Shahira S. Fahmy

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at American University in Cairo

This study examined the degree to which visitors to Al-Jazeera’s English-language website support broadcasters presenting graphic and war-related imagery in comparison to users of Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language website. The authors found that users of the Al-Jazeera English-language website overwhelmingly supported the network’s decision to run graph...

According to Galtung, a peace journalism frame is one that highlights peace initiatives and tones down differences by promoting conflict resolution. A war journalism frame, in his view, is one that highlights differences between opposing parties, urging violence as means to a resolution. Thus, based on the above classification of these two competin...

The goal of this study was to analyze the extent to which the visual coverage of the final stages (April/May 2009) of the long-lasting Sri Lankan Civil War relied on war and peace frames. Based on the revolutionary conceptual work of Norwegian scholar Johan Galtung, who viewed war and peace journalism as two competing frames in covering conflicts a...

For Palestinian journalists confronting physical and psychological threats online and on the ground, the perilous pursuit to document Israel’s war on Gaza embodies a deeper personal mission

This study uses a quantitative content analysis of memes and GIFs to contribute to the visual communication literature on digital user-generated visuals. To explore whether these digital user-generated artifacts reinforce or challenge common stereotypes of Muslim women and hijab compared with nonuser-generated media, the researchers analyzed 1,000...

This study examines the visual rhetoric and activism themes on #MahsaAmini through a quantitative content analysis of 520 visual tweets. The findings show massive support for the women's movement in Iran through a predominantly visual pro-movement slant, which highlights the role of emotional visual tweets in mobilization. The study adds a unique d...

Based on traditional peace communication scholarship, this study, embedded in journalism studies and visual politics literature, analyzes photographs of conflict using war and peace frames and explores the role social media can play in digital peacebuilding practices. A content analysis of 674 visuals of the second deadliest terrorist attack in Pak...

The work offers intricate insights into the perspectives of journalists in Gaza, examining the dangers, motivations, and challenges they face while reporting during times of war.

Desde que comenzó la guerra de Gaza el 7 de octubre, ha habido un aumento del prejuicio antiárabe y anti-musulmán en todo el mundo. Este artículo explora la compleja cuestión social de la islamofobia desde la perspectiva del encuadre (framing) y propone un nuevo enfoque metodológico basado en una investigación Delphi con expertos españoles en el ca...

This study examines the impact of the new digital communication environment on the spiral of silence mechanisms in the context of the current Yemeni crisis. The research focuses on three controversial topics related to the crisis: the role of the Arab coalition in Yemen, the legitimacy of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi and the call to disengage t...

In recent decades, ongoing armed conflicts worldwide have fueled global instability. This collection highlights the importance of understanding the evolving media landscape within the realm of conflicts. It delves into various research themes and future directions for examining news coverage amid unrest, featuring recent studies from Journalism & M...

Purpose: This study sheds light on the unprecedented complexities of the Israel-Gaza war, offering insights into the challenges that journalists face in this conflict zone. It employs the Hierarchy of Influences Model to analyze the factors influencing conflict reporting within the dynamic landscape of contemporary war journalism. Design/methodolog...

Purpose This study sheds light on the unprecedented complexities of the Israel–Gaza war, offering insights into the challenges that journalists face in this conflict zone. It employs the Hierarchy of Influences Model to analyze the factors influencing conflict reporting within the dynamic landscape of contemporary war journalism. Design/methodolog...

This comparative study analyzes the representation of women in online news in three countries that rank differently along the gender equality continuum: the United States, Sweden, and Egypt. Based on a content analysis of 420 news articles, a total of 2,210 news subjects were analyzed from six news websites. Results suggest that women continue to b...

Our study examines the visual rhetoric and activism themes on #MahsaAmini. We engaged in a quantitative content analysis of 520 visual tweets. Our findings show massive support for the movement through a predominantly visual pro-movement slant and highlight the role of emotional visual tweets in mobilization. The study contributes to the literature...

