The Brotherhood and the Islamization Discourse in Egypt

Abstract

This paper focuses on changes in the Media-Political Communications of the Muslim Brotherhood while in power in Egypt in 2012 and 2013. The MB or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun is regarded as the mother of Islamist movements in the Middle East. During their period in power, the group established its first TV channel Misr25 and launched a daily newspaper al-Hurria wa al- 'Adala. No other studies have researched the communications of the Brotherhood or their approach to media while they were in power. The Brotherhood's communications during this period were little more than themes and trends that were communicated from the top down by the group's leadership to their media outlets, which lacked sufficient independence to do their work based on editorial values alone. This study identifies these themes, analyses them, and places them within the wider context of the literature in historical and regional contexts. This paper concludes that the Brotherhood's main aim was to achieve a constitution with an Islamic background regardless of hostility and criticism. The study also shows that the Brotherhood moved towards antagonist discourses as the opposition rallied against them, and underlines the troubled relationship between the Brotherhood and the main actors in Egyptian society, which were the army, the Christians and the secular opposition. The paper uniquely answers questions related to the Brotherhood's rule in Egypt in 2012 and 2013 through the analysis of its media.

Keywords

• arab spring
• brotherhood
• egypt
• islamization