Anat Balint
Assistant Professor and Jeffrey B. Plevan Chair in Israel Studies
Dr. Anat Balint is the inaugural Jeffrey B. Plevan Chair in Modern Israel Studies at the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona. A media scholar and former investigative journalist in Israel, her work bridges Media Studies and Israel Studies, with a focus on the political economy of the media and the Israeli case. Her research examines how the capitalist mechanisms of media in the digital age shape democratic life.
Dr. Balint received her PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she studied the rise of branded content (aka surreptitious advertising or native advertising) and the blurring of boundaries between editorial content and advertising. This work traces how the rise of brands, together with the emergence of digital technologies, has contributed to a fragmented and hyper-commercialized media environment that undermines the public’s ability to trust mediated communication and remain informed. She is the author of Inside the Box (2012), a foundational study of branded content in Israeli television, and is currently completing a book on the global rise of branded content and its implications for the role of media in democracies. Her current research focuses on transformations in Israeli media and society following the neoliberal turn of the 1980s.
Born and raised in Israel, Dr. Balint worked as a journalist across print, public radio, and commercial television, specializing in investigative reporting on the media industry. She served as media correspondent for Haaretz and was a staff member and later board member of The Seventh Eye, an independent media watchdog. Her reporting addressed the intersection of media, politics, and power in Israel and contributed to public debate, media literacy and regulatory change. She has written educational programs for media literacy and wrote several experts opinion for class action lawsuits in Israel.
At the University of Arizona, Dr. Balint is affiliated with the School of Journalism and the Center for Border and Global Journalism. She teaches courses on Israeli society, media, and politics, offering students an informed, experience-based perspective, with an emphasis on contemporary developments and critical engagement with current issues. She continues to publish commentary and analysis on Israeli media in Haaretz and other outlets and is frequently interviewed on issues related to Israeli society and media.