Maher Hamoud, The Political Economy of Egyptian Media: Business and Military Elite Power and Communication after 2011 (Bloomsbury / I.B. Tauris, 2023).

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

Maher Hamoud (MH): The decision to embark on this book venture assumed the character of an ethical dilemma. Concurrently pursuing an academic trajectory in development studies, I found myself navigating diverse professional experiences, including being an economic advisor in Egypt's mining sector and a journalist, culminating in my role as the editor-in-chief of The Daily News Egypt from 2012 to 2014, before immersing entirely in academia. 

While my fervor resided predominantly in matters of inequality within the Global South and the complexities of development planning, the convergence of my “accidental” media career, intertwined with my experiences in the mining sector, and an enduring focus on political economy, compelled me to address a gap in academic literature. My “good luck” as a development economist provided me with an intimate knowledge of Egypt's influential business and military elites, both within and outside the media landscape. As the editor of a prominent newspaper, later subjected to full governmental control, I gained unique insights into the inner workings of Egypt's “dirty” media kitchen—an encounter seldom afforded to an academic political economist. The conviction arose that, unless I undertook the task, the nuances of this intersection—my almost accidental immersion in both media and the mining sector—might remain unexplored by other academics.

This thematic pursuit converges various analytical aspects, including the hegemony of Egypt's civilian business elite, the military business elite, their interrelation, their (dis)coordinated influence over the media market pre- and post-2011 uprising, and the contextualization of these dynamics within a persistent narrative of economic injustice.

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

MH: The Political Economy of Egyptian Media engages in a compound examination of the prevailing economic influence wielded by Egypt's business and military elites, coupled with their ownership or control of private media entities. The core argument posits that sustaining this hegemony necessitates the strategic exercise of power to secure consent under changing conditions, particularly in the face of transformative events such as the 2011 uprising and the subsequent 2013 military coup. Addressing this central inquiry into the mechanisms through which Egypt's ruling elites assert hegemony over the media landscape, the analysis is situated within the interdisciplinary framework of critical political economy (CPE). Employing a qualitative approach, the book delves into prominent privately-owned newspapers and television channels, explaining their ownership structures, and is embedded with a series of fifteen rich interviews conducted over a seven-year period with key stakeholders and experts in the Egyptian media market. 

In adherence to the established theoretical and methodological frameworks, the subsequent chapters dissect five key themes in response to the overarching inquiry of how al-Sisi successfully restructured the media market, formerly dominated by Mubarak's business elite, in favor of the military. Chapter Two delves into the contemporary Egyptian economy and media landscape, spanning from the 1952 military coup to the present, with a particular emphasis on the decade preceding the 2011 uprising. This chapter scrutinizes the pre-uprising role of the business elite and its subsequent transformation in terms of military ownership in the media market. It further examines the profiles of media investors along with media personnel, elucidating their roles in mediating the interests of the business and military elites. Chapter Three sheds light on the often-overlooked advertising sector in Egypt, revealing that media investments, contrary to conventional market dynamics, are not primarily profit-driven. Chapter Four evaluates the impact of social media in Egypt from the uprising onwards, exploring its role in political dynamics, military utilization, and the rise of surveillance technology against dissenting voices. Following this foundational analysis, Chapter Five reviews media coverage of pivotal events post-2011, encompassing the uprising, the coup, and subsequent changes, including the pro-military Tamarod Campaign and the elevation of al-Sisi as a national “saviour.” Chapter Six examines the erosion of freedom of expression, alongside violence against journalists and the demonization of critical news outlets. The chapter concludes by scrutinizing the military's unconventional invasion of the once regionally popular Egyptian soap opera market, now overcome by less oppressive and more creative media markets in the region.

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MH: This book unfolded as a welcomed interruption from my focus as an economist. Embarking on my professional journey, I initially navigated the terrain of conventional “mainstream economics” before transitioning into the realm of the political economy of development, with a pronounced focus on inequality. The exploration of the Egyptian media market emerged as a deviation, affording me valuable insights into the intricate dynamics of power, hegemony, and counter-hegemony, all framed within the context of the masses—an insightful case study that enriched my personal comprehension of these multifaceted concepts. After publication, armed with better understanding of theoretical insights and practical knowledge, I have returned to the realms of economic development in the Global South. My renewed focus encompasses issues of development planning and international trade, where the profound disparities in the exchange of value between the Global North and South cement the existing systemic economic injustice. This transition marks a scholarly resurgence of my passion for economic development, drawing from the experiences gained during the course of writing this book as a monograph. 

