When media events fail: the transformation of the Israeli peace discourse at the funeral of Shimon Peres

Abstract

Media events celebrate and re-legitimate core values of national societies. While scholars have focused on analyzing how and why media events come to matter, this article inspects how the symbolic failures of some media events reveal broader shifts in national and political cultures. After investigating the funeral of Shimon Peres, a symbol of the Israeli peace movement, I argue that while the funeral adhered to the structural criteria of a media event, it did not resonate with Israelis. Its failure results from a disinterest among Israelis in peace as a political outcome; Instead, peace was used in the funeral to brand Israel as a respectable nation. Nevertheless, the way ordinary Palestinian and Palestinian leaders responded to the funeral reveals new opportunities to reimagine peace.