Blurred Boundaries or Conflicting Epistemologies

Abstract

In this article, I discuss how information activists and journalists in Egypt claimed to acquire knowledge about the world, looking particularly at the period of 2012 and 2013, during which the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and Mohammed Morsi in turn were leading the country. Taking a point of departure in anthropological fieldwork with information activists and journalists in Egypt, I show that information activists and journalists often had very similar practices and goals, which at times made the boundaries very blurry. Yet I argue that there was a significant distinction between the epistemologies of information activists and journalists. Information activists claimed to acquire knowledge about events from being part of them, whereas journalists claimed to acquire knowledge about events from observing them without taking part. Relatedly, information activists and journalists had significantly different relationships with their audiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Egypt
• epistemology
• information activism
• journalism
• media
• media anthropology

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I do not disclose names of any journalists I mention in this article. Some journalists I have spoken to asked for anonymity and others did not. I have chosen to keep everyone anonymous, as it is impossible for me to foresee potential security threats or other harm to journalists that could be related to things I write. However, I do mention activist collective Mosireen by name. I find this ethically sound since what I quote the Mosireen activists saying is similar to what they have said elsewhere in public. They, of course, consent to my use of the name.

2. For an overview of the repression of the media environment in Egypt, see https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2014/egypt#.VeSanJcl8g4.

3. Journalists, however, have also been targets of shootings in Egypt. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 10 journalists have been killed in Egypt since 2011, 9 of them shot though not all have been shot by the police or army (https://cpj.org/killed/mideast/egypt/).

4. See https://cpj.org/killed/mideast/egypt/.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been carried out under the auspices of International Media Support (IMS).