The image of Turkey in Egyptian media: Content and discourse analysis of the coverage in three Egyptian newspapers

This study investigates the image of Turkey in Egyptian newspapers by conducting a content and discourse analysis of three Egyptian newspapers, Al-Ahram, El-Shorouk, and Almasry Alyoum, from January 2012 to December 2014. Based on previous literature, this study applied two theoretical frameworks: 1) Benedict Anderson’s hypnosis of imagined communities and 2) media framing theory. To apply media framing, the Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) framing scale was employed. Following that, a rhetorical discourse was used to investigate Anderson’s thesis. The study’s finding matched Semetko and Valkenburg’s framing scale. Both indicated that the attribution of responsibility is the most frequent frame in news. Finally, the discourse analysis resulted that newspapers could be deployed as an instrument to disseminate shared thoughts and ideologies among diverse citizens. TURKEY IN EGYPTIAN MEDIA 7 Introduction Benedict Anderson innovatively furnished the notion of imagined communities in his book, which carried the same name: Imagined Communities (1991). In his unprecedented thesis, he scrutinized the means of how individuals in a vast community ardently vindicate and stand for a shared imagined identity, where massive numbers of aliens, who have never seen nor met each other, stand together under this imaginary identity (Anderson, 1991). Anderson critically exposed the power of media in modern societies in constructing narratives and affecting perspectives. Although his major concern was not about media, his reflection on it was thoughtful. His perspective contributed greatly to our understanding and awareness of many past events. Moreover, scholarship in diverse disciplines were inspired by his view on society and community to perceive our present differently. Accordingly, in this study, print media will be the investigation tool. A lens to observe how national identity could be used and employed to frame and structure a set of news in a certain course in order to implement feedback on the national identity in a reciprocal process. Hence, media framing is certainly a relevant instrument. In this construct, news framing is the inbetween process. In other words, the media frames ideologies and contributes to their images; then, over a course of time, these ideologies became the context in which media operate. In social sciences, researchers create the universe of the problem through a critical observation of their reality. Moreover, they choose or select what sides, angles, and perspectives to tackle and what tools, lenses, and equipment to use, etc. Obviously, it is a subjective process. TURKEY IN EGYPTIAN MEDIA 8 The uniqueness of this subjectivity is its accumulation. Accumulative subjective research, in a positive connotation, would create a much bigger realization of how the events and issues under investigation could function. Hence, to a certain extent, forecasting future occurrences might be possible. Thus, one research might not make a significant impact, but the accumulation of work on a specific subject most likely inspires a change of how researchers or people, who may be of concern, perceive this topic. Within this conceptualization, this study comes to tackle the Egyptian–Turkish relationship, its development, and how media is reflecting upon it. It is relatively clear this relationship has shifted, to some degree, from a warm relationship to a dry one after June 30, 2013. Since this date, the international relations between Egypt and many other countries have faced many obstacles, as many of these countries remain dissatisfied with the political changes in Egypt; on the other side, the Egyptian interim-government of that time considered their dissatisfaction as an unaccepted intervention on critical national issues. So, why study Turkey and not any other country? As previously mentioned, many other countries face unstable relationships with Egypt. Qatar and the United States of America might be other examples of the unsettled relationship with the government in Cairo. To explain the rationale behind choosing to study the Egyptian–Turkish relationship and not any other Egyptian international relations, some notes need to be clarified and considered. Egyptian–Turkish relationships came to this end for many reasons. For Ankara, what happened in summer 2013 was perceived as an undemocratic transformation in the political TURKEY IN EGYPTIAN MEDIA 9 scene in Cairo. