The American University in Cairo School of Global Affairs and Public Policy THE IMAGES OF ALCOHOL AND ABSTINENCE IN EGYPTIAN FILMS: A CONTENT ANALYSIS A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts by Arpi Sarkis Khatcherian Bachelor of Arts, Journalism and Mass Communication, 2013, AUC Under the supervision of Dr. Naila Hamdy, January 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 1 A. Statement of the Problem ................................................................................................................. 6 II. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................ 8 A. Defining Alcohol ............................................................................................................................... 8 B. Historicizing Alcohol in the Middle East ....................................................................................... 8 C. Religious Views of Alcohol ............................................................................................................. 9 D. The Alcohol Industry in Egypt ...................................................................................................... 12 E. Alcohol in Egypt Today .................................................................................................................. 16 F. Alcohol and the Egyptian Identity ................................................................................................. 21 G. Contextualizing Cinema ................................................................................................................. 25 H. Egyptian Cinema at a Glance ......................................................................................................... 27 I. Censorship in Egyptian Films ......................................................................................................... 30 III. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ................................................................................................... 32 A. The Media and Perceptions of Social Reality.............................................................................. 33 1. Social Cognition Mechanisms. .......................................................................................... 35 B. Social Cognitive Theory and Mediated Modelling ..................................................................... 37 1. Mediated Models. .............................................................................................................. 41 2. Moral Disengagement through Modeling. ......................................................................... 44 3. Mechanisms of Modelling. ................................................................................................ 45 4. Media Effects on Adolescents. .......................................................................................... 47 5. Conclusions about Social Cognitive Theory. ..................................................................... 48 IV. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................. 50 A. Mediated Alcohol Depiction – Health Communication Perspective ........................................ 50 1. Movie depictions of alcohol. .............................................................................................. 51 ii 2. Other media depictions of alcohol. .................................................................................... 56 3. Movies and early-onset consumption of alcohol. .............................................................. 57 4. Other risky behaviors in the mass media. .......................................................................... 59 B. Alcohol Portrayals in Egyptian Films ........................................................................................... 59 V. METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................................................. 66 A. Research Questions and Hypotheses ............................................................................................ 67 B. Qualitative Expert Interviews ........................................................................................................ 68 C. Quantitative Content Analysis ....................................................................................................... 72 1. Sampling. ........................................................................................................................... 76 2. Unit of Analysis. ................................................................................................................ 78 3. Operationalization. ............................................................................................................. 80 VI. FINDINGS OF IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS................................................................................... 84 A. Impact of Egyptian Cinema ........................................................................................................... 84 B. Did Cinema Shape Society? ........................................................................................................... 84 C. Themes in Egyptian Cinema .......................................................................................................... 89 D. Censorship and Egyptian Films ..................................................................................................... 90 E. Prevalent Depictions of Alcohol in Egyptian Films .................................................................... 92 1. Drinking as a Sign. ............................................................................................................. 92 2. Alcohol as a Dramatic Tool. .............................................................................................. 95 F. Factors Associated with Alcohol in Films .................................................................................... 97 1. The Gender Factor. ............................................................................................................ 97 2. The Class Association ........................................................................................................ 98 3. Other Factors. ................................................................................................................... 102 VII. RESULTS OF THE CONTENT ANALYSIS ............................................................................ 110 A. Alcohol Content in Films ............................................................................................................. 111 iii 1. Alcohol Content versus No Alcohol Content. ................................................................. 111 2. Alcohol Content Per Cinematic Period. ........................................................................... 111 3. Genre and Alcohol Content. ............................................................................................ 112 4. Percentage of Alcohol Content in Each Film................................................................... 113 B. Describing the Alcohol Content in Films ................................................................................... 114 1. Explicitness of Alcohol Content. ..................................................................................... 115 2. Underage Drinking and Alcohol Use in the Presence of Children. ................................. 118 3. Alcohol Effects. ............................................................................................................... 118 4. Attitudes towards Alcohol. .............................................................................................. 119 5. Describing Alcohol Consumed. ....................................................................................... 120 6. Risky Behaviors. .............................................................................................................. 121 7. Drinking Milieu. .............................................................................................................. 122 8. Describing Alcohol Drinkers. .......................................................................................... 122 VIII. DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................ 123 A. The Prevalence of Alcohol in Egyptian Cinema ....................................................................... 123 B. Describing the Nature of Alcohol Content in Egyptian Cinema ............................................. 128 C. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 131 D. Recommendations ......................................................................................................................... 133 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................... 134 iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to… My mum Araxy, who makes everything seem so simple and easy. For the immense