The Public Will End up Paying: The Public Interest Standard in Israeli Commercial Broadcasting Law

Abstract

This study critiques and analyses the meaning and design of the term “public interest” as it has been constructed in commercial television policy in Israel. Its main thesis is that the term serves Israeli policymakers to achieve economic goals. This endpoint marks the transition the public interest consideration has undergone from its initial identification with national and state goals to its subordination to economic interests, in a particular competition. The combination of the neoliberal ideology that has taken over Israeli policymaking since the 1980s, with the prominence of large corporations in the policymaking process, has contributed largely to this outcome.