How Did Media Become Polarized? Lessons from Israel's 2023 Protest Movement
An NYU lecture using Israel's 2023 judicial reform protests as a case study for understanding how media ecosystems become polarized.
Why we picked this
Israel's 2023 protests produced one of the sharpest media polarization case studies in recent memory. This lecture uses it to understand the dynamics everywhere.
Media polarization is a global phenomenon, but few episodes illustrate its mechanics as clearly as Israel’s 2023 judicial reform crisis. The proposed overhaul of the judiciary triggered the largest sustained protest movement in the country’s history — and simultaneously revealed how completely different narratives could coexist within the same media ecosystem, describing the same events as either a democratic uprising or a coup attempt.
This NYU lecture uses the Israeli case as a lens for understanding how media polarization operates more broadly: the role of institutional trust, the economics of audience capture, and the feedback loops between political actors and the outlets that cover them. Free admission.