News framing of Peter Greste's imprisonment in Egypt
Abstract
This research aims to examine how Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste imprisonment was portrayed in both the Australian and the Egyptian media. In light of the framing theory and Gatekeeping Theory, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to examine a total number of 69 news articles of the most visited news websites in each country. A non-probability purposive sampling technique was utilized to select 35 Australian news stories from news.com.au, and 34 Egyptian news articles from each of Egypt Independent and Ahram Online websites. The duration under study is a seven-month period that witnessed the journalist’s sentencing to seven years of prison on June 23rd, 2014, until reporting his release on February 2nd, 2015. Through analyzing these articles, the research concluded that both countries’ media were similar in: the overall portrayal of Greste through reporting on the case, the portrayal of the unfair processing of the case, and the portrayal of the consequences of this case on restricting media freedom in Egypt. However, Egyptian media showed some partiality in reporting on the evidence, portraying the criticism of the Egyptian authorities –whether the President or the judiciary- and portraying the violations against human rights in Egypt. Therefore, the framing of Greste’s case in Egyptian, versus Australian news articles, confirms that the media in Egypt are relatively restricted.