WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch From Underground to Elite: Egyptian Bloggers before and after the 2011 Uprising El Sayed, N. This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © Mrs Nadine El Sayed, 2015. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: ((http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] From Underground to Elite: Egyptian Bloggers before and after the 2011 Uprising Nadine El Sayed A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements by the University of Westminster for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, June 2015 DECLARATION I certify that this thesis I have presented for examination for the PhD degree at the University of Westminster is my own work. El Sayed, 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For putting up with my endless emails, re-writes and edits – sometimes all within two hours of each other – and her constant guidance and support, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Naomi Sakr. For putting up with my complaining, mood swings, self-doubts, bouts of “what did I get myself into” and a whole lot of starry eyes, non-responsive, thesis- contemplating states, I have to thank my family. To my mother, I am endlessly thankful for your constant support, for all those pages you read and re-read and miraculously found interesting even though you had no previous interest in bloggers or media theories and for spending hours discussing - and pretending to be fascinated by - my thesis. I have to thank my father for pushing me to do this in the first place, trusting my abilities, even when I had doubts and always having high hopes for me. And to my husband: I can’t thank you enough for putting up with four years of my staring endlessly at a computer screen followed by hours of rants and all the support you gave me these past two years. I would also like to thank my brother for constantly nagging me into working and finishing up writing, every week of every month. Thanks to my girls who managed to understand when I missed all those dinners, movies and get-togethers because I was home analyzing data and editing chapters. Last but not least, I am truly thankful for all my interviewees, bloggers, journalists and marketers, this couldn’t have come to life without your kind help and insightful input. I am also thankful to everyone who helped me get access to my interviewees or the media platforms I studied. El Sayed, 3 ABSTRACT This research looks at how the shift in the status of Egyptian bloggers from underground dissident voices to mainstream political and media players affected the plurality they add to the public space for discourse in Egypt’s authoritarian settings. The role of the internet – and more recently social media and bloggers – in democratic transition has been studied by various media scholars since the introduction of the worldwide web and especially after the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings of 2011. But no work has been done to study how bringing those once-underground bloggers into the public and media spotlight affected the nature of the blogosphere and the bloggers themselves. Star bloggers were not only covered by the media after January 25th, 2011, they also started joining the media as column writers; a move that had various effects on them and the blogosphere but was never examined in media studies. The plurality the blogosphere adds to the Egyptian public space for discourse in light of those changes as well as in light of the financial and practical sustainability of blogging was hence never looked at in a context similar to Egypt’s. Guided by modified theories of the public sphere and theories of hegemony and manufacturing consent, I look at whether bloggers have been co-opted into the historical bloc in the process of renewing the social order and how this affects them and the online sphere. Also, guided by theories of power and media elites, I look at bloggers’ backgrounds to assess whether they come from power elites and are transforming into media elites, thus limiting the plurality of the online sphere. Finally, guided by theoretical works on institutionalizing and commercializing the internet, I look at how those shifts into mainstream affect the independence and freedom of the blogs and micro- blogs. The research uses a comparative study to assess how those changes affect prominent versus less prominent bloggers and compare their backgrounds. The study uses quantitative content analysis and framing analysis of chosen media outlets and interviews with bloggers, marketeers and media professionals. The findings trace an increase in media coverage of bloggers post January 25th, 2011, especially in the prominent bloggers category, and an overall positive framing of bloggers post the uprising. This led to the mainstreaming of bloggers into the