On March this year, the conference on Rebuilding Egyptian Media for a Democratic Future took place in Cairo under the auspices of Professor Emad Abou Ghazi, Egypt’s Minister of Culture, and the chairmanship of Dr Basyouni Hamada, Professor of Communication and Public Opinion at Cairo University and Dr Naomi Sakr, Professor of Media Policy at the University of Westminster, UK.
The conference was attended by 59 media, communication and law scholars and professionals from Egypt and 15 other countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, India, Jordan, Lithuania, Palestine, Romania, Serbia, South Africa, USA, UK), as well as groups of Egyptian university students, and was addressed by 30 speakers representing 19 institutions, including universities, broadcasters, media production companies, non-governmental organizations and one intergovernmental body (UNESCO).
Basyouni Hamada (right), Vice Dean of Cairo University Faculty of Mass Communication
Debates took place in eight sessions, the last of which produced a collective closing statement. Of the remaining seven sessions, some sought to extract lessons learned from previous democratization or identify universal challenges of establishing and sustaining democratic media. Others’ focused on the Egyptian context, including how to create an enabling environment for media democratization and ways of democratizing state-owned media.
The summary that you can find in here therefore encompasses findings that have emerged internationally and may be relevant to the new situation in Egypt, while also addressing specifics of Egyptian media. It is based around four themes that emerged from presentations and discussions.
Background papers produced for this conference will be published in this site shortly.
This conference report was produced by Dr Naomi Sakr and Dr Basyouni Hamada.
List of participants
Speakers’ bios
Conference program