The stranger within: Israeli religious women lead social change in community web-series

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes Israeli Zionist-religious women’s representation in community web-series and their reception as a minority group within a minority community. To reveal their social role and the mechanisms that stimulate interaction and encourage social change, thematic and textual analyses were conducted. It was found that religious-Zionist women emerge as meaningful characters manifesting liberal and egalitarian values within a conservative religious community. They expand community boundaries and norms using their authentic and challenging voices and by their unique symbolic role as Strangers, according to Georg Simmel’s term, which this study differentiates into two new types—“Complete Stranger” and “Close Stranger”. Their representation also encourages reflexivity among viewers. These results show that web-series amplify social change and become a vehicle for its visual expression, which viewers endorse. These representations make it possible to develop a theoretical model of media representation of the other in community media available to all.

KEYWORDS:

• Community web-series
• women media representation
• stranger
• Israeli religious-Zionist women
• religious feminism
• cultural representation theory
• social change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matan Aharoni

Matan Aharoni (Haifa University, PhD) is a media anthropologist. Matan Aharoni is a senior faculty member at the School of Communication, Ariel University, Israel, and a lecturer at Sami Ofer School of Communications, Reichman University (IDC). Matan Aharoni experts in qualitative research methods. His research focuses on digital and participatory culture, media and gender issues, ethnic and religious minorities in mainstream, community, and alternative media.