Egyptian Audience's Perception of Political Satire Show: an Analysis Of
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The American University in Cairo School of Global Affairs and Public Policy Egyptian Audience’s Perception of Political Satire Show: An Analysis of the Perceived and Actual Influence of Political Comedy Programming A Thesis Submitted to The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication In partial fulfillment of the requirements for The degree of Master of Arts. By Dina Mohamed Younis Under the supervision of Dr. Amani Ismail July 2014 The American University in Cairo School of Global Affairs and Public Policy Egyptian Audience’s Perception of Political Satire Show: An Analysis of the Perceived and Actual Influence of Political Comedy Programming A Thesis Submitted by Dina Mohamed Younis to the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication July 2014 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts has been approved by Dr. Amani Ismail Thesis Adviser Affiliation ____________________________________________ Date ____________________ Dr. Naila Hamdy Thesis Second Reader Affiliation ____________________________________________ Date ____________________ Dr. Dina Bassiouni Thesis Third Reader Affiliation ___________________________________________ Date ___________________ Prof. Mervat Abou Oaf _________________________________________ Department Chair Date ____________________ Dr. Laila El Baradei _________________________________________ Dean of GAPP Date ____________________ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. First, I thank god for giving me the opportunity and blessing to conduct my MA, all of my success is granted to him. Al Hamduallah. Second, I would like to thank my father and mother for their support both morally and finically through out the years from the beginning of my bachelor degree until this very moment. My sister, Ayda, I will be forever grateful to her for her continuous and unconditional love, support and blessing. Much thanks goes to my brother and brother-in-law for their help. A huge thanks to my lovely cousin Ayaat Ehab for her generous help and support. Third, I would also like to express my utmost gratitude to my adviser Dr. Amani Ismail for her continuous guidance, timely feedback, patience, and encouragement. I am very thankful for her endless support, I could have not continue this thesis without Dr. Amani and her willingness to generously donate her time to help me when needed. Fourth, I am particularly thankful for the constant help of my friends. Mariam Amer, you have my deepest gratitude for all of your support and assistance. My best friends Dina, Abeer and Haidy deepest thanks to you. To all of my colleagues in B121 I would like to Thank You for helping me distributing my survey among the sample. Special thanks are extended to the boys of B121 for their help and for helping me with the data entry. Fifth, I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Naila Hamdy and Dr. Dina Bassiouni, for giving me their valuable time and accepting to be in my committee. Their valuable critique and praise were highly appreciated and helpful. iii ABSTRACT As more Egyptians continue to expose themselves to the political comedy program Al Bernameg, scholars should seek to understand the audience’s perception of the program. This study examines the perception of the Egyptian audience on the political satire show Al Bernameg. The study aims at measuring the perceived bias of Al Bernameg and the perceived and actual influence of the program. This study seeks to explore the influence Al Bernameg has on its audience in relating it to the Third Person effect theory. It examines the difference between the actual purpose for watching Al Bernameg and the perceived purpose. The study employed survey research as its primary source of data collection to investigate the research hypothesis via a purposive sample of 508 Egyptians. The research findings revealed a significant third-person effect pattern for the political satire program, especially among younger viewers. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page # 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Introduction 1 1.2. Al Bernameg’s Evolution 3 1.3. About Bassem Youssef 5 1.4. Egypt’s Political and Media Environment 6 1.5. The Shift from Offline to Online 8 1.6. Purpose of the Study 11 2. Literature Review 13 2.1. Political Shows 13 2.2. Political Entertainment 13 2.3. Political Satire 14 2.4. Media Bias 16 2.5. Humor & Politics 16 2.6. Political Satire Shows 18 2.6.1. