Public relations and nation building: influencing Israel

Abstract

The study of the history of mass communication research began only in the 1980s, and is still in its infancy. The massive downsizing of higher education budgets in the USA during these years put on the research agenda the need for and importance of research that would validate the very existence of the discipline, define its core and boundaries, as well as trace and join together its origins and underlying myths. James Carey’s (1996) insights have highlighted the significance of such study, arguing that the discussion of the discipline’s history continually creates and recreates a sense of self-recognition and a grand narrative that serves two purposes simultaneously: legitimizing and focusing on the field of mass communications which have characterized the twentieth century and providing guidance and intellectual status to the discipline’s scholars and teachers.