Of the respondents, 44% participated in public celebrations, 28.6% watched celebrations on television, and 27.4% did not participate. The variable was recoded (participation = 1; no participation or watching on TV = 0).

Demographic variables. Variables included were gender (male = 0, female = 1), age (in years), coun-try of birth (Israel = 0, elsewhere = 1), and years of schooling (M = 14.5, SD = 3.38). Religiosity, income, and political views were omitted as they were not found significant predictors of the dependent variable, and their inclusion did not affect the pattern of results.

Results

Preliminary results: the media and public memory-agendas at T1 and T2

Table 1 presents frequencies and relative frequencies for the events mentioned by survey partici-pants as one of their two most important past events at a routine point in time (T1) and at the week of Israel’s 60th anniversary (T2), as well as the frequency of mentions these events received in the newspaper and television coverage at these times, according to the content analysis. The table lists all events mentioned in the media; events mentioned by survey respondents that did not have a parallel in news coverage (e.g. personal events) were not included in the table. Relative frequencies were calculated for the events in the table only.

In the survey, the two events most frequently mentioned at both time points were the estab-lishment of the State of Israel and World War II. One of the most interesting findings of the study emerges from these initial descriptive results: the consistency between the public agendas at the two time points is striking. Despite the fact that these are two different samples, and despite the differential media coverage and commemorative efforts during these points in time, there is a strong correlation between the public agenda at T1 and T2 (Pearson’s r = .983, p < .001).7 This points to the resiliency of collective memory, and the extent to which, at least among a Jewish-Israeli population, there is high agreement on the set of most important historic events. On the surface level, not detecting a higher percentage of survey respondents mention-ing the establishment of the State of Israel given the greater media coverage of it at T2 points at a lack of a media effect. As our further analyses will show, the media’s influence turns out to be more nuanced.

Turning to mainstream media coverage, we find a more diverse picture. In the newspapers, the events most frequently mentioned at T1 were the Holocaust, World War II, and the establishment of the State of Israel. At T2, the establishment of the State of Israel was the most salient

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event, followed by the Holocaust and the Second Lebanon War. In television coverage, the most frequently mentioned event at T1 was the establishment of the State of Israel, followed by the Holocaust and the Disengagement from Gaza. At T2, the establishment of the State of Israel was the most salient event, followed by the Second Lebanon War and the Holocaust.

Due to the commemorative role that the media undertakes (Neiger et al., 2011), we expected that the extent of media memory—the frequency of mentions of past events in the media—would increase from T1, a time of routine coverage, to T2, the week of Israel’s 60th anniversary. This should come as no surprise, yet this increase in the mention of past events needs to be noted, as it serves as the “natural manipulation” for our quasi-experiment.

In prime-time television broadcasts, past events were mentioned 225 times at T1 and 1042 times at T2, a statistically significant increase of 363% (χ2(1) = 527, p < .001). In newspaper coverage, mentions of past events increased from 415 at T1 to 2319 at T2, a statistically significant increase of 458% (χ2(1) = 1326, p < .001). Thus, as expected, during the week of Israel’s 60th anniversary, past events were much more salient on the media’s agenda, creating a natural condition of exten-sive media memory.

The memory-setting function of the media

The first hypothesis of the study posited that, as would be expected according to agenda-setting theory, a significant correlation will be found between the media memory-agenda: the rank-order of the aggregate frequency of past events mentioned in the media, and the public memory-agenda: the rank-order of the aggregate frequency of past events mentioned most often by the public. To test this, a correlation was conducted on the full list of 19 events mentioned (see Table 1). This hypothesis was supported. A strong correlation was found between the public memory-agenda and the television memory-agenda (Pearson’s r = .816, p < .001), as well as the public memory-agenda and the newspaper memory-agenda (Pearson’s r = .854, p < .001). These correlations present a first step in pointing to the media’s possible memory-setting effect.8

As previously discussed, however, analyzing correlations between the public and media memory-agendas at one point in time is not sufficient in order to infer a causal media influence. For this reason, the correlations were analyzed separately for T1 and T2. The increased volume of media memory at T2, due to the celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary, thus served as a natural manipula-tion. In this quasi-experimental design, an increased correlation between the media and public memory-agendas at the second time point could be interpreted as the result of increased presence of media memory.

As Table 2 shows, at T1, the public memory-agenda and the media memory-agenda were mod-erately correlated, both in terms of the correlation between the public and television memory-agendas (Pearson’s r = .61, p = .005), and the correlation between the public and newspaper memory-agendas (Pearson’s r = .56, p = .014). At T2, correlations between the public and media memory-agendas increased in magnitude to a strong correlation. This is true both for the correla-tion between the public and television agendas (Pearson’s r = .81, p < .001), and the correlation between the public and newspaper agendas (Pearson’s r = .84, p < .001). Based on a confidence

Table 2. Correlations between the media memory-agenda and the public memory-agenda at T1 and T2.

