Dr. Chen Sabag Ben-Porat is a post-doctoral fellow at the Smart Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests focus on political communication and include the study of the political public sphere, political discourse, comparative communication and media accountability.
Her master's thesis on social network site usage patterns of politicians won the Trivaks Research Excellence Award. In her doctoral research she examined social network usage patterns of parliamentary assistants, functioning as stand-ins for legislators in Israel, Germany & the US. It also studied public attitudes to this stand-in communication mode in Israel. (“Parliamentary Assistants as Stand-Ins for their Legislator: Social Network Usage Patterns in a Comparative Perspective: Israel, Germany, and the US," 2019, Bar Ilan University excellence program, advised by Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig).
In her work she established a model by which one can examine the level of engagement of parliamentarians in their social media networks (as opposed to the level of engagement of their aides) in relation to the electoral system used in the country, as well as to many other internal and external variables. The work helps chart the process of current political information flow and points to failures in political discourse and connection between parliamentarians and the public, via social media.
Her current research deals with media accountability in political contexts. It is supervised by Prof. Menahem Blondheim and Dr. Hananel Rosenberg.
Chen Sabag Ben-Porat teaches courses on the history and strategy of political communications on new media; and on social science methodology, including both quantitative and qualitative research methods. She is a board member of the Israel Communication Association and the chair of the Research Student Forum of the Israel Communication Association.
Publications
- Sabag Ben-Porat, C., & Lehman-Wilzig, S. (Forthcoming 2019). Chatbot communication in Social Media: Parliamentary Practice and Public Perceptions. Edward Elgar Publishing.
- Sabag Ben-Porat, C., & Lehman-Wilzig, S. (2018). Ethical and philosophical issues in social (Re)Media(ted) communication between legislators and constituents. In T. Pirc (Ed.), Participation, Culture and Democracy Perspectives on Public Engagement and Social Communication (pp. 47-57). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Lev-On, A., Sabag Ben-Porat, C., & Lehman-Wilzig, S. (2017). A Facebook post is born: exploring the process of generating MPs’ social media presence. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 23(4), 549-565.
- Sabag Ben-Porat, C., Lev-On, A., & Lehman-Wilzig, S. (2016). Whose post is it anyway? Patterns of use of Knesset members and their parliamentary assistants on social network sites. Israel Internet Association magazine. Retrived from: https://bit.ly/2hjf9dE. (Hebrew).
- Sabag Ben-Porat, C., Lev-On, A., & Lehman-Wilzig, S. (under review). Silent Partners: How Politicians’ Facebook Communication with Constituents is Mediated, and Why it Matters. Communication and the Public.
- Sabag Ben-Porat, C., & Lehman-Wilzig, S. (under review). Political "Postwriting" on Facebook: Public Perceptions about Parliamentarians' (Un)Real SNS Involvement. Social Media & Society.
- Sabag Ben-Porat, C., & Lehman-Wilzig, S. (under review). Social Network Usage Patterns of Parliamentary Assistants as Stand-Ins for their Legislator and the influence of the electoral system on these patterns. United States, Germany and Israel as case studies. New Media & Society.