Sheizaf Rafaeli ( he, שיזף רפאלי) (born June 7, 1955) is an Israeli researcher, scholar of

computer-mediated communication Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any human communication that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats ...

and newspaper columnist. He is professor and dean at the School of Management (Graduate School of Business Administration) Haifa GSB,

University of Haifa The University of Haifa ( he, אוניברסיטת חיפה Arabic: جامعة حيفا) is a university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation in 1972, becoming Is ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and additionally director of the Center for Internet Research Center for Internet Research and the Games for Managers Project. In the 1980s and 1990s he served as head of the Information Systems area at the Graduate School of business in the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

. He is a senior research fellow at the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy, Technion.

Biography

Sheizaf Rafaeli was born in kibbutz

Maagan Michael Ma'agan Michael ( he, מַעֲגַן מִיכָאֵל, ''lit.'' Michael's Anchorage) is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located on the Mediterranean Sea coast between Haifa and Hadera, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof HaCarmel Regional Council ...

, Israel, to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family. His maternal grandfather was

Israeli Prime Minister The prime minister of Israel ( he, רֹאשׁ הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה, Rosh HaMemshala, Head of the Government, Hebrew acronym: he2, רה״מ; ar, رئيس الحكومة, ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief exe ...

Levi Eshkol Levi Eshkol ( he, לֵוִי אֶשְׁכּוֹל ;‎ 25 October 1895 – 26 February 1969), born Levi Yitzhak Shkolnik ( he, לוי יצחק שקולניק, links=no), was an Israeli statesman who served as the third Prime Minister of Israe ...

. He graduated from the

Hebrew Reali School , motto_translation = ''Walk Humbly'' , address = Hertzel 16 , city = Haifa , zipcode = 3312103 , country = Israel , coordinates = , other_name ...

in Haifa. He served as an officer in the

Israeli military The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branc ...

in combat units; he was discharged in 1977. He received his B.A. from the

, M.A. from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, M.A., and Ph.D.,

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Sheizaf is married to Anat Rafaeli, they have three sons and live in

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

Academic and journalism career

Rafaeli was the educational director of the cadet school of the

Hebrew Reali School , motto_translation = ''Walk Humbly'' , address = Hertzel 16 , city = Haifa , zipcode = 3312103 , country = Israel , coordinates = , other_name ...

in Haifa. He has written software and books on graphics, electronic spreadsheets and statistical analysis, and a textbook on information systems for the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

. He is co-editor, (with Fay Sudweeks and Margaret McLaughlin), of Network and NetPlay: Virtual Groups on the Internet published by

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

, 1998. He served as co-coordinator of the international ProjectH. He served as founder and co-editor of The ''

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication The ''Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication'' JCMC is a quarterly open access peer-reviewed academic journal that covers the interdisciplinary field of computer-mediated communication. It was established in 1994 and is published by Oxford Un ...

'', and initiated the SHIL (Citizen's Advice Board) online service. He is a member of several journal editorial boards, including those of JCMC, ITSharenet and IJKL. Rafaeli is a director of NPTech Israel, and of StartUpSeeds. He is also a member of the board at the Wikimedia foundation. Sheizaf is a member of the Stockholm International Challenge Jury for Information Systems' Projects. Sheizaf has held visiting research and teaching positions at Ohio State University,

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

, IBM, Stanford University, Technion,

College of Management Academic Studies The College of Management Academic Studies, a college located in the city of Rishon LeZion, Israel, is the largest college in Israel. Founded in 1978, COLMAN is the first non-subsidized, not-for-profit research academic institution in Israel to ...

, and the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. His work on

Interactivity Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but m ...

and

Virtual Community A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual communi ...

, published by MIT Press, JCMC, and

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

is widely cited in the Information, Computer-Mediated Communication, Internet and Communication Research literatures. Rafaeli's research covers issues of the Value of Information, Information Overload, Social Networks and Network Analysis, Information Sharing, and digital life. From October 2006, he has served as chair of the School of Management (Business Administration), at the

. Rafaeli is a member of the Scientific Management of the Learning in a Networked Society (LINKS) national Center of Research Excellence (ICORE), where he studies the role of online tools in learning, teaching and education. He writes weekly columns for the

Calcalist ''Calcalist'' ( he, כלכליסט, a Hebrew wordplay on ''The Economist'', from כלכלה) is an Israeli daily business newspaper and website. History and profile ''Calcalist'' was first published on 18 February 2008, and currently runs five d ...

and

Globes A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model globe of ...

financial and business daily newspapers in Israel and the

Ynet Ynet (stylized as ynet) is one of the major Israeli news and general-content websites, and is the online outlet for the '' Yedioth Ahronot'' newspaper. However, most of Ynet's content is original work, published exclusively on the website and wri ...

news site.

Awards and recognition

* Young researcher award of the AERA * 2006 WebAward * "Angels in the Net" (Mlachim Bareshet") national award

Published works

* Jones, G. Ravid, G. and Rafaeli S. (2004) Information Overload and the Message Dynamics of Online Interaction Spaces: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Exploration, Information Systems Research Vol. 15 Issue 2, pp. 194–210. * Rafaeli, S. (1988)
Interactivity: From new media to communication
In R. P. Hawkins, J. M. Wiemann, & S. Pingree (Eds.), Sage Annual Review of Communication Research: Advancing Communication Science: Merging Mass and Interpersonal Processes, 16, 110–134. Beverly Hills: Sage. * Rafaeli, S. and Ariel, Y. (2007) "Assessing Interactivity in Computer-Mediated Research", in Joinson, A.N., McKenna, K.Y.A., Postmes, T. and Rieps, U.D. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology, Oxford University Press, (Chapter 6, pp. 71–88) 200
(Final Draft PDF)

References

External links

Sheizaf Rafaeli's personal home page

NetWork and NetPlay: MIT Press

Blackwell Publishing JCMC website

The Center for Internet Research website