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MH: Being the first book delving into this subject matter, The Political Economy of Egyptian Media assumes the dual role of a case study and an elaborate country profile, which could interest scholars and practitioners across diverse disciplines, including Middle Eastern studies, political sciences, media studies, and political economy of communication, among others. It additionally serves as a historical document encapsulating a disturbing period in Egypt's history, where the media played a pivotal role in counter-revolutionary dynamics, magnifying and reinforcing the misleading narratives propagated by those in power. Positioned as a scholarly text, I anticipate that, as Egypt’s political environment eases someday, both scholars and the general public might hopefully turn to this work as a reliable and accurate reference, providing a comprehensive account of the actual events of that period in history. Furthermore, my aspiration extends to hopefully the translation of the book into Arabic, facilitating accessibility for a broader audience and better understanding of politics by the general public, not only scholars. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MH: I have recently released a special issue titled “The Political Economy of Authoritarianism in the Arab Region.” Currently, I am immersed in a research project that originated from reflections that begun several years ago on the theme of “economic graduation”—the transformation of developing countries into fully developed economies. Adopting a perspective within the framework of “political economy of time,” my focus is on trying to understand the intersecting factors that either accelerate or slow down this process of economic graduation. This study involves comparative analyses between already “graduated” economies in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, with a critical examination of the shortcomings evident in the trajectories of Arab economies.

J: With your book in mind, how do you envision the future of the Egyptian media market? 

MH: My book does not specifically delve into predicting the future of Egypt's media market. Nevertheless, the insights developed during the manuscript's production process highlight two serious challenges that may irreversibly flatten this media market. First, the media market is currently grappling with substantial financial losses. It operates within the confines of a dictatorship, manifesting various ailments—detailed in the book—and thus leading to a significant shift of audiences toward alternative media markets, accessible via internet and satellite technologies. Secondly, irrespective of the dictatorship's stance, the media market is entangled in a broader global trend—facing the pressures of social media and digital giants. Even in established democracies, this has prompted speculation about the eventual triumph of social media over traditional media; the Egyptian media will also bleed significant losses. However, my perspective diverges from this dim prospect, foreseeing the reconstruction of traditional media (especially in democratic environments) in domains where social media may struggle, such as investigative journalism, as one example. This crisis, I believe, will foster the re-emergence of a new and resilient media ecosystem in democracies. In Egypt, under its current authoritarian regime, the existing market may face complete dismantling before any resurgence of free media. Nonetheless, I remain optimistic, anticipating that once the oppressive political climate subsides in the future, Egyptian journalists, editors, and media producers in the diaspora—forced to flee the country due to post-2013 coup violent repression—will return, equipped with newfound media expertise. Among the Egyptian media diaspora scattered around Europe and North America, even a modest fraction, say a thousand individuals, possess the potential to reconstruct an entirely new media market when the political environment, willingly or unwillingly, permits.

Excerpt from the book (from Chapter One, pp. 4-8)

To better inform the analysis of the background of Egypt’s business and military elites and their interests in influencing the media, this book takes a Critical Political Economy (CPE) approach. CPE, as its name indicates, critically studies the political economy of power relations and the socioeconomics that shape the communication of information from the mass media to its publics. In this sense, the main question of this book will be answered by critically analysing relevant literature covering Egypt’s business elite and its private media market, along with a series of interviews with media experts. This book will in turn answer a set of related sub-questions in each of the following chapters. And through this, a general picture of the post-Mubarak media market will be gradually drawn while explaining how the country’s business elite has controlled the private media in their favour and in favour of the military, pushing certain political agendas, and how they continue, willingly or unwillingly, to maintain this control until present. To provide and analyse these details, the book will also discuss their initial position before the 2011 revolution as a power group interested in protecting their privileges in a free-market economy. The topic of Egypt’s political economy of communication has been partially and insufficiently covered in some literature, but never in one comprehensive book.

Social production takes place in the economy, politics and culture. Humans produce use-values, collective decisions and meanings. The economy and work are not limited to the production of physical goods. Also, culture and politics are on the one hand part of the economy: humans produce and communicate meanings and collective decisions in social processes. But culture and politics are not identical with the economy. They are simultaneously part and no-part of the economy. Once produced, rules and meanings take effect all over society.

Christian Fuchs in saying the above brings us to arguments about the commodification of culture and politics, which cannot be separated from economic influences. This opens the door to a whole multi-layered discussion on the relation between the economy, politics and society and how rules are communicated or, as would be argued later, enforced over a society as messages through the media. CPE is introduced here in this chapter and will constructs most of the discussions throughout this book of political economy with the purpose of understanding the power position of Egypt’s business and military elites. The use of CPE in this book starts with a theoretical discussion about the position of elites in general in relation to concepts of hegemony and social relations. Then the principles of these discussions will be applied to the Egyptian case in the following chapters, topic by topic, where the available literature will be discussed and combined with interviews conducted in the course of this research. 