This study explores the application of social media in a violent conflict and examines the role that Twitter can play in communicative processes in light of peacebuilding practices. It bridges a gap in communication research by conducting a war/peace framing analysis on Twitter regarding the second deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan. Our result...

This white paper introduces Interactive Digital Narratives (IDN) as a powerful tool for tackling the complex challenges we face in today's society. In the scope of the COST Action 18230 - Interactive Narrative Design for Complexity Representation, a group of researchers dedicated to studying media, systematically selected six case studies of IDNs,...

By focusing on the Syrian refugee crisis compared to the refugee crisis from Ukraine, this study examined how Western media visually portrayed Middle Eastern versus European refugees on social media. Drawing on the current literature and guided by visual framing theory, a total of 1590 visual tweets of forcibly displaced Middle Easterners and Europ...

In the context of “pop politics” and “politainment,” the irruption of TikTok has changed the landscape of social media and become the fastest-growing application among young people. Based on the peculiarities of the social platform’s affordances and the political personalization approach, we explore the differences between political parties and pol...

Purpose This study uses TikTok as a novel medium to extend the literature on online activism. It adds to the emergent body of knowledge about playful political participation among youth. It also explores how creative micro-videos can be a force to create momentum and shape opinions around social and political topics. Design/methodology/approach A...

Purpose Using a mixed-method approach, this comparative study unpacks the way journalists personalized the controversial Yemen Civil War by examining the patterns of visual framing on Twitter. It further explores the influence of the individual level factor (home country or foreign identity of the journalist) and organizational level factor (countr...

Based on the hierarchy of influences model, we explored journalists’ understanding and perceptions about media convergence in Pakistan’s media industry and its influence on journalistic practices and routines. In-depth interviews with Pakistani news practitioners revealed several challenges hindering the successful implementation of media convergen...

This study bridges a gap in communication research by conducting a framing analysis of Twitter memes using the hashtag #MeToo based on the pathos, ethos, and logos persuasion appeals. We examine the use of these appeals in both visual and textual information in the most viral 1,000 #MeToo memes on Twitter during the week in which sexual misconduct...

The dominant paradigm on tourist behaviors depicts a sequential relationship among image, quality, satisfaction, and post-purchase behavior while the alternative view argues that consumer behaviors are better understood through perceived value. Using Nepal as a case, we tested a synthetic model of tourist behaviors and applied the Fombrun-RI Countr...

Soon after the Islamic State group declared itself to be the new 'Caliphate' on June 28, 2014, it launched an official transnational English-language magazine called Dabiq. The magazine, with a global outreach that transcended national and regional boundaries, covered the group's strategic direction, military strategy, and alliances. This research...

A Middle Eastern country that borders the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea, the Republic of Iran shares land borders with Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. Historically, from ancient times until the 20th century, Iran was known in the West as Persia and from the 550 BCE. until the Arab invasions...

This study examines editorial political cartoons outside the United States that featured U.S. former President George W. Bush. It plans to assess how the U.S. President was depicted in editorial cartoons in Western media and whether he was identified as a stereotypical threat during his US-led war on terrorism and the invasion of the Iraq war in 20...

This study bridges a gap in communication research by conducting an integrative framing analysis of Twitter memes based on the pathos, ethos and logos persuasion appeals. Specifically, this study examines both visual and textual information in the most popular memes of the #MeToo campaign. Results are based on a quantitative content analysis of the...

The burkini, a modest swimsuit marketed to Muslim women, was at the center of controversy in France when it was banned from the beaches in dozens of cities. This research examines how the three leading international newswires (Agence France-Presse/Getty Images, Associated Press, and Reuters) visually framed this debate and whether they visually ste...

This study empirically examines how the Syrian community in Italy engages with its homeland and receiving country on social media. The work involves the analysis of over 17,000 comments and 894 photos posted on a particular Facebook page. It offers a unique insight into how some members of the Syrian community living in Italy produce online materia...