media as well as public work, which had various implications on the freedom they had over their content and voice, both online and offline. It also points to a dramatic decrease in bloggers’ activity on their blogs in favour of mainstream and social media and due to star bloggers becoming more career-oriented and their failure to make blogs financially sustainable. The findings also indicate that more prominent bloggers seem to come from more elite backgrounds than others and enjoy luxuries that allow them the time, technology and security to post online. This research concludes that the shifts in bloggers’ status post-January 25th have limited the plurality they add to the discourse in Egypt. El Sayed, 4 Chapter I: Introduction ……………………………………………….…p. 10 1.1. Theoretical positioning ……………….………...……………..…p. 10 1.2. Background to the research question ………….………………..p. 15 1.3. Identifying the research questions ……..………………...……...p. 20 1.4. Methodological orientation ……………………………………....p. 23 Chapter II: Conceptual Framework: ………………………….………..p. 27 2.1. The Blogosphere. ………………………………………….……...p. 27 2.1.1.Emergence and definition of ‘blogs’ …………………….....…p. 27 2.1.2. The Death of the Blogosphere? …………………...…….……p. 30 2.1.3.The public discourse in Egypt’s authoritarian setting…........…p. 31 2.1.4The Egyptian blogosphere …………………………………..…p. 33 2.2. The Public Sphere and the Blogosphere ……………….…….....p. 36 2.2.1. Public sphere and Habermas ……………..………….…...…...p. 36 2.2.2. Adapting modified theories of the public sphere to the online sphere …………………………………………………..……….p. 39 2.2.3. Utopian views of the internet and blogs …….………..…….…p. 41 2.2.4. Dystopian views of the internet and blogs ….………..…….…p. 42 2.3. Hegemony and Manufacturing Consent ……………..…..……..p. 48 2.3.1. Hegemony …………………………………………………….p. 48 2.3.2. Manufacturing consent ………………………………………..p. 52 2.3.3. Conceptualizing intellectuals ……………………………..…..p. 55 2.4. Theorizing Elites …………………………………………………p. 58 2.4.1. Power elite ……………………………………………………p. 59 2.4.2. Media elite and the blogosphere ………………………...……p. 62 2.5. Funding, Organizational theory and Institutionalization of Blogs / Blogs as a Business …………………………………………………...p. 66 2.5.1. Costs of blogging …………………………….………...……p. 67 2.5.2. Institutionalizing blogs …………………………………...…p. 68 2.5.3. Funding alternatives …………………………………………p. 73 2.6. Summary and Discussions …..………………….………..………p. 76 Chapter III: Methodology ………………………………………………p. 78 3.1. Introduction and Overview …………………………..………….p. 78 3.2. Literature on methods used and limitations ……………………p. 79 3.2.1. Qualitative and quantitative research and triangulation ...…..p. 79 3.2.2. Media framing and content analysis ……………………...…p. 82 3.2.3. Interviewing ……………………………………………...….p. 87 3.2.4. Collecting background data on blogs and the media …….….p. 91 3.3. Methods used and application to research questions …………p. 92 El Sayed, 5 3.3.1. Content and framing analysis ……………………………...p. 93 3.3.2. Interviews with bloggers, marketing executives and media professionals …………………………………………….…….p. 106 3.4. Reflecting on the Ethical Dimension of Interviewing Opposition Figures ………………………………………………………………...p. 111 Chapter IV: Contextualizing the Egyptian Media….……………...…p. 114 4.1. A turning point ………………….……….……….……….……p. 114 4.2. Media landscape and plurality……………….…………...……p. 118 4.2.1. Al-Ahram ……..……………………………………….……p. 119 4.2.2. Al-Masry Al-Youm ……………….……………..…….……p. 121 4.2.3. The Daily News Egypt (DNE) ………..…….………………p. 122 4.2.4. Ten PM ………..………………………….……..…………p. 123 4.2.5. Baladna Bel Masry ………..………………………………p. 124 4.3. Opinionated journalism.…………….……….…………….……p. 127 4.4. Conclusion and discussion………….……….…………….……p. 129 Chapter V: Media Findings: Image and coverage of bloggers before and after January 25th ………………………….……………………………p. 134 5.1. Findings from quantitative content analysis of offline media ..p. 134 5.1.1. Print ……………………………………..………………….p. 134 5.1.1.1. Al-Masry Al-Youm ……………………………….…..p. 135 5.1.1.2. Al-Ahram …………………………………………….p. 135 5.1.1.3. Daily News Egypt ………………….……………..….p. 136 5.1.1.4. Reflections and total statistics for quantitative analysis of print ……………………………...…………………………….p. 137 5.1.2. Broadcast ……………………………………….………….p. 139 5.1.2.1. Ten PM ……………………………………………….p. 142 5.1.2.2. Baladna Bel Masry ………………………………..….p. 143 5.1.3. Reflections and total statistics for quantitative analysis of broadcast ……………………………...………………………….p. 143 5.2. Findings from framing analysis of offline media ……….….…p. 148 5.2.1. Print ……………………………………….………..…….p. 149 5.2.1.1. Al-Masry Al-Youm ……………………………….…p. 149 5.2.1.2. Al-Ahram ……………………………..…………….p. 153 5.2.1.3. The Daily News Egypt ………………………..…….p. 157 5.2.1.4. Reflections and total statistics for quantitative analysis of print ……………………………………………………………p. 160 5.2.2. Broadcast …………………………………………………p. 165 5.2.2.1. Ten PM ………………………………………….…p. 165 El Sayed, 6 5.2.2.2.