Sources of Advocacy: When Does the Media Give Voice to Egyptian Advocacy NGOs?

Abstract

We use quantitative text analysis methods to examine how a subset of advocacy NGOs were used as sources by Egyptian English-language media publications in the months following the 2011 uprising. Using a combination of manual classification and fully automated computational topic modeling, we reveal descriptive insights into patterns of sourcing by both state-owned and independent Egyptian media outlets. We find that NGOs are used as sources sparingly in comparison to overall journalistic output, but that the reporting that referenced these NGOs was not necessarily superficial or shallow. There is evidence that state-run media tends to be more superficial in its use of NGOs as sources while independent media are more likely to identify specific individuals and use direct quotes and paraphrases.