Dr Maya Mazor Tregerman

As a specialist in Media, popular culture, and tourism, my research focuses on the multifaceted relationship between cultural production fields, overall socio-historical cultural processes and the construction of cultural identities. My main research interest is the book publishing industry, its history and its foreseeable future in the digital communication environment. I am interested in the intricate connections between the field of cultural production and the economic, political and social fields in overall cultural processes. My work relies on an interdisciplinary approach rooted in the research of popular culture and media, making use of theories and methodologies relevant to the research of cultural industries, their products and their role in facilitating overall social processes. My most recent research project, for example, investigated the role of out-going travel guidebooks in the construction of the Israeli tourist identity. It has used digital archives as a main source of information, and included both computerized and human quantitative and qualitative content analysis. I have also been involved in experimental research of audience responses to entertainment media. This line of research makes use of media theories as well as social psychology theoriesty to utilize the knowledge about media and people to expand the ways entertainment media may be used for pro-social purposes.