“Information is like your daily bread”: The role of media and telecommunications in the life of refugees in Israel

Interviews, site visits and observations are used in this study to describe the information needs of the asylum seeker and refugee community in Israel, utilizing Taylor’s (1991) concept of identifying “information use environments” (IUE), whose elements are people, their settings, their problems, and the solutions they find for their problems. A detailed analysis of the findings and framing them within the components of Taylor’s model allow the creation of a framework for improving the refugees’ situation in terms of their information needs. The study identified that asylum seekers and refugees in Israel have constructed a media environment based on their self-identification as “others”. They created personal and technological circles to address their information needs, broadly divided into three types: personal, institutional, and spatial. Within the public sphere, they erected Internet cafés, their own “post office”, and their own media. Within the private sphere, they acquired electronic media that address many of their needs. We conclude that since refugees are situated in society’s least advantaged position, attending to their information needs should be a policy priority of their host society.