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish prime minster at that time, explicitly did not accept the new political situation in Egypt when the army, headed by General Abd El Sisi, ousted Morsi after a huge social movement (Tziarras, 2013). Erdoğan has considered the army action as a military coup. Afterward, the situation was not alleviated, and the official relationship between both countries became even worse. The Turkish government hosted what it called “members of the Egyptian opposition,” while the Egyptians accused Turkey of hosting terrorists (Tziarras, 2013). Along the same line, Turkey allowed anti-Egyptian government TV channels to operate in its territories. Finally, in November 2013, the diplomatic relationship between Egypt and Turkey became threatened when Egypt expelled the Turkish ambassador in Cairo (Saul, 2013). Other types of important relations between Egypt and Turkey should be considered as well. In this regard, nothing illustrates the positive side of the Egyptian–Turkish relationships better than the economy. The trade between both countries is nearly $5 billion per year, while the direct investment by Turkish businessmen in Egypt is more than $11 billion (World Bank, 2016). Thus, the later shift in the mutual relations between Egypt and Turkey deserves an investigation of the impacts of political tension on several dimensions, including media. Hence, for the sake of discussion, it is fundamental to delineate the edges of this manuscript in order not to create the wrong expectations. In my opinion, the best method to do so 1 Erdoğan has been serving as the president of Turkey since 2014. 2 El Sisi is the Egyptian president (2014–present). 3 Mohamed Morsi is a former Egyptian president (2012–2013). TURKEY IN EGYPTIAN MEDIA 10 is by elimination. This study is not about political communication nor is it about international communication or international affairs, and it cannot be categorized purely under the Turkish or the Middle Eastern studies. Following a rapidly growing literature on media as an ideological disseminator, as it will be exhibited later, this study uses print media production in Egypt as a tool to read the representation of Turkey. It is for this end that the study is organized; it starts with illustrating the context in which the Egyptian media is operating. Second, a short historical review of Turkey is provided. Then, the theoretical approach, literature review, and methodology will articulate the foundations of this research. Finally, the quantitative and qualitative analysis illustrate outcomes of this investigation. I argue that the case of Turkey in Egyptian media is a good manifestation of how news could manipulate events by framing it a certain direction. In conclusion, by doing so, there is a possibility to understand more about how the Egyptian press would be used as an instrument to publicize a dominant national narrative in society. TURKEY IN EGYPTIAN MEDIA 11 Historical Survey of Media in Egypt The key aspect discussed in this historical review of media in Egypt is that current media functioning did not emerge out of a vacuum; neither is it comparable with other advanced Western media systems. On this ground, it is possible to trace its roots back to the beginning of the January 25, 2011, Egyptian revolution/uprising or even deeper than that. It is not an exaggeration to claim that media in Egypt is a product of its long history, circumstances, and other societal, cultural, and political specificities. Media heritage in Egypt goes back to the early nineteenth century. In 1828, under the rule of Mohamed Ali Pasha, newspapers emerged, and the first official Egyptian newspaper was Waqai Masriya under the supervision of Rafaa El Tahtawia. By the mid-nineteenth century, nearly 200 newspapers were available in Egypt, and, before the end of the nineteenth century, the Al-Ahram newspaper was founded by Selim and Beshara Tekla (Hassan, 2013). The first half of the twentieth century has witnessed a distinguished flourishing in print media in Egypt. Despite the ups and downs regarding freedom of expression, the print market has remained broadly diverse in terms of genres, languages, formats, and political stances. As a result of this growing-up industry, in March 1941, the press syndicate was founded to be the first of its kind in the Arab world (Hassan, 2013). TURKEY IN EGYPTIAN MEDIA 12 In the same way, Egypt was also a pioneer in introducing radio service to the Arab world in May 31, 1934. Then, in 1960, during the first decade of the new republic in Egypt, the government launched the first television broadcasting service. Communication, as can be seen in Egypt, has a prolonged heritage. However, for the sake of this paper’s discussion, some scenes from the republic’s media is more relevant (Harper, 2014). This review will focus on one major feature of media in Egypt: the relationship between the state and the media’s narrative and freedom of expression. Then, it will be vital to locate the three newspapers under examination in this study, Al-Ahram, El-Shorouk, and Almasry Alyoum, within the context of the development of Egyptian media. Nasser’s State and Media Initially, after 1952, Egypt’s Nasser nationalized all print and radio media and used them to disseminate the regime’s narrative that was mainly the “attempts of political elites to fashion a new nation-state” with secular vision (Bier, 2011, p. 2). Along similar lines, Nasser’s regime used the media to promote the “non-Western socialist models of modernizatio