Media and Uprsisings in Egypt and Tunisia

Egypt and Tunisia have both undergone uprisings and revolutions in the past several years, leading to significant changes in the way people use, produce, and think about media. Both mass media and social media have changed significantly in Egypt and Tunisia since the beginning of these uprisings.

Egypt

In Egypt, before the revolution and the ousting of President Mubarak in 2011, most newspapers and television stations were state-owned and there were censors located at each individual broadcast station and newspaper office. It was incredibly difficult to own one’s own newspaper due to financial and licensing policies. Although the vast majority of mass media was closely controlled by the government, Egyptians had fairly good access to international media and could rely on these sources for their news, rather than the state-owned Egyptian papers and television stations.

The state-run press in Egypt whole-heartedly supported Mubarak’s regime before and at the beginning of the uprising until it became clear that he may actually be ousted. Media continued to support the regime and provided minimal coverage of demonstrations and protests until it was impossible to ignore. By the day Mubarak stepped down, state television was fully behind the people, praising the revolution.

Until the uprising, people were not reliant on social media for their news because they had access to various international media outlets. Starting in 2008 with the labor strikes in Mahalla, social media was used extensively to discuss issues and to organize demonstrations. In 2010, the We Are All Khaled Said Facebook page was created in response to the death of a demonstrator at the hands of the police. This page subsequently became a place for Egyptians to congregate and discuss political issues and to organize demonstrations that ultimately led to the ousting of Mubarak in 2011.

After the uprising, there is more freedom of the press in Egypt, however it is a much more dangerous place to be a journalist now that the police state has fallen into a more chaotic one. There are many more privately owned newspapers and broadcast stations than ever before, and these freely discuss political issues. There is limited official censorship, however journalists are still jailed on erroneous charges and certain media companies such as Al Jazeera are subject to great discrimination.

Tunisia

Before the uprising in Tunisia, there were no international media outlets allowed in the country with the exception of one French news agency, and people regarded most mass media as a waste of time because it was so adulterated with propaganda and censorship. Instead of relying on mass media for news, a great many people turned to social media as their primary source of news because the news they found there was not a direct product of propaganda factories or state censors. There was a much greater breadth of news online than in conventional state-owned media, however the quality of the information found on these sources varies a great deal, which is a problem because people tend to be less cautious about the information they are receiving when it is not coming from a state source.

Virtually all media was state owned before the uprising, and the media outlets not officially owned by the state were run by people very close to the regime, such as Ben Ali’s family and close friends, who could be trusted to only broadcast or print things favorable to the regime and to maintain the status quo. In 2003 the regime began to cautiously issue licenses for television stations and newspapers, which appeared to be privatization but was actually just crony capitalism.

In the years leading up to the uprising, the regime figured out what social media was and how it could be used by the people and it tightened its grip on internet censorship significantly. Only China had a more sophisticated internet filtering system than Tunisia. During the uprising, however, Ben Ali lifted internet censorship entirely in an effort to appease the people and to quell the uprising. This move backfired, however, and was seen as a sign of weakness by the people, and the uprising continued.

After the uprising, Tunisia has a constitution that is quite liberal and progressive, even by international standards. There are many diverse and private broadcast stations and newspapers in Tunisia, with light regulation, however many people still prefer social media as their primary source of news. This may be a result of years of habit of distrust in conventional media and total reliance on social media for news.

Why Egypt Hates Al Jazeera

For the past eight weeks, three Al Jazeera English journalists have been imprisoned in Tora Prison in Cairo. The three were arrested in their Cairo hotel room on December 29th and charged with conspiring with a terrorist group and producing false news. This is not an isolated incident; more than 80 journalists have been jailed in Egypt in the past year, many of whom were released within several days. In addition to the three Al Jazeera journalists being held, seventeen other journalists affiliated with various news outlets were also charged “in a prosecution statement leaked to local media on January 29...It accused 20 journalists, many of whom had no connection to Al Jazeera, of broadcasting false information to ‘convince the international community that Egypt was undergoing a civil war.’” A main reason for Egyptian hostility toward Al Jazeera is that it is owned by Qatar, which supports the Muslim Brotherhood, which was declared a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government. This hostility is exacerbated by conflation of Al Jazeera English with AJ Arabic. Adel Fahmy expressed his apprehension about the hostility: "[Al Jazeera English] is totally different, and should be perceived in a different way, but unfortunately it's not ... so we had a slight fear, but we never thought [the arrests] would actually happen."

The attacks on Al Jazeera journalists are not limited to the Egyptian government. An angry mob in Tahrir Square attacks two newspaper reporters who were suspected of working for Al Jazeera. “The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in its annual report that Egypt was the third-deadliest country for reporters in 2013, and the country ranked 159th on Reporters Without Borders's annual press freedom index, a notch below Pakistan.” Hate for the Muslim Brotherhood is widespread in Egypt, many citizens as well as the government have designated the brotherhood a terrorist organization, and have transferred that hate to Al Jazeera. This may be because the Arabic counterpart of Al Jazeera “routinely gives airtime to guests with sharply sectarian and reactionary views, which often go unchallenged.” The channel hosts many exiled Islamic leaders and members of the Muslim Brotherhood, however none of this makes it onto the English channel. They are totally separate news outlets, yet the Egyptian government and people fail to recognize this, conflating the two channels and targeting any journalist affiliated with Al Jazeera in any way. In further evidence that the journalists detained since Decemeber are not Brotherhood sympathizers, Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Fahmy joined in two large anti-Brotherhood demonstrations last year, not as a journalist, but as a protestor.


Source Article: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/19/why_egypt_hates_al_jazeera