Functions of Egyptian Journalists

Abstract

This study reports on Egyptian journalists’ rating of various journalistic functions in terms of both importance and ability to perform these functions. The functions, rated for importance, coalesced into four factors, Sustain Democracy, Support Arabism/Values, Support Government and Provide Entertainment. Egyptian journalists gave prime importance to supporting Arabism/values and also performed this function most often. They considered democracy-sustaining functions second in importance, but were able to perform them least often, at about the average level. For all function factors, perceived importance was discrepant with actual amount of performance, with the latter always being lower. The study’s contribution lies in (1) the quantitative benchmarks it establishes for Egyptian journalism practice, (2) its inclusion of functions specific to Egyptian society and press as culled from the literature and (3) its finding of the prime placement by Egyptian journalists of the function support for the Palestinian cause in terms of both importance of the function and how often they performed it. This finding may be useful in creating an understanding in the non-western world of how critical this issue is to the press and possibly therefore to the Egyptian public.