In today’s multimedia environment, visuals are essential parts of storytelling. While visuals of loss and trauma may not represent an entire conflict, visual coverage of human suffering has prioritized the need to understand the role and impact such coverage play in framing and constructing meaning with regard to war and terrorism. Further, the sta...

U.S. President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated address in Egypt in 2009 promised a new beginning between the U.S. government and the Arab world but only a few years later there were many criticisms that the U.S. President did not live up to his promises, driving Arab attitudes toward the United States to their lowest point in years. Five years late...

Soon after the events of the so-called “Arab Spring”, a mostly Sunni revolt erupted in March 2011 against the Alawite regime of Bashar Assad. Soon afterwards, different armed factions such as the Free Syrian Army, Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State began fighting each other, creating one of the worst humanitarian crises since WWII. After several...

Research on visual effects constitutes a fertile new and expanding area of scholarship. This entry describes the variety of cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral aspects of study in this area. It seeks to understand the dimension of scholarship in visualization effects and therefore connects visual communication research to the mainstream communic...

In the age of Twitter, the media are having a hard time influencing public opinion.

In our global society where the war on terrorism knows no borders, countries are increasingly recognizing the importance of improving terrorism coverage domestically and abroad. This MC&S issue aims to consider the state of media coverage of terrorism movements, the trajectory of this coverage, and its impact on public opinion and humanitarian cris...

In Egypt in recent years the stream of violent imagery in the media has grown to a torrent, in contrast to most Western countries where graphic imagery is sanitised. Is a middle ground possible?

Based on Galtung’s concept of peace/war journalism, this exploratory work attempts to advance an empirical method to develop a survey instrument for a reliable and valid assessment of journalists’ attitudes toward peace/war performance. The authors propose a measurement index of conflict reporting which combines several practices linked to peace/wa...

Based on Galtung’s concept of peace/war journalism, this exploratory work attempts to advance an empirical method to develop a survey instrument for a reliable and valid assessment of journalists’ attitudes toward peace/war performance. The authors propose a measurement index of conflict reporting which combines several practices linked to peace/wa...

As an Egyptian-born authority on visual framing by the media – how the images they select shape public perception – I recently analysed Dabiq’s pictures for NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence in Riga, Latvia. I discuss the puzzle of what the evil geniuses behind them are up to.

The terrorist organization, Daesh, also known as the so-called ‘Islamic State/IS/ISIS/ISIL’, has launched an extremely sophisticated information campaign targeting a wide range of audiences around the world to gain support for its expansion in the Middle East. Daesh first strategic success was the public address of self-styled Caliph Abu Bakr al-Ba...

Twenty years after a foreign intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan during Saddam Hussein’s authoritarian rule, this study found that Kurdish journalists’ professional role perceptions appear, to an extent, to reflect liberal democratic news media values. The study used the hierarchy-of-influences framework to examine determinants of professional role per...

Twenty years after a foreign intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan during Saddam Hussein's authoritarian rule, this study found that Kurdish journalists' professional role perceptions appear, to an extent, to reflect liberal democratic news media values. The study used the hierarchy-of-influences framework to examine determinants of professional role per...

Gatekeeping theory and the hierarchy of influences model were used as a framework to analyze democratic norm development in Iraq. The study developed three watchdog gatekeeping models that could be adapted for other conflict or postdictatorship environments or modified for longtime democracies. The study used hierarchical regression to analyze forc...

During the years of Ba’athist dictator Saddam Hussein, media personnel were under tight control and tortured or executed when they strayed from the government line. In the decade following the fall of the Ba’athist regime, thousands of Iraqi journalists were trained in liberal democratic professional norms and hundreds of news outlets opened even a...

This study examines how Islam is covered in 18 large circulation U.S. newspapers and finds six frames that draw a nuanced picture of how Islam is framed in the news media. Two frames are negative, one is positive and three are neutral.

