Egyptian journalists and the struggle for change following the 2011 uprising: The ambiguous journalistic agency between change and conformity

Abstract

The Egyptian media displayed a high level of content diversity in the final years of the Mubarak regime, prior to the 2011 uprising. This diversity expanded considerably after the uprising when national media embodied expressions of dissent with unprecedented openness, in defiance of the entrenched identity of the journalist as the regime’s guard. This article investigates the dynamics of journalistic agency in Egyptian newsrooms in search for a new identity, investigating the challenges, hopes and trade-offs of a painful process of change. It looks at the complex interplay between these agentic dynamics and inherited structures within an uncertain and highly contested transition to democracy, which finally collapsed into a new chapter of authoritarianism. The article argues that while journalistic agency helped support trends towards democratization in media and politics in the immediate aftermath of the uprising, it also acted as powerful platform in ‘othering’ opponents preparing the ground for the return of autocratic practices and ultimately the fall of the democratic experiment.