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 18 2.6.2. The Colbert Report 21 2.7. Media in Egypt Before January 25th Revolution 21 2.8. Media in Egypt After January 25th Revolution 26 2.9. Political Satire In Egypt 27 2.10. Al Bernameg 28 2.11. Egypt’s Acceptance of AL Bernameg 29 2.12. Pro/Against Al Bernameg 31 3. Theoretical Framework 34 3.1. Social Comparison Theory 34 3.2. The Third Person Effect Theory 37 3.2.1. The Receptiveness of the Audience 39 3.2.2. Factors Affecting the Third Person Effect 39 3.2.3. Perceptions towards Persuasive Messages 40 4. Research Hypotheses 43 4.1. Research Hypotheses 43 5. Research Design and Methodology 47 5.1. Type of Research 47 5.2. Method of Data Gathering 47 5.3. Types of Survey 48 v 5.4. Approach to the Study 48 5.5. Data Collection 49 5.6. Sampling 49 5.7. Sample Selection 50 5.8. Questionnaire Design 51 5.9. Pilot Study 53 5.10. Operationalization of the Study Variables 54 5.11. Measurements 55 5.12. Statistical Analysis 57 6. Results 58 6.1. Description of the Sample 58 6.2. Descriptive Statistics 59 6.2.1. Frequencies 59 6.2.2. Measures of Central Tendency 59 6.3. Inferential Statistics 70 6.3.1. Hypothesis Testing 70 7. Discussion and Conclusion 77 7.1. Discussion 77 7.2. Conclusion 83 7.3. Limitations of the Study 85 7.4. The Significance of the Study 86 7.5. Direction for further research 87 Afterword 89 Bibliography 91 Appendix 105 Appendix A: English Survey 106 Appendix B: Arabic Survey 111 Appendix C: IRB Approval Letter 116 Appendix D: CAPMAS Approval Letter 117 vi LIST OF TABLES Tittle Page # Table 1.1 Respondents’ Gender 59 Table 1.2 Respondents’ Age 59 Table 1.3 Respondents’ Education 59 Table 1.4 Number of Episodes 60 Table 1.5 Political Interest 63 Table 1.6 Talking about politics 63 Table 1.7 Accurate Information 64 Table 1.8 Trustworthy Information 64 Table 1.9 Fairness 64 Table 1.10 Provides me with a reasonable understanding 65 of political issues Table 1.11 Provides Egyptians with a reasonable 66 understanding of political issues Table 1.12 Influencing my opinions 68 Table 1.13 Influencing Egyptians’ opinions 68 Table 1.14 Well-informed about political events 69 Table 1.15 Political Terminologies 69 Table 2.1 Mean Scores of perceived bias of Al Bernameg 65 Table 2.2 Mean scores of the audience’s perception of Al Bernameg 68 Table 2.3 Mean scores of audience’s Self esteem 69 Table 3.1: ANOVA Test to measure the relationship between 70 exposure to Al Bernameg and the audience perception of the program. Table 3.2: Correlation test to measure the relationship between 71 watching Al Bernameg and the third person effect theory Table 3.3: ANOVA Test to measure the relationship between 72 viewers’ political interest and their perception of the Egyptian’s audience. Table 3.4: ANOVA Test to measure the relationship between 72 viewers’ education level and their perception of the Egyptian’s audience. Table 3.5: ANOVA Test to measure the relationship 73 vii between viewers’ age and their perception of Al Bernameg. Table 3.6: ANOVA Test to measure the relationship 74 between individuals’ political views and the perceived bias of Al Bernameg. Table 3.7: Correlation test to measure the relationship 75 between Individuals with liberal political ideology and the third person effect theory Table 3.8: Correlation test to measure the relationship 76 between Individuals self esteem and the third person effect theory viii LIST OF FIGURES Tittle Page # Figure 1: Al Bernameg Views 60 Figure 2: Respondents’ Political Views 61 Figure 3: Reason for watching Al Bernameg 62 Figure 4: Individuals Believe that Al Bernameg 66 is a satirical Program Figure 5: Individuals believe that Egyptian believes 67 Al Bernameg is a satirical Program ix Chapter One 1.1 Introduction “Turn on the television in any number of countries around the world, and you are bound to find at least one highly topical news-parody show providing its own take on contemporary events. As you forward choice clips from those shows, you will also likely encounter the newest satirical Internet video" (Day, 2011, p. 1). Recently, after the Egyptian revolution, most Egyptians started to watch a new form of political satire program that tackles social, cultural and political issues. This type of political satire constitutes a new method for discussing and criticizing the political arena and democracy in Egypt. Viewers have started to turn to these political shows in order to become aware of current political and social events in Egypt, to acquire political information and to gain knowledge about their political system. Political satire shows in general receive little research in comparison to other entertainment programs. Al Bernameg, in particular, is underresearched in the field of political communication and persuasion. Like other global satirical shows, Al Bernameg has been able to successfully reach viewers who do not have high levels of political engagement, and gain their attention by using humor and comedy. Having noticed the significance of this new and growing phenomenon in Egyptian society, the researcher decided to tackle this issue to understand the different aspects and features of this new genre of political shows, including its 1 reasons, its consequences, and, most importantly, the audience’s perceptions of Al Bernameg.