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Sunday November 22, 2009

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Past Event

A Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy and U.S. Relations with the Islamic World Event

Now What? How Egypt’s Changing Media Landscape is Influencing Domestic Politics

Egypt, Media & Journalism, Politics, Middle East, Africa


Event Summary

Although Egypt’s media has been under tight government control since 1952, the technological and social changes of the past decade or so, in addition to a growing need for democratic reform in the country, have led the media to test the limits of state control. The results have been a newly revitalized and surprisingly liberal political dialogue. However, in spite of the excitement generated by this new media activism, its existence remains frail and tenuous and if it is to flourish, it will need careful nurturing.

Event Information

When

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

Where

Saul Room
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map

Event Materials

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

E-mail: SabanCenter@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6462

The Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World was pleased to host Ford Foundation Visiting Fellow Mirette Mabrouk in a discussion about the changing landscape of Arab media and its effect on Egypt’s domestic politics. Mirette Mabrouk is editor-at-large with the American University in Cairo Press, founding publisher of The Daily News Egypt, and a frequent commentator in the Arab press.

Transcript

MIRETTE MABROUK: I'm going to try and keep this quite short in case people want to ask questions, but what we're really looking at is this, has the changing media landscape in Egypt affected national politics, and if so, how do we move forward if we're interested in democratic reform because that's really what we're looking at.

Back in 1952 with the beginning of the coup d'état, three officers turned up at the television and radio broadcast building and they're still there. The media is incredibly important when you're addressing a country when you're telling people what to think, how to live, what questions they ask, it's enormously important. In 1960 the media in Egypt were completely nationalized because they had to belong to what later became the Arab Socialist Union, and it wasn't until 1970 after President Gamal Abdel Nasser died that President Anwar Sadat allowed A, the reintroduction of political parties other than the ruling party of opposition parties, and B, allowed them to print newspapers, and that was in 1970.

Participants

Speaker


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