Abstract
The 2011 “Arab Spring” revolutions seemed to turn over a new leaf in Western news depictions of the Middle East, shifting from “angry Arab terrorist” visual stereotypes to stereotypes of youthful Internet-savvy-grassroots protesters demanding reasonable democratic reforms. This chapter examines the photographic reportage of the Associated Press wire service photojournalists during the Arab Spring and the decade that preceded it to determine if a measurable shift in coverage did occur. Just as media depictions of the student protesters involved in the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran shifted the media stereotype of Arab and Persian from Hollywood's vision of oil sheikhs, belly-dancing harem girls, and camel-riding Bedouins to young and angry religious fanatics, the largely secular democratic reforms of the Arab Spring subtly altered media conceptions of the “angry Arab.” This chapter examines media depictions of the visible elements of Middle East unrest—from Libya to Pakistan—in the ten-year period from 2002 through the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya in 2011. An examination of news photographs during the period shows subtle shifts in the imagery.
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