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Patrick Fitzgerald

Overview

Patrick Fitzgerald
Position: PhD Student Email: FitzgeraldPM@cardiff.ac.uk
 Telephone: +44 (0)29 208 75688
Fax: N/A
Extension: 75688
Location: Room 1.24, Bute Building

PhD Research

Legitimising Dissent? U.K. and U.S. news media coverage of the 2011 Egyptian Uprising

This research project aims to explore whether print news media in the United States and United Kingdom covered the Egyptian opposition protesters that ended the rule of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 as a legitimate protest movement. Favourable news coverage is the life-blood for any protest movement. Given the normative paradigms by which news media cover political protest, typically framing protests and protesters in terms of their purported deviancy, this project instead examines whether the opposition protesters in Egypt were constructed as an opposition movement whose voice and aspirations were legitimated, rather than denigrated.

Drawing on Foucauldian reflections on power relations and knowledge, this research will reflect on the role of ideology and journalistic routines in reporting political protest. Through a content analysis of US and UK newspaper articles, this project will examine how the protesters were framed in the period between January 25th, 2011, when the protests started, to February 12th, 2011, the day after Hosni Mubarak resigned as president of Egypt.