T1 T2 Confidence intervals for the differences

Television r = .61, p = .005 r = .81, p < .001 0.24 ≤ p1 – p2 ≤ 0.53Newspaper r = .56, p = .014 r = .84, p < .001 0.37 ≤ p1 – p2 ≤ 0.63

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Table 3. Changes in categories of event mentions in the survey from T1 to T2.

Type of event “Major” Israeli “Minor” Israeli International Total

T1 220 34 190 444T2 255 19 173 447Total 475 53 363 891Changes in categories of event mentions in newspaper coverage from T1 to T2

T1 277 48 90 415T2 2051 162 106 2319Total 2328 210 196 2734Changes in categories of event mentions in television coverage from T1 to T2

T1 154 54 17 225T2 960 55 27 1042Total 1114 109 44 1267

interval around the difference between Z scores for both correlations, there is a significant increase in the magnitude of all three correlations between T1 and T2 (for α = .05). The correlation between the media and public memory-agendas was significantly stronger at T2, at a time of increased media coverage, confirming our second hypothesis.

The increased correlation between the media and public memory-agendas at T2 may come as a surprise, given the similarity between the public agendas at T1 and T2. But which event men-tions make for this tighter alignment at T2? As Table 3 shows, through the shift from T1 to T2, the public converged around a number of “major” Israeli events: ones that were already at the fore-front of public attention (the 6 most salient Israeli events, mentioned by over 10 survey respond-ents at both time points).9 At the same time, from T1 to T2 there was a decrease in the public’s mentions of the 6 “minor” Israeli events (e.g. Operation Entebbe) and of International events. This shift—an increase in the number of mentions of major Israeli events, and decrease in minor Israeli events and international events—is significant for the survey mentions (χ2(2) = 7.61, p = .022) as well as in the media (for newspaper coverage, χ2(2) = 172.92, p < .001; for television, χ2(2) = 100.33, p < .001).

Individual-level logistic regressions

In the second stage of our analysis, the research question asking which factors lead to agreement with the media memory-agenda was answered using a stepwise binary logistic regression, in which the dependent variable was naming the event most salient in the media—the establishment of the State of Israel—as one of the two most important past events.10 This analysis is presented only for T2, in order to evaluate variables related to the commemoration of Israel’s 60th anniversary, which were present only at the second point in time.11 The results of the regression are shown in Table 4.

The first set of variables in the models is composed of demographic variables. Age and educa-tion were found to be significant factors affecting the propensity to agree with the media memory-agenda. Controlling for all other variables in the model, each year increase in respondents’ education increased the odds of naming the establishment of the State of Israel as the most impor-tant event by 16% (for p < .01). Ceteris paribus, each year increase in respondents’ age increased the odds of agreeing with the media memory-agenda by 2.8% (p = .01). Demographics alone were found to account for 10.7% of the variance in the dependent variable.

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The second set of variables were media exposure variables, added in model 2. The variables relating to the amount of media exposure were found to be nonsignificant, showing that extent of any exposure to the media did not significantly affect the propensity to agree with the media memory-agenda. The type of television content, however, was found to be a significant contributor. On a five-point scale, respondents estimated how much of the content they watched on television the previous week was related to the celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary. Ceteris paribus, each point increase on this scale increased the odds of mentioning the establishment of the State of Israel as the most important event (for p < .01) by 52.5%.12 Newspaper content, however, was not found significant. Media variables were found to increase the explained variance of the base-line model by 5.2%.

The third set of variables related to direct participation in national commemorations (i.e. in Memorial Day ceremonies or in public events celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary). Such events, examples of state-sponsored commemoration, are often hypothesized to serve as commemorative agents alternative to the media, and much memory scholarship is focused on such efforts (see, for example, Rosenberg et al., 2010). In model 3, however, the two variables were found nonsignifi-cant in affecting the propensity to name Israel’s establishment as the most important event, when controlling for media exposure. Media influence thus surpassed the role of direct participation in public commemoration events.13

Table 4. Factors affecting the propensity to name the past event most salient on the media memory-agenda (logistic regressions) (N = 174).

