The Psychological Impact of Negative Media Messaging: An Egyptian Social Experiment (Arabic)

• Published in: Arab media & society 2020-09 (29)
• Main Author: Abdel-Fattah, Moataz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1687-7721; 1687-7721
• DOI: 10.70090/MAF29ESE

This paper examines the content and impact of negative messages targeting the Egyptian state, its figures, and institutions. After laying out the relevant literature and history of the pertinent concepts such as fourth-generation warfare, media propaganda, rumors and framing, this analysis limits its data to two months of anti-Egyptian rhetoric aired by Al-Jazeera Mubasher (based in Qatar), Mekamelin, and Al-Sharq (based in Turkey); and their social media outlets from August 25th through October 25th, 2019. Upon dissecting these negative messages, the author found that there is consistency among the three outlets in attacking the Egyptian president, his family, the military and intelligence institutions, and public opinion leaders, among others. Among the techniques used by these outlets are false flag, sensationalism, disparagement, defaming, segmentation and targeting, and dissemination of rumors, as well as others. To examine the impact of these negative messages on the targeted groups of educated youths, an illustrative sample of 174 students from two universities (Cairo University and British University in Egypt) were asked to take part in a social experiment. The students were exposed to the anti-Egyptian state messages as depicted in the three mentioned media outlets, then were asked to respond to a survey measuring the impact of these messages on them. Then they were exposed to another set of pro-Egypt messages with another survey measuring the impact of the new set of messages. A series of focus group discussions were conducted to add depth to the survey. The study found that the anti-Egyptian state messages had a minor impact on participants, yet this impact was almost reversed when respondents were exposed to pro-Egyptian state messages.