ORIENTALISM IN THE AMERICAN AND BRITISH MEDIA EDITORIALS: ORIENTALIZING ISLAM AND ISLAMISTS IN THE COVERAGE OF THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS AFTERMATH (2011-2018)

Abstract

The Arab revolutions of 2011 and their aftermath produce a myriad of political contexts that triggered much coverage in the Western media. This study draws on Edward Said’s postcolonial critical model of Orientalism (1978) to locate Orientalist tropes in Western media editorials that cover the revolution and its aftermath in Egypt (2011-2018). It discusses the ideological manipulative functions of the media to see if they are utilized to provide a coverage that emanates from the classical Orientalist frames when reporting about the revolution’s participants –Muslims/Islamists. Using critical discourse analysis, this thesis examines the editorial narratives (n=101) of four highly read US and British newspapers: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Telegraph and The Guardian. The thesis outlines evidence that suggests that the selected media’s representation of the revolution’s participants is imbued with the ideology of Orientalism: Islam, political Islam, and the Muslim Brotherhood are reported through stereotypical lenses that posits them as an antithesis of the modern Western society and its values.