Nationale tv-strategier under det arabiske forår

Abstract

Since the beginning of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria in winter and spring 2010-2011, the national Arab televisions (state or private owned) have found themselves in a challenging situation. They have been forced to find a balance between traditional loyalties to the ruling power and loyalty towards journalistic standards of critical and objective coverage of popular national uprisings. Gradually, during the periods of uprisings, television has changed its coverage in accordance with the local national development of the revolutionary movements. This paper will analyse such changes of coverage. The basis of the analysis is the coverage of the uprisings in Egyptian television, primarily in news programs, in the period January – August 2011. The general argument of the paper is that Egyptian television in this period has gone through six phases in their coverage. In the paper the phases will be explored and illustrated by examples.