CPE is rooted in diverse traditions, strands and clusters (across time, subject area and regions) that have been developing over decades and continue to do so until today. Despite the fact that CPE can be traced back to earlier points in the 20th century, namely the Frankfort School, the 1960s and 1970s were particularly important for CPE, which was largely influenced by Western Marxism, the rise of dissident social movements, and anti-imperialist sentiments worldwide at that time. After a period of relative decline of Marxist thought in the 1980s, communications scholarship in 1990s developed to more affirmative accounts due to the growth of digital media and analysing the rise of neoliberalism, which gave an edge to CPE analysis of the media industries. Proponents of the democratization theory and free market economy recognize the mass media as a potential and influential actor of democratization because, unlike earlier instances of democratization, the current ‘global wave of democracy’ is taking place in a media-saturated environment. This argument is supported by a well-established ‘conventional’ political economy tradition, which argues that the free market guarantees independence, diversity and the accountability of commercial media. In this view, the free market ensures that the free media are independent of governments, and hence it produces a diverse media system since all are free to publish. It also ensures the media is representative of society, since media enterprises must respond to their audiences. However, what actually happens is that media investors make arrangements with governments, for the reason that they share agendas and benefit mutually from cooperation. Hardy’s strongly critical view of the neoliberal media is interestingly also supported by free-market media economist Gillian Doyle, who says that since the early days of printing, the ability to communicate with mass audiences has been subject to many forms of intervention by state authorities, and that media industries are affected not only by ‘normal’ economic and industrial policy concerns, such as growth and efficiency, but also by a range of special considerations that reflect the socio-political and cultural importance of mass communication. In the end, the assumption of democratization, in the sense that the more private media we have, the more likely democracy and free media will prevail, seems very challenging in terms of its materialization on the ground, if this is indeed even possible. And in the case of Egypt, we can see that despite the country’s fairly large private or commercial media market the 2013 military coup happened and was largely supported by most state institutions and the masses that consumed the same private media. Having this said does not necessarily mean that CPE is only limited to Marxist or Marxian thought, as it shares some of the liberal pluralist thoughts about media in terms of serving citizens. The difference is that it critically challenges the role of capitalist corporate media in serving these citizens, as they claim.

CPE is essential for understanding Egypt’s media market in the context of the hegemony of power and money (political and economic) relations. Due to this focus, this critical approach stands out in the very diverse domain of political economy of communication. Two of the major scholars to whom this book pays particular attention throughout its critical approach to communication are Jonathan Hardy, referred to earlier, and Vincent Mosco, having a developed approach to understanding commodification and how it relates to social change and power relations. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky with their ‘propaganda model’ are also important to this book as they helped empirically understand the practice of control over the media from a critical political economy perspective as well. Although the propaganda model of Herman and Chomsky is US-focused, it is insightful in analysing hegemony in the American media, which provide some lessons to reflect on in considering the Egyptian media. The following paragraphs entail a theoretical discussion on CPE and how it relates to Egypt’s political economy and its media market.

In an initial answer to the question of what political economy is, Mosco argues that it is a broad-based and variegated approach to social analysis. He highlights two general characteristics, which have been used in communications research. One concentrates on social relations, particularly in power relations, governing production, distribution, and the exchange of resources; the other concentrates on the broader problems of control and survival of the elites. Mosco’s understanding of political economy in relation to media research and power relations is key to understanding the Egyptian media market. And understanding this market entails addressing the political economy of the country and the power of its business elite, which goes hand in hand with a critical discussion of their historical and contemporary backgrounds. This book pays attention to the cultural production of the private media, which in turn is a part of the broader political economy. The specific interconnections of the political and the economic are understood as structures that shape practices and strongly influence national media systems. And here it is important, in the Egyptian context, to ask ourselves who has the means and the power to produce media content, and who has access to them? To what extent do specific political and economic structures form media institutions and thus regulate flows of information? And, conversely, how does media shape the economic and political practices that eventually create structures? Fuchs argues that there are major principles that should be considered when studying political economy: the historical development of the economy; whether power and wealth are related and how these in turn are connected to cultural and social life; and basic moral questions of justice, equity and the public good. Therefore it is crucial for this book to study the history of Egypt’s business elite in periods of political, economic and social transformation, i.e. Nasser’s statist developmental project, Sadat’s Infitah, Mubarak’s hyper-neoliberalization, aided by his son Gamal, and al-Sisi’s advancements in militarizing Egypt’s neoliberal economy. In many cases we can diagnose an increased intertwining of political elites and business elites in Arab countries. Increasingly, media institutions seem to have become part of this trend, providing instruments of control and regime legitimization. As we will see in the Egyptian case, Mubarak’s last governments included several ministers in key sectors such as construction or transport, who were at the same time owners of major firms contracting with the very same ministries. And as we will see in Chapter Two, many members of this business elite surfaced again after Mubarak’s fall, and enlarged their investment portfolios through adding TV channels and newspapers, in what can be seen as clearly politically charged activity in support of the military.