The 2011 Revolution in Egypt in US Print Media

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: 2,0, University of Bonn (Anglistik), language: English, abstract: "Lotus Revolution" (Egypt State Information Service1), "18-Day Revolution"(Armbruster 2011), "Nile Revolution" (Murdock February 8, 2011), "FacebookRevolution" (Herrera February 12, 2011) - what happened in Egypt at the beginning of2011 was given many different titles. Some even call it "the most unexpecteddevelopment in modern Egyptian history" (Sharp 2011b: 2). After 18 days of protestsin Cairo and other cities all over Egypt, the Egyptian people made their PresidentHosni Mubarak resign. He had been ruling the country for almost 30 years and hispeople wanted to get rid of him and his regime. That was their goal and that is whatthey achieved.Of course there were international reactions to the uprisings from all over theworld. "Numerous press reports [...] have recounted feelings of popular empowermentand pride inspired by the exploits of Egypt's young protesters" (Sharp 2011b: 5).During the revolution, European leaders urged "Egypt's transition to a newgovernment" at the beginning of February (Murdock February 4), while China blockedthe word "Egypt" from a twitter-like micro blogging website, according to AssociatedPress (quoted by Al Jazeera 2011).Further, when considering recent developments inLibya and Syria, other Middle Eastern countries seem to be inspired by the revolutionsin both Tunisia and Egypt. After Mubarak had stood down on February 11, thereactions were even stronger - "Today, we are all Egyptians", stated Norwegian PrimeMinister Jens Stoltenberg and David Cameron suggested "We should teach theEgyptian revolution in our schools" (ESIS 2011).However, the United States seem to keep a particularly eager eye on the mostpopulous country of the Middle East. Souad Mekhennet, New York Times and ZDFcorrespondent, states in an interview with the German medium magazine that"curiously, the American media reacted much faster than the European" when it comesto reporting about the Egyptian revolution (Milz 2011: 20). Moreover, she adds that thelarge US media outlets' reporting on the topic is "much more continuous and broader"(ibid.), giving a lot more background information on the region. This special attentionis most likely due to the fact that for the United States, Egypt is a highly importantactor when it comes to foreign policy in the region. [...]