DEDI Media Club (DMC), a subsidiary of the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute, held its last session titled “How do you evaluate the role of the Egyptian media in shaping the political consciousness of citizens? The referendum on the constitution to be taken as a model”, in Cairo on March 1, 2014”. The subject was chosen in view of the controversy raised over the relationship between the issues and topics presented by the media and the formation of the political consciousness of the Egyptian citizen. This latter controversy affects the degree of political participation in Egypt especially with the current happenings and the amount of decisions and political situations that require positive participation from the citizens, the latest of which was the referendum on the Egyptian constitution which took place from 8-12 January for Egyptians living abroad and on the 14th and 15th of January for local Egyptians.
Various media figures participated in this session including broadcast journalist Lilian Dawood; Dr. Amr Hamzawy, prominent politician and former member of the people’s assembly; Dr. Inas Abdel Hamid, a media professor at Ahram Canadian University; Ashraf Abdel Shafi, writer and journalist at “Al-Ahram” foundation, and Egyptian blogger Amr Ezzat. The session was concluded by honoring the prominent Egyptian journalist Hamdi Qandil for his role in enriching the Egyptian and Arab media; he was then interviewed by Sherif Amer. This report deals with the assessment of the Egyptian media’s role in shaping the political consciousness of the Egyptian citizen: to which extent is the Egyptian media objective? What is the desired role to be played by the media in shaping the political consciousness of the Egyptian citizen? And how is it possible to save the media from the trap of political dependency?
