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Occupational Status and Mass Media in Rural Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Kamal El Menoufi
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Extract

The use of mass media to shape public opinion, disseminate public information, and transform political culture, has grown tremendously in developing countries during the last two decades. Many of these countries have raised the slogan of “creationg a new man,” that is, one with skills, attitudes, and values that are conducive to development. In this respect, they have relied on mass media as a major purveyor of modern influences and as one of the most effective agents of political resocialization.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , August 1981 , pp. 257 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

Notes

Author's note. I would like to thank Professor Ithiel de Sola Pool, Massachusetts Institute of Techonology, and Professor Ali Dessouki, Cairo University, for comments and criticism on an early draft of this paper.

1 Available figures reflect this situation. In Egypt in 1975 there were 5 million radio receivers in use. Radio transmission in Arabic amounts to 94 hours and 17 minutes per week as compared with only 12 hours in 1952. Television made its debut in 1960. Overall program time rose from 15 hours per day in 1961 to 18 hours and 20 minutes in 1975; the number of television sets increased from 57,000 to 529,264 during that period. Daily newspaper circulation rose from half a million in 1956 to 712,231 in 1975. These figures are taken from UNESCO, World Communications (Paris, 1956), p.61;Google ScholarUNESCO, World Communications: A 200 Country Survey of Press, Radio, Television and Film (Paris, 1975), pp. 53–55Google Scholar, and Statistical Yearbook of Arab Republic of Egypt 1952–1975 (in Arabic) (Cairo; Central Bureau for Statistics, 1976), pp. 128–183.Google Scholar

2 Field rural communication studies in Arabic made by Egyptians up to 1979 are abstracted and compiled in Communication and Rural Development in Egypt, Annotated Bibliography (Arabic: Cairo University, M.I.T., TAP, Report No. 5, 06 1979)Google Scholar. The most important contributions in English are: Hirabayashi, Gordon and El-Khatib, Fathalla. “Communication and Political Awareness in the Villages of Egypt,” Public Opinion Quarterly. XXII (Fall 1958), 357–364;CrossRefGoogle ScholarIbrahim, Abu Lugod, “The Mass Media and the Egyptian Village Life,” Social Forces. 42 (10 1963), 97–104Google Scholar, and Iliya, Harik, The Political Mobilization of Peasants: A Study of an Egyptian Community (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974), pp. 128–165.Google Scholar

3 The six villages (Telwana, Kaha, Oleila, Abu Mosallem, Asfour, and Ezbat Radwan) are distributed over five governorates: three in the Delta (Qalubia, Menoufia, Dakahlia), one in middle Egypt (Giza) and one in upper Egypt (Sohag). No claim is made that these villages are representative of the whole countryside of Egypt, but they do represent different ecological, social, and economic configurations of rural Egypt. I did a survey in Telwana. The other village studies were conducted as follows: Kaha (Dr. Shahinaz Talaat), Oleila (Dr. Fathy Khedr), Abu Mosallem (Dr. Emad ElShaafi), Asfour (Hassan El-Kholi), and Ezbat Radwan (Mohammed Abdel Kader). These villages had in 1976 a combined population of 48,987. Seventy-one percent of the work force were agriculturalists, and 29 percent were nonpeasants. Around 698 copies of daily newspapers and 294 copies of periodicals were regularly sold. There was a total of 7,980 radio sets as well as 2,005 television sets. This represents one daily newspa er for every 70 persons, one periodical for every 167 persons, one radio set for almost every household, and one television set for every 24 persons.

4 This research project is currently conducted within the framework of Cairo University – Massachusetts Institute of Technology “Technology Adaptation Program.”

5 Because the researchers observed no involvement of women in the public affairs of the villages concerned, and also because of practical research limitations, women were not included in the survey. The respondents were not selected as a cross-section sample of the village population, but as a set of subsamples of men in specified occupations. The 207 peasant respondents were drawn from the 71 percent of the work force who were engaged in agriculture divided in turn into subcategories according to the size of landholding: 68 had less than one feddan (a feddan = 1.038 acres), 82 had 1–3 feddans, 30 had 3–5 feddans and 27 had more than feddans. The 191 non- peasants, drawn from the 29 percent of the work force engaged in nonagricultural activities were divided into the following subcategories: 76 government employees, 63 craftsmen, and 52 merchants. The figures should not be projected to the whole population for which they would provide overestimates. They are for comparison between the two main groups. The elite bias of the sample is shown by literacy figures; 49 percent of the peasants and 68 percent of the nonpeasants in the sample were literate, compared with 44 percent of the entire adult males in the six villages.

6 Availability means that media facilities are available in the villages themselves.

7 For Cramer's V, the smaller the coefficient, the larger the similarity and vice versa.

8 Significant at the. 05 level.

9 Significant at the. 05 level.

10 Insofar as political culture is concerned, I intend to focus on the attitude toward local government as well as political involvement.

11 Significant at the. 01 level.

12 Significant at the. 01 level.

13 For a detailed account on the performance of local councils, see Mohammed, F. El-Khatib, “Problems of Local Government in Egypt” (in Arabic), Misr el-Moassira. 324 (04 1966), 100–102;Google Scholar and Fathy, Abdel-Fattah, The Contemporary Village between Reform and Revolution (in Arabic) (Cairo: Dar el-Thaqafa el-Gedida, 1975), pp. 140–143.Google Scholar

14 Significant at the. 01 level.

15 Significant at the. 01 level.