"The visual framing of Egyptian women in 25th January revolution” A comparative study between the coverage of “AlShorouk” & “ElMasry elyoum” newspapers

This paper aimed at examining how the Egyptian private newspapers portrayed and did visually framed Egyptian women in the Egyptian revolutions. And this was done through focusing on how they did visually present the role of those women who appeared in the 25^th January revolution’s coverage.
And our main goal was to determine whether the private Egyptian newspapers visually presented Egyptian women as active or passive members of the revolution. And to specify in details the nature of their engagement in the incidents of the different protests of the revolution.
Concerning the sample, “Alshorouk” and “Elmasry elyoum” newspapers were chosen to represent the Egyptian private newspapers. As for the time frame of the study it focused on analyzing the photos that was published in the newspapers during the period of 18 days of the 25^th January revolution.
 
Different kinds of news stories were used by the newspaper in their coverage during the period of study. And results have found that “Investigation” was the most kind of news stories that had photos with women appearing in it in both newspapers. And this is because the main incident analyzed is the 25^th revolution which included lots of details to be covered and this could have only been done by investigations. These investigations were mainly about introducing details about the protests done in different parts of Egypt and mainly Tahir square and to analyze the protestor’s requests and the government reaction towards it. And that’s why most of the photos with women appearing in it were accompanied with this kind of news story because it included a lot of incidents that showed the women’s participation through it.
While “Reports” came in the second ranking in both newspapers, and this indicated that the nature of events required covering daily new incidents about the revolution as every day through the 18 days of the 25^th January revolution was full of new reactions from both protestors and government. These reactions ranged from publishing about official speeches from minsters or government to calm down protestors, to publishing about news announcements from protestors including their new requests. And each of these reports showed how much women were present in it through different protest throughout Egypt.
Concerning “Short news” and “Features” were the least to appear in the coverage of both newspapers and that was be due to the nature of these two kinds of news stories that did not fit the successive events that happened during the 25^th January revolution that needed to be tackled in much more detailed way than the way these news stories would have done. As for “short news” it depends on covering events in briefly way, while “feature” focuses mainly on showing the human interest side of the story.
Among the main goals of this study was identifying the location of women’s appearance in the newspaper’s photo coverage. Percentage of appearance of each of the different locations varied between the two newspapers.
 
Results indicated that both newspapers visually framed Egyptian women as actively engaging in the revolution in the majority of its photo coverage. And this was done by shooting their different actions of engagement through protest that included the following ones:

Marching, yelling or holding signs that clarifies protestor’s requests from the government or other that calls for Mubarak’s step out.
Different ages of women were present in the protests, as some photos showed women who participated in the protest holding their kids with them.
Female doctors and nurses were there in Tahrir square and other mosques creating small clinics for helping injured protestors.
A lot of women participated in other protests in the same period of time which called for raising employee’s wages in different governmental companies.
After the disappearance of police forces in the first days of the revolution, a lot of women participated in organizing traffic flow in the streets.

 
They had a great role in securing Tahrir square, as photos showed women responsible for inspecting other women before entering the square to make sure that no one hold weapons and that all protests are peaceful.

Some women from protestors shared their personal and social life in Tahrir square to show how much they are attached to it and not fearing anything, as some of them made their wedding there and other female teenagers made their birthdays.
As for the small percent of the newspaper’s coverage that did not show women actively engaged in the protest, this was mainly photos that included clashes between police forces and protestors or between pro and anti-Mubarak protestors. In which women appeared in the background of the photo with fear or just watching what is happening without participating.
Finally, the most important conclusion from this paper’s analysis is that private Egyptian newspapers did not vary a lot in their visual coverage for the 25^th January revolution. And that they visually framed women in an equal role as men in an important incident like the revolution, as it portrayed them participating in its different incident without showing any weakness. Coverage even assured that women’s participation wasn’t confined by a specific age or social status, as photos showed old and young women present in the revolution from different socioeconomic status.