Media Freedom in Egypt: A Comparative Analysis of Pre- and Post-Revolution Perceptions

Egypt  presents  an  interesting  case of Media freedom in  that it  is an  example  of  a  country  in  which  the government,  which  had been  in  power  for 29  years  under  a  continued  state  of emergency,  attempts  to  place  legal  impediments to  restrict  the  Egyptian  media,  but  does not completely succeed in stifling media freedom. While the government has shown itself willing to use the emergency law, harsh press laws and other aspects of the penal code to intimidate, arrest, and imprison journalists, it cannot entirely limit access to information within the country. This  is  partly  because  of  the persistence of Egypt’s journalists  and bloggers, who continued to push the envelope by taking on topics that were taboo in the past, and partly because of the country’s desire to expand economic growth, Allowing its citizens  greater  access  to different IT. On February 11, 2011, President Hosni Mubarak resigned from the presidency after 29 years in power. Technologies in this Egyptian revolution become a trendy topic. However, lots of concerns have been widely expressed about what has been termed as chaos in media organizations in Egypt & the questions remained: How Egypt political transition to a more democratic system will have major implications for promoting freedom of expression & freedom of speech?. How could we interpret new incidents like blocking “Aljazeera Misr” or the case of a blogger who was handed a jail sentence for criticizing the army? Maikel Nabil, 26, was charged with insulting the military establishment and “spreading false information". Therefore this study tends to offer a scientific attempt to monitor the most important constraints and pressures that impact negatively the freedom of Egyptian media after the revolution through examining media practitioner’s attitudes towards Media Freedom in Egypt within a wider framework of transitology theory assumptions.