Katz, Elihu
KATZ, ELIHU
KATZ, ELIHU (1926– ), professor of sociology and communications. Born in New York, Katz received his doctorate from Colombia University in 1956. In 1963 he immigrated to Israel and joined the Guttman Institute for Applied Social Research of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During the 1960s he took time out from his academic career and headed the task force charged with the introduction of television broadcasting in Israel. He founded the Communications Institute at the Hebrew University in 1966, heading it until 1980. In the mid-1970s he and Daniel Dayan initiated a series of live broadcasts of recreated historic events inspired by the peace process with Egypt. He was a professor of sociology and communications at the Hebrew University until 1991, when he retired. He also served as professor at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California. With his colleagues in Jerusalem and California he published 10 books and over 90 articles, among them: Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications (with Lazarsfeld, 1955); Medical Innovation: A Diffusion Study (with Coleman and Menzel, 1966); The Secularization of Leisure: Culture and Communication in Israel (with Gurevitch, 1976); The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of " Dallas " (with Liebes, 1990); Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History (with Dayan, 1992); and Canonic Texts in Media Research: Are There Any? Should There Be? How About These? (with Peters, Liebes, and Orloff, eds., 2003). In 1989 he was awarded the Israel Prize for social sciences. He also received the unesco-canada McLuhan Prize and Burda Prize (in media research).
website:
www.asc.upenn.edu/ascfaculty/facultyBioDetails.asp?txtUserID=ekatz#research.
[Fern Lee Seckbach /
Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)]