Dan Caspi was a lecturer at the Communication Studies Department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel. Throughout his career, Caspi has combined research with public activity and extensive, lively commentary, publishing hundreds of articles in the printed daily and online press, including regular columns in a Jerusalem local paper, in the Israel Publishers’ Association monthly Otot ' in Haayin Hashviit ' the op-ed section of ynet and a blog for Ha'aretz.
Life and work
Dan Caspi was born in Săveni, part of the Moldavia region of northeastern Romania. His family soon relocated to nearby Dorohoi. Although physical handicapped by cerebral palsy, he attended regular local schools in Romania and then in Israel after moving there with his family in 1960, at the age of 14. The family settled in Beersheba, Israel, where Caspi completed high school. In the mid-1960s, Caspi began undergraduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in political science and sociology, followed by graduate studies in political science and communications. Caspi’s doctoral thesis, supervised by Elihu Katz and Emanuel Gutmann, assesses Knesset Members’ perception of public opinion, as differentiated from actual public opinion. After receiving his degree in 1976, he spent a year of post-doctoral studies at MIT, under the auspices of Ithiel de Sola Pool., followed by work at other universities, including Rutgers, Manchester, Concordia, the London School of Economics and Paris VIII. During the mid-1980s, Caspi moved to the Open University of Israel and developed a communications studies program, writing and editing a series of textbooks now used at universities, colleges and professional schools in Israel. In 2000, he returned to Beersheba to help establish the Department of Communication Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, a department he headed until 2009. Caspi was married, with a daughter and four grandchildren. He died on 22 January 2017.
Positions
Over the past few years, Caspi has held several academic and public positions:
Member of the Academic Council, Hadassah College, Jerusalem
Head of the Department of Communication Studies and the Burda Center for Innovative Communications, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Founder and editor, Medina, Mimshal Veyahasim Beinleumiim , an Israeli journal of political science
Research and Publications
Caspi specializes in mass media, media and politics, public opinion and propaganda, media institutions, local media, minority media, media regulation and electoral campaigns. He has published over 20 books on communications and dozens of academic articles in Hebrew, English and Russian, including a children’s book under the name Aba shel Inbal.
Books
Ben-Gurion University Press. 2012, in Hebrew.
TelAviv. Resling, 2011, in Hebrew.
Mustafa Kabha and Dan Caspi, . London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2011.
Hanna Adoni, Dan Caspi, Akiba A. Cohen, Cresskill : Hampton Press, 2006.
. Mevasereth Zion: Tzivonim, 2005, in Hebrew.
Dan Caspi and Yehiel Limor. Cresskill : Hampton Press, 1999.
Dan Caspi and Yehiel Limor. The Mediators: The Mass Media in Israel, 1948-1990. Tel Aviv. Am Oved,1992, in Hebrew.
. New Brunswick : Transaction, 1986.
The Growth of the Local Press in Israel. Institute for Local Government, Bar-Ilan University, 1980, in Hebrew.
Peer-reviewed selected journal articles
• Dan Caspi, . Israel Affairs. 17:3, 2011. 341-363. • Dan Caspi and Nelly Elias. , Ethnic and Racial Studies, First published on: 28 April 2010 34:1, 62-82. • Dan Caspi, , Israel Affairs. 11:1, 2005. • Hanna Adoni, Akiba A. Cohen and Dan Caspi, . Communications: European Journal of Communication Research 27:4, 2002. 411-436. • Dan Caspi, Hanna Adoni, Akiba A. Cohen and Nelly Elias, . Gazette. 64:6, 2002. 551 - 570. • Dan Caspi, . Israel Studies Bulletin. 15. 1999. 1-5.
Other publications
Political Polarization and Electoral Rhetoric: The Begin-Peres Televised Debates. Open University of Israel Research Report: Working Paper No. 419/88, January 1988, in Hebrew.
Dan Caspi with Daniel Rubinstein, , in: Daniel Bar-Tal and Izhak Schnell, eds. The Impacts of Lasting Occupation: Lessons from Israeli Society. Oxford University Press. 299-325. 2013.
Dan Caspi and Eleanor Lev. Just Like in America: New Media in the 18th Knesset Election Campaign, in: Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, eds. The Elections in Israel – 2009. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction. 251-275. 2011.
Dan Caspi, Israel: Media System. The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Blackwell. 6: 2536-2541. 2008.
Dan Caspi, "Israel: From Monopoly to Open Skies," in: Anthony McNicholas and David Ward, eds. Television and Public Policy: Change and Continuity in an Era of Liberalization. Lawrence Erlbaum, New York/London. 305-321. 2008.
Dan Caspi and Baruh Leshem, From Electoral Propaganda to Political Advertising in Israel, in: Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha, eds. The Sage Handbook of International Political Advertising. Thousands Oaks, Ca. Sage. 109-129. 2006.
Dan Caspi, On Media and Politics: Between Enlightened Authority and Social Responsibility, Israel Affairs. 11:1, 23-38. 2005.
Dan Caspi, "Propaganda in Israel"& "Electoral Propaganda", in: N.J.Cull, D. Culbert & D. Welch, eds. Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopaedia, 1500 to the Present. ABC Clio, 2003.
Dan Caspi and Yehiel Limor, The In/outsiders – Political Control on Media in Israel: A Theoretical Framework. in: H. Herzog & E. Ben-Rafael. eds. Language and Communication in Israel. Israel Studies Series. New Brunswick, N.J. Transaction. 557-577. 2001.
Dan Caspi, , in: David Swanson & Paolo Mancini. eds. Politics, Media and Modern Society. Westport, Connecticut. Praeger. 173-193. 1996.
Textbooks and textbook sections
Pictures in our Heads: Public Opinion and Democracy. Tel Aviv: The Open University of Israel, 2001, in Hebrew.
Dan Caspi and Yehiel Limor, Mass Communication: An Introduction, Units 1-4, Units 5-7, and, with Yehiel Limor. Units 8-10. Tel Aviv: The Open University of Israel, 1993–1996, in Hebrew.
1. Dan Caspi and Nelly Elias, eds. . London. Vallentine Mitchell. 2014. 2. Tal Samuel-Azran and Dan Caspi, eds. . Beersheba. Ben-Gurion University Press and Tzivonim Publishing, 2008. 3. Dan Caspi, ed. . Jerusalem: Van Leer/ Hakibbutz Hameuhad,2007, in Hebrew. 4. Dan Caspi and Yehiel Limor, eds. . Tel Aviv: The Open University of Israel, 1998, in Hebrew. 5. Dan Caspi. ed. Jerusalem: Van Leer/ Hakibbutz Hameuhad,1997, in Hebrew. 6. Dan Caspi. ed. .Tel Aviv. The Open University of Israel. 1995, in Hebrew. 7. Dan Caspi, Avraham Diskin and Emanuel Gutmann, eds.. London: Croom Helm,1984.
Activism
Caspi has long been a staunch opponent of family-owned media conglomerates in Israel and has warned repeatedly of the connection between capital, the press and government, especially regarding the rise in power of the "media barons" who head these conglomerates. In the early 1990s, Caspi published pieces critical of their cross-ownership and control of television broadcast channels. One of his newspaper articles at the time, Citizen N. M., coined a lasting nickname for Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Noni Mozes. In the mid-1990s, Caspi revealed that violence against women even occurs in academic circles, breaking his colleagues’ extended silence by publishing an article entitled Don’t Ask Him. The two articles respectively open and close his collection of articles entitled Agenda.
