Media Ownership and Diversity: Representation in Post-Arab Spring Egyptian Media

• In Event: Politics and History & MENA Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual Poster Session: MENA Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

The January 25th revolution in 2011 was the spark of unprecedented changes in the Egyptian media scene. Even though media ownership concentration is well documented in the United States, Europe, and other regions around the world, it is scarcely examined in the Arab World. This study seeks to fill this scholarly gap by answering the following research questions: what are the patterns of media ownership concentration in Egypt? and what is the relationship between media ownership concentration and content diversity in the public sphere of the Egyptian press? Through the Habermasian lens, this study examines ownership concentration in the current Egyptian media sphere. By focusing on the post-Arab Spring era in Egypt, I describe the evolution of media ownership and mapping media outlets and their owners.

To understand the media ownership landscape in Egypt, I collected data from online news articles and international organizations' reports. Then, I contacted ten Egyptian journalists and media professionals to verify the collected information. Subsequently, I identified three patterns of ownership in the Egyptian media: concentrated state ownership, concentrated private ownership, and not concentrated private ownership. Using content analysis, I also investigated the relationship between this concentration and content diversity in a sample of print outlets in the first quarter of 2019. In order to determine whether different society segments are well represented in the Egyptian public sphere, content diversity was examined in terms of editorial formats, topics, geographical locations, actors, and sources.

I found that an interrelation between ownership concentration and content diversity was more evident in some diversity measures than others. News was found to be the dominant editorial format in all ownership concentration patterns. Political topics had the highest coverage in concentrated stated-owned and not concentrated outlets whereas private concentrated outlets focused on business and economics. The national-related articles were the highest overall, while Cairo, the capital, was the most covered city in all ownership concentration categories. The results revealed a general tendency of the Egyptian media to underrepresent females, non-Muslims, and noninstitutional actors. Based on these findings, I argue that the media sphere in Egypt is dominated by a few gatekeepers, mostly the state, that influence content diversity and jeopardize the democratic public sphere in post-revolution Egypt. This study contributes to the discussion of media ownership in non-Western states and the inter dynamics between politics, power, and media.

Author

• Zahraa Badr, Cairo University, Faculty of Mass Communication