This study examines how Islam is covered in 18 large circulation U.S. newspapers and finds six frames that draw a nuanced picture of how Islam is framed in the news media. Two frames are negative, one is positive and three are neutral.

This study examines how Islam is covered in 18 large circulation U.S. newspapers and finds six frames that draw a nuanced picture of how Islam is framed in the news media. Two frames are negative, one is positive and three are neutral.

This article investigates the relationship between university students’ consumption of satellite TV news services and their perceptions of news issues. It examined students’ general news consumption habits and their motives for the choices they make as well as the gratifications they obtain. A survey was administered to a random sample of 325 unive...

Gatekeeping theory and the hierarchy of influences model were used as a framework to analyze democratic norm development in Iraq. The study developed three watchdog gatekeeping models that could be adapted for other conflict or postdictatorship environments or modified for longtime democracies. The study used hierarchical regression to analyze forc...

Before introducing the multiple contributions and opportunities for research examining cognitive visual effects, it is important to note that the digital age has made it possible for people to see events happen instantaneously. In this age, then, one might expect research to show that people to have a better cognition or grasp of what is going on i...

To cover the history of visual communication since its inception would require multiple books, since its story is nearly as long as the story of humanity itself. The story of mechanized visual communication, which begins in the early stages of industrialization, is a bit more manageable subject, spanning centuries rather than millennia, though that...

Our lives are filled with visual information. Some visuals are obvious—such as a Calvin Klein magazine advertisement, where the visual dominates our senses. Other visuals are so common that we take them for granted—the octagonal shape and red background of a stop sign, for example, where the shape communicates importance and the red color communica...

As the previous chapter noted, the cognitive effects of visual communication have received attention from researchers, though most of the attention has been relatively recent. The same could be said for attitudinal effects research, which has an equally rich tradition.

Who could do that? One of the most polarizing moments in photojournalistic history, and misunderstandings surrounding that moment, inspire many people to wonder how Kevin Carter could take a photo of a famished girl crouched down to rest on her way to a feeding station and being watched by a vulture. The image is a lightning rod for critics who see...

The literature suggests that audiences prefer stories of celebrities, political gossip, and human drama (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996). McQuail (2005) explained that this is why the media tend to personalize complicated events in an effort to make them both more understandable and attractive to the target audience.

In 1997, James Cameron’s movie Titanic introduced an entire generation to the tragedy of the ill-fated ocean liner. His blockbuster provides a useful example for thinking about the way people receive and use visual messages. For, while this disaster was very real, and photography did exist in its time, the mental image for anyone born in the late t...

Nearly everyone has a digital camera now, in pockets, purses, on dashboards, desktops, even children’s toys. It is hard to conceive of the days before people had the ability to perfectly and mechanically capture an image. That perfection was celebrated as “truth,” whether it delivered landscapes from afar, portraits of loved-ones, or used in scient...

As the previous chapters have outlined, research in visual communication is a robust field, providing fruitful areas for mass communication researchers. Research has become much more rigorous both methodologically and theoretically in the past 20 or so years. Indeed, there is much to be excited about in visual communication research.

Interest in the media’s roles in visuals’ effect on behavior has been increasingly growing in recent decades. There is much theoretical and empirical evidence that suggests that images attract viewers’ attention and holds it. This encourages viewers to think about the visual message in a way that would allow its content to be processed carefully so...

In today’s multimedia environment, visuals are essential and expected parts of storytelling. However, the visual communication research field is fragmented into several sub-areas, making study difficult. Fahmy, Bock, and Wanta note trends and discuss the challenges of conducting analysis of images across print, broadcast, and online media.

Abstract: This study aimed to identify form and content in Arabic-language newscasts in non-Arab TV outlets. Specifically, it examined the broadcast news inThe BBC, Al-Hurra, Russia Today and France 24 news during March 2013. Data analysis indicated almost of half of the news topics focused on political news. Regarding geographic location news focu...

