UNIVERSITEIT GENT FACULTEIT POLITIEKE EN SOCIALE WETENSCHAPPEN MASPERO AFTER MUBARAK WHAT HAS CHANGED AT THE EGYPTIAN STATE TELEVISION? Wetenschappelijk artikel Aantal woorden: 8657 Laurens Bielen MASTERPROEF MANAMA CONFLICT AND DEVELOPMENT PROMOTOR: Prof. Dr. CHRISTOPHER PARKER COMMISSARIS: Prof. Dr. SAMI ZEMNI ACADEMIEJAAR 2012 – 2013 Deze pagina is niet beschikbaar omdat ze persoonsgegevens bevat. Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent, 2021. This page is not available because it contains personal information. Ghent Universit , Librar , 2021. Laurens Bielen Maspero after Mubarak Abstract (EN) This article examines the changes at the Egyptian state television since the ouster of Mubarak on 11 February 2011. Even today, the state television is still one of the most important media outlets in Egypt, despite of the recent evolution to private satellite television and the new media. The changes are sought, by means of literature research and qualitative interviews, at the informal stage of culture and climate, since only there those subtle shifts can be discovered. First, the history of state television in Egypt is outlined, showing that Maspero has always played an important role. Notwithstanding several changes, all those in power considered the state television of the utmost importance. Next, we can see the image of the protesters change from thugs under Mubarak's rule, to patriotic revolutionaries a few days later. The star part, however, is played by the military, that has now become the saviour of the motherland. Soon, the protesters lose any standing, and they become once more the thugs that are trying to destroy Egypt. The parliamentary elections bring other changes to light: while they were the most free elections in recent history, the Freedom and Justice party received a disproportionate share of attention on air. In the previous elections, they had been all but ignored. In this period, with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces as leaders of the country, the state TV was there to praise them and prove their innocence. After Morsi was elected president, a short period of confusion and power-struggle followed. Soon, however, Maspero became Morsi's pall-bearer. The research presented in this article shows there are next to no changes at the state television in this period. Apart from the fact that Maspero simply adapts to the new centres of power, the most important change is the increase in internal contestation and dissidence. Laurens Bielen Abstract (NL) Dit artikel onderzoekt de veranderingen die de Egyptische staatstelevisie ondergaan heeft sinds de val van Moebarak op 11 februari 2011. Ondanks de recente evoluties naar private satelliettelevisie en de zogenaamde nieuwe media, blijft de staatstelevisie een van de belangrijkste mediakanalen in Egypte. De veranderingen worden op het informele niveau gezocht, via literatuurstudie en kwalitatieve interviews, aangezien enkel daar de subtiele verschuivingen qua attitudes opgemerkt kunnen worden. Eerst wordt een korte geschiedenis geschetst van de staatstelevisie in Egypte, die aantoont dat voor Maspero steeds een belangrijke rol weggelegd was. Ondanks verschillende veranderingen blijven de opeenvolgende machthebbers de staatstelevisie een groot belang toedichten. Vervolgens zien we na het aftreden van Moebarak de status van de betoger veranderen van bandeloos tuig naar vaderlandslievende revolutionairen. De glansrol is echter weggelegd voor het leger, dat de redder des vaderlands geworden is. Al snel verliezen de betogers elk krediet, en verworden ze opnieuw tot tuig dat de ondergang van Egypte probeert te bewerkstelligen. Hoewel de parlementsverkiezingen van 2011 de meest vrije verkiezingen in de geschiedenis waren, zijn er ook daar verschillende verschuivingen te merken: de Freedom and Justice-partij krijgt nu disproportioneel veel aandacht, terwijl de Moslimbroeders bij de vorige verkiezingen nauwelijks in beeld kwamen. In heel de periode dat de Supreme Council of the Armed Forces de opperste leiding van het land had, was de staatstelevisie er voor hen om hun te loven en hun onschuld aan te tonen. De verkiezing van Morsi tot nieuwe president geeft een korte periode van verwarring en machtsstrijd. Al snel wordt Maspero echter de slippendrager van Morsi. Het onderzoek dat in dit artikel voorgesteld wordt, toont dus aan dat er nauwelijks veranderingen te bemerken zijn over deze periode. Hoewel Maspero zich aanpast aan wie er de macht heeft, is de voornaamste verandering dat de interne contestatie en dissidentie toegenomen is. Maspero after Mubarak Introduction On 9 October 2011, thousands marched to the television building Maspero in reaction to recent events. The protesters – who were mainly Christians – decried the state media's 'incitement of sectarian