"Mom’s Voice" and Other Voices:Civil-Military Relations as a Media Ritual

Abstract

This article looks at how sonic media rituals are created, performed, and negotiated to understand the ways in which citizens are persuaded to risk their lives in the name of the imagined national community. It does so through an analysis of the representation of civil–military relations on the veteran Israeli radio program Kola Shel Ima (“Mom’s Voice”). As shown, the performance of the Kola Shel Ima ritual is enabled because of off-air preparations, on-air conversations, and common values shared by ritual participants. Yet, at times various components of the ritual are challenged on-air. On a larger scale, the debate over Kola Shel Ima positions it as a ritual of flashing out or, conversely, a ritual of covering up.