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

β (SE) exp(β) β (SE) exp(β) β (SE) exp(β)

Age .027* (.011) 1.027 .025* (.012) 1.026 .028* (.012) 1.028Gender (female = 1) −.478 (.320) 0.620 −.371 (.333) 0.690 −.371 (.333) 0.690Country of birth (else = 1) −.063 (.350) 0.939 .035 (.366) 1.036 .027 (.371) 1.028Education .147** (.057) 1.158 .163** (.062) 1.177 .160** (.062) 1.173Amount of TV exposure .025 (.199) 1.025 .030 (.200) 1.031Amount of newspaper exposure

.128 (.246) 1.136 .156 (.251) 1.169

TV content related to 60th anniversary

.425** (.166) 1.529 .422** (.166) 1.525

Newspaper content related to 60th anniversary

−.309 (.194) 0.734 −.311 (.194) .732

Participation in celebration of 60th anniversary

.236 (.351) 1.266

Participation in soldiers’ memorial ceremony

.095 (.343) 1.100

Intercept −3.314** (1.040) 0.036 −4.515** (1.644) 0.011 −4.845** (1.709) 0.008Likelihood ratio (χ2) 14.541 22.024 22.641df 4 8 10Pseudo R2 10.7 15.9 16.3

SE: standard error; df: degrees of freedom.Estimates are standardized and unstandardized logic coefficients with standard errors in parentheses.*p < .05; **p < .01.

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Discussion

The goal of this study was to empirically examine the influence of the media on collective memory through an examination of media coverage of Israel’s 60th anniversary and individuals’ percep-tions of the most important past events. One of the most interesting findings is that, in contrast to the logic of our argument, despite the documented dramatic increase in the attention paid by Israeli mainstream media to Israel’s establishment toward Independence Day, public perceptions of the importance of that specific event remained unchanged. This might point to the resistance of collec-tive memory to even the strongest efforts to modify it, confirming Schudson’s (1992) arguments about the “resistance of the past” (p. 205).

But does this mean that the media do not have any influence on the public’s perceptions of important past events? Several of our findings suggest that this is not the case. Consistent with our argument regarding a memory-setting effect of the media, our results documented a significant correlation between the media memory-agenda and the public memory-agenda, which was signifi-cantly stronger at T2, a time of increased media memory. The stronger correlation between the media and the public in T2 stems from the fact that at that time point, people were more likely to mention past events in Israeli history that were mentioned by the media as important. The coverage of Israel’s anniversary did not focus merely on the State’s establishment but rather on its history beyond its creation. Myriad Israeli past events moved to the forefront of media coverage during the week of Independence Day, parallel with an increase in the mentioning of major Israeli events among the public, “at the expense” of international events and minor Israeli events. Finally, the individual-level regressions showed that heavier consumers of televised media memory were the most likely to name the establishment of the State of Israel, and major Israeli events in general, as the most important events. It is worth noting that both these findings do not represent very strong effects. Yet, the small magnitude of this effect should be interpreted in light of the fact that media effects are generally not very powerful (McGuire, 1986).

While these findings establish a key step in supporting the claim of media’s influence on collec-tive memory, they do not fully establish that the causal mechanism indeed works from media exposure to audience perceptions. Alternative explanations exist. First, we could be witnessing self-selection: it may be that the same people who already cared about the 60th anniversary were more likely to follow media coverage of the anniversary. Second, reverse causality is possible: we could conclude that it is the media agenda that has changed in the direction of the public agenda at T2 rather than vice versa.

As we address these alternative explanations, we acknowledge that only a true experimental design (i.e. in a laboratory setting) could fully refute them. However, in the field of memory stud-ies, we believe that context is key: we are interested in processes of memory formation based on real-life circumstances of “messy” commemoration, in which several mnemonic agents collide. We thus preferred the naturally occurring commemoration over the control that a laboratory setting would have enabled us. In future studies, examining media memory in controlled settings may help substantiate the causal claims of studies such as this, which err on the side of external validity.

The reverse causality argument can be addressed in several ways. First, our quasi-experimental design helps substantiate our causal interpretation. The correlations between the media and public memory-agendas increased in T2, after Israel’s 60th anniversary received a heavy dose of media attention. Thus, when the salience of media memory increased, the media’s ability to set the public memory-agenda was stronger as well. Second, the causal direction of influence from the media to the public was empirically substantiated in agenda-setting research (using experiments, longitudi-nal designs, cross-lagged analyses, and other designs; see Dearing and Rogers, 1996), upon which we rest our theoretical argument.

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Finally, the increased correlation between the public and the media memory-agendas during the “high holidays” of Israel’s national calendar might not result from the influence of one variable on the other, but rather from the enduring influence of Jewish-Israeli civil religion (Liebman and Don-Yehiya, 1983), especially during this specific time of the year. Durkheim may have seen this as the effect of a patriotic current shaping all of society (Wallace, 1977). In terms of sheer prominence, our study might suggest that mainstream Zionist ideology is still potent as an agenda setter for Israeli-Jewish society, influencing both the media and the public. At the same time, only comple-mentary in-depth textual analysis of media contents and public interpretations can determine the narrative shaping of media memory, and whether shifts have occurred in how these frequently mentioned historical events have been interpreted by different groups throughout the years (Meyers, 2002).

