Egyptian Revolution and the Media

As a Communication Studies major my dissertation will  be on the role of communications in the Egyptian Revolution. I will be looking specifically at the role of news networks and the new media. Undoubtedly, Al Jazeera covered the issue with more depth than any other network out there and they are still continuing to do so and it'll be interesting to know why this is so in a critical sense. The Egyptian revolution was also framed as an 'e-revolution' in the news and there have been debates and discussions about that. While political commentators and journalists disagree with this term none of them can deny the role it played in the uprising. I think blogs and vlogs have been an incredibly fascinating aspect of the revolution especially in terms of mobilising and informing the global community.

Take this video which I found via the egypt blog. It features Samuel Vengrinovich a young man who went to Tahrir Square to experience the protests firsthand. Most news clips we usually see on television are from the perspective of activists but in this case we are witnessing a foreigner's point of view.

And not just any foreigner but an American-born Jew who currently lives in Tel Aviv.

I think it's a very well-made video in the sense that it portrayed the revolution as a positive change and Vengrinovich stayed quite objective throughout it except when he brought up the topic of Israeli-Egyptian relations at the end.

He succinctly explained his reason for going to Cairo when he said, "I've studied international politics for the last ten years, but some things you just can't learn in a class room - sometimes you just got to be there." You can read an account of his experience here.