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Accounts of Knowledge Production, Circulation and Consumption in Transitional Egypt

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Accounts of Knowledge Production, Circulation and Consumption in Transitional Egypt Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 4-15-2015 12:00 AM Contentious information: Accounts of knowledge production, circulation and consumption in transitional Egypt Ahmad Kamal The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Ajit Pyati The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Library & Information Science A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Ahmad Kamal 2015 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Information Literacy Commons, Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons, Journalism Studies Commons, Mass Communication Commons, Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons, Social Influence and oliticalP Communication Commons, and the Social Media Commons Recommended Citation Kamal, Ahmad, "Contentious information: Accounts of knowledge production, circulation and consumption in transitional Egypt" (2015). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2775. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/2775 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONTENTIOUS INFORMATION: ACCOUNTS OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION, CIRCULATION AND CONSUMPTION IN TRANSITIONAL EGYPT Monograph by Ahmad Kamal Graduate Program in Library and Information Science A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Ahmad Kamal 2015 Abstract While the 2011 Egyptian Uprising renewed attention to revolutionary news platforms such as Al-Jazeera and Facebook, citizens continued to be understudied as active consumers of information. Yet citizens’ perceptions of their informational milieu and how they responded in consuming, processing, and interpreting facts offer crucial insight into the turbulent transition that followed the initial uprising. This study analyzes Egyptian citizens’ accounts of their information environment and practices amid socio-political change. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 politically-engaged citizens from various political and professional backgrounds. Participants were asked to discuss the state of public discourse, the institutions responsible for the circulation of information, and their own practices to become informed, with on-going political controversies used as case studies. The findings are presented into two parts. The first part compiles responses regarding institutions (the state, broadcast media, and social media) which were found to be functionally interconnected and interdependent, forming Egypt’s information ecosystem. This ecosystem systematically rendered information elusive, equivocal, and unreliable, but also demonstrated the importance of official information, a tolerance for partisan news, and the complementary role of social media. The second part examines citizens’ practices (the characteristics of consumers, the types of sources they relied upon, and the tactics they employed to become informed) which constituted an information culture, the information ecosystem’s counterpart. This culture was characterized by skepticism, mistrust, ingenuity, bias, and elitism, with sources being conceived as individuals and classified according to their proximity and type of knowledge; and consumers employing tactics involving the parsing of subtexts and the juxtaposing of claims from multiple texts. The characteristics, sources, and tactics of consumers reflected an information culture influenced by and responding to socio-political conditions. Drawing on both the disciplines of media and information studies, this study offers a new approach for exploring the societal dimensions of information through the narratives of citizens on the production, circulation, and consumption of information in the context of dramatically shifting political and media landscapes. Besides advancing information ii practices research beyond traditional settings, the fieldwork was conducted in the weeks prior to the controversial overthrow of Egypt’s first elected president and therefore provides insights into a dramatic episode in the country’s transition. Keywords Egypt, media, contentious politics, government, information, audiences, information practices, political transition, controversies iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... x List of Appendices ............................................................................................................. xi Chapter 1 - Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Problem ................................................................................................................. 3 1.3 Purpose ................................................................................................................. 4 1.4 Outline .................................................................................................................. 5 Chapter 2 - Background .................................................................................................... 11 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 11 2.2 Factions ............................................................................................................... 11 2.2.1 The former regime and its allies ............................................................... 12 2.2.2 Oppositional currents ................................................................................ 16 2.3 General developments ........................................................................................ 19 2.3.1 Before the Uprising: Pre-2011 .................................................................. 19 2.3.2 The Uprising: January 25 – February 11, 2011 ........................................ 19 2.3.3 Provisional military rule: February 2011 – June 2012 .............................. 20 2.3.4 Morsi’s rule: July 2012 – June 2013 ......................................................... 22 2.3.5 The coup’s aftermath: July 2013 onwards ................................................ 24 2.4 Media developments ........................................................................................... 25 2.4.1 Before the Uprising ................................................................................... 25 2.4.2 Post-Uprising ............................................................................................ 28 2.4.3 Consumption patterns ............................................................................... 32 iv Chapter 3 - Literature Review ........................................................................................... 34 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 34 3.2 Media (and political) studies .............................................................................. 35 3.2.1 Arab media ................................................................................................ 35 3.2.2 Arab audiences .......................................................................................... 48 3.2.3 Lessons for research .................................................................................. 54 3.3 Information studies ............................................................................................. 59 3.3.1 Background ............................................................................................... 59 3.3.2 Everyday information practices ................................................................ 62 3.3.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 75 Chapter 4 - Methodology .................................................................................................. 76 4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 76 4.2 Researcher Subjectivity ...................................................................................... 77 4.3 Interpretive framework ....................................................................................... 78 4.4 Central questions ................................................................................................ 80 4.5 Study design........................................................................................................ 81 4.5.1 Qualitative research .................................................................................. 81 4.5.2 Case studies ..............................................................................................
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