The media’s role as a mnemonic agent, as limited as it emerged from our study, raises the question of the potential political consequences of the ability to shape public remembering. After all, “collec-tive memory is always a mean for something else” (Zelizer, 1995: 226), often for legitimizing current regimes and social conditions. As seen in the increased extent of media memory as part of Israel’s 60th anniversary, in this case, the media assume a key role in disseminating state-sponsored com-memoration, which has legitimizing functions. Other studies have shown other possible political effects of collective memory: the past events most salient to individuals have been found to influence the historical analogies they use to make sense of current events, thus shaping their political evalua-tion of these events (Schuman and Corning, 2012). It seems that indeed, “control of a society’s mem-ory largely conditions the hierarchy of power” (Connerton, 1989: 1). Future studies can further investigate the ways in which this elusive form of power operates—for this purpose, qualitative approaches such as in-depth interviews or focus groups would be most fruitful.

Finally, this study’s findings contribute to the controversy over the interrelations between indi-vidual and collective memories. On the one hand, the study suggests that a “collective memory” can be said to exist, at least among relatively homogenous groups: Jewish-Israeli Hebrew-speaking adults generally agreed on what the most important past events are. Moreover, this sense of collec-tive memory was arguably influenced by the media, corroborating the significance of analyzing public manifestations of collective memory. Yet individuals are far from powerless: some events were important to the public though they were not salient in the media, nor intentionally com-memorated by the state (e.g. the 9/11 attacks were very salient for the public, while almost absent from mainstream media discourse). In his conception of collective memory, Halbwachs (1952/1992) gave individuals relatively limited agency in constructing their own understanding of the shared past. This study, while corroborating Halbwachs’ thesis on social frameworks of memories, points to the fact that individual memories cannot be ignored when studying collective memory. While public commemoration is often reflected by individuals, the unique aspects of individual memory merit the full attention of memory scholars.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Motti Neiger, Jonathan Cohen, and Maxwell McCombs, as well as the two anonymous reviewers, on their insightful comments on previous versions of this article.

Notes

1. While the study did not formally include online outlets, this was partially captured within newspaper reading: this question included both off-line and online content.

2. The one exception to an “event” is the category of “inventions,” which grouped together mentions of the development of different technologies, such as the phone or the Internet.

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3. Non-Jews and non-Hebrew speakers are less likely to consume mainstream Israeli media, and are apt to hold differential collective memories; a fruitful avenue for future research.

4. The response rates according to American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) formulas: Refusal rate (RR) 1 T1 = .30, T2 = .25; Cooperation rate (CR) 1 T1 = .53, T2 = .25; Response rate (RR) 1 T1 = .14, T2 = .18.

5. Similar results were obtained for naming one of the three events most salient in the media. 6. The Israeli workweek begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday, so that it was clear to participants that the

question refers to the past workweek. 7. This correlation is also significant using Spearman’s Rho, ρ = .937, p < .001. 8. Running the same regressions with a different correlation coefficient—Spearman’s rho rather than

Pearson’s r—yields nonsignificant results. The reason is that Pearson takes into account the differences between the different rankings (which are very significant in these data), whereas Spearman does not. There are many precedents in agenda-setting studies to use Pearson’s r.

9. “Major” Israeli events include the establishment of the State of Israel, the Holocaust, the Six-Day War, Second Lebanon War, Rabin’s Assassination, and Peace with Egypt. The remaining events are the six Israeli “minor” Israeli events, and seven international events. The Holocaust was considered as a “major Israeli” event. While this is an event that occurred in Europe, before the establishment of Israel, it is assigned a key role in the narrative of the establishment of the State.

10. For mentioning only the establishment of the State of Israel as the most important event, the amount of TV content related to the 60th anniversary had an even stronger effect (63% increase for each unit change).

11. Analysis was also conducted for T1, including demographic variables and media exposure. As in the model for T2, exposure variables were nonsignificant, strengthening the argument that media influence stems from type of content, rather than amount of exposure.

12. Interactions between amount of media exposure and amount of commemoration in these media were not significant, and were omitted.

13. Regressions were also run for the naming of major Israeli events. Similar results were obtained: signifi-cant predictors were age and the amount of TV content related to the 60th anniversary.

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Author biographies

Neta Kligler-Vilenchik is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Her current research focuses on changing modes of political engage-ment in the new media context.

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16 Memory Studies

Yariv Tsfati (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2002) is Associate Professor at the Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Israel. His research focuses on various facets of public opinion, in par-ticular on trust in media, the third person effect, and campaign effects.

Oren Meyers (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2004) is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Israel. His research interests focus on journalistic practices and values, collective memory and popular culture.

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