THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION OF 2011 AND ITS AFTERMATH IN EDITORIALS HEADLINES: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE REPRESENTATION OF EGYPT IN AMERICAN AND BRITISH MEDIA EDITORIALS

The Arab world, starting from December 2010 onward, has witnessed unprecedented revolutions during which many long-lasting Arab leaders were unseated. Western media has allotted much coverage to the uprisings especially in nations, such as Egypt, with which the West, namely the U.S, shares mutual political ambitions in the Middle East. This study analyses a sample of 101 editorials headlines that were written, between 2011 and 2018, by the NYT, the WP, the Guardian and the Telegraph and suggests that these papers treatment of the revolutions is reflective of Orientalist conceptualizations that inferiorize Egypt and the Egyptians. The study draws on Edward Saids postcolonial model of Orientalism (1978) to make sense of the selected sample and targets two main areas in critical media studies quantitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis (CDA), to uncover whether or not the four newspapers editorials headlines are suggestive of Orientalist modes of thought. The study concludes that the coverage under scrutiny connects the West with the East in a way that is characterized by power relations wherein the West is having the upper hand, and thus producing a rhetoric that is stereotypical and Orientalist.