Egypt

Abstract

Media accountability is a novel concept in Egypt, and its instruments remain neither sufficiently structured nor nuanced. Instead of institutionalized self-regulative tools of media accountability toward the public good, the current political climate encourages the politicized and punitive use of media laws. Debates and processes after the Tahrir Revolution in 2011 could not successfully push toward anchoring media freedom and accountability into the journalistic culture. Instead, media laws and state bodies control the media’s movement toward accountability as seen by the political incumbents. The only effective media accountability measures in Egypt are top-down ones. A review of the accountability measures shows that those coming from the political realm are the most prevalent, while those coming from journalists are scattered. Social media and the audience offer increasingly important possibilities to hold media accountable, but they are unpredictable.