violence.' Soon, they were answered with brute force by the military (“Cairo clashes leave 24 dead after Coptic church protest,” 2011). The state TV reported that protesters were attacking the army, and called on its viewers to go out and defend the army (MENA, 2011; M. Nader,1 personal communication, October 1, 2012). This resulted in mobs of armed civilians attacking Christians (Bushra, 2011). In these events, 27 Coptic-Christian protesters were killed (Trew, 2012). This was arguably the most iconic, but far from the only protest directed at the state television: around the 25th of January 2012, Maspero saw almost daily protests for weeks (Trew, 2012). Moreover, right after Mubarak stepped down, protesters went to Maspero to demand the resignation of the Minister of Information because of his role in the television reporting during the previous days (M. Nader, personal communication, October 1, 2012). Events like these show the importance of the state television in Egypt. The emphasis on the so-called 'new media' and their role in the events of the last couple of years in the region and around the world, both in academics and in popular media, threatens to deflect our attention from the more traditional medium that is terrestrial television. While social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, blogs, and online news websites certainly played an important role, their reach is still limited in Egypt.2 Television is much more widely accessible, with an estimated 12.8 million households with a television set (Allam, 2010), which amounts to circa 75 percent of all households, using the figures of the 2006 Central Agency for Mobilization and Statistics census (Egypt State Information Service, 2006). Adel Iskandar (2011) gives a higher figure with 95% of households having access to terrestrial television. 1 Mona Nader is head of the media department at the Cairo Insitute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS). 2 The percentage of Internet users in Egypt is still below 10% of the population, according to the ITU (International Telecommunication Union, 2010. p. 202), while the CIA World Factbook puts their number just above 20 million, which is around 25% (Central Intelligence Agency, 2012). Most of these people live in urban areas: the number of people in urban areas with broadband access is 6 times that of those in rural areas, and a similar trend is visible if we consider all types of internet access (International Telecommunication Union, 2010. pp. 18-19). 1 Laurens Bielen Thus, television is – and has been since its establishment – extremely important as a means of mass communications, because of its wide spread coupled with the high levels of illiteracy.3 This means that even today newspapers and other written publications remain somewhat elitist, while radio and television are the news-source for the masses. As a consequence of the importance of TV, the state television network is still one of the most precious media outlets to the government. One protester at Maspero described its power as follows: “Maspero is one of the most powerful places in Egypt. It broadcasts straight into everyone’s homes; it can control what the nation thinks.” (Trew, 2012). While the number of people watching private (satellite) channels is rising, the number of people watching the state television is still much bigger (VOMENA, 2012). Compared to 95% of households with access to terrestrial television, only 60% of the Egyptian households have access to satellite television (Iskandar, 2011). At the end of Mubarak's term, observers didn't notice any fundamental change in television news since the Sadat era. This article examines if there have been any changes since then, and to what extent things are different. It is mainly concerned with changes of climate and culture, since the legal framework with respect to the state television has not seen important change. After the so-called Arab Spring, a lot of the scholarly research on the Middle East and North Africa concerns itself with the case of democratisation. In much of the existing, classical literature on media and democracy, media is described as the 'Fourth Power' or 'Fourth Estate' (Sparks, 1995). Now however, some doubt the democratising powers of the media. Lee Becker (2007) wrote an excellent essay exploring the relation between media and democracy, challenging the common conceptions of the relation between independent media and a democratic society. Earlier, he wrote an article on this topic with Patrick McConnell (McConnell & Becker, 2002), echoing the same sentiments and outlining the available research on the subject. Similarly, Chin-Chuan Lee (2001) sketched some of the problems with the view on the media vis-a-vis democracy in Asia, but his more general remarks are of 3 Egypt has