In examining details of the international journey of the 2008 Olympic torch relay in the US and Chinese press, results revealed that US photos emphasized the protest frame by showing unsupported visuals of the torch relay and focusing on human rights/Tibetan independence. The Chinese dailies, on the other hand, emphasized the success of the torch r...

A survey of magazine professionals found fewer than four in 10 respondents would alter or enhance an image to improve its readability. Circulation, size and magazine type predicted whether respondents would enhance photographs. However, despite the declines in media credibility and the expectation among readers that publications would indicate when...

Keynote speech: Visual Framing in Press Photography: Prominent Trends & Methodological Challenges

Second level agenda setting offers a way of demonstrating the effects of news content by providing evidence that the attributes emphasized in news coverage become more salient in the minds of media consumers and more influential in terms of actual effects on opinions and attitudes. This exploratory study examines the substantive and affective attri...

This study examined the agenda-building process, in which interpretive frames activated and spread from the top level through the news media to the public, in the context of Obama’’s controversial health care reform. The authors examined the relationship among media coverage, presidential rhetoric and public opinion from President Obama’’s inaugura...

This critical study focuses on three major conflicts involving protests in the Middle East and North Africa. From a theoretical perspective, this research expands the study of gatekeeping by examining the characteristics of gatekeeping practices by citizen journalists. Overall findings suggest traditional ‘gatekeepers’ continue to maintain the stat...

A review of the literature indicates a plethora of studies examining the coverage of Middle Eastern conflicts, but hardly any research has been explicitly framed as being developed from a peace/war journalism perspective. The current study, therefore, represents a substantive effort to remedy this deficiency. It examines the extent to which the 201...

Using Entman’s work on mediated public diplomacy, the authors conducted an Arabic-language online survey of news consumers on Arab websites, including one US-funded media outlet. They examined factors leading to gaps in exposure and perceptions of credibility for three Arab news outlets. Specifically, they examined variables that differentiated bet...

This study examined the intermedia agenda setting process, in which the national news media coverage affects the local news media coverage, in the context of the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic. A content analysis of 4,518 articles from national and local newspapers was conducted. The results offer evidence that national newspaper coverage influenced local...

This study aimed to determine how well embedded reporters perceived they covered the Iraq War and whether those attitudes have changed over time. While findings suggested embeds continue to judge their overall performance as positively in 2005/6 as in 2004, respondents largely recognized problems with the embedding process. Data analysis indicated...

An analysis of photographs of Hurricane Katriana in six newspapers found that most centered on groups of people or individuals rather than environments. Local newspapers tended to focus more on images expressing anxiety than on objective third-party perspectives of national newspapers.

A content analysis of photos from four major US newspapers and four major Chinese newspapers depicting the 2008 anti-China/Olympics protests revealed significantly different denoted themes. On one hand, the most prominent dominant visual theme in US newspapers was suppression followed by pro-Tibet demonstrations. On the other hand, in Chinese newsp...

This study combines both the agenda-building and the second-level agenda approaches. It proposes an expansion of agenda-building research by examining the interaction among the president, the media and the public for an event that was not considered an existing ‘real-world’ condition. Specifically, this study uses former President Bush’s five most...

In light of US criticism that Al-Jazeera network is biased in its coverage against the United States by aiding the terrorist cause and the fact that most of the accusations of bias continue to be based on the claim that Arab media such as Al-Jazeera Arabic include the language of terror organizations, while its English-language counterpart, Al-Jaze...

In the context of new media to which young audiences are exposed, this study examined whether the level of graphicness depicted in images of conflict influenced viewers’ war perceptions. Results showed that higher levels of graphicness in images of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict did not affect beliefs regarding the severity of this issue or attit...

This study extends the understanding of the spiral of silence theory by taking into account the impact of new media on virtual behavior motivation. It explores individuals' willingness to express opinions online and offline and tests how the constructs proposed by the spiral of silence theory work in each setting. Results of a survey (N=503) sugges...

By operationalizing visual frames in terms of the human-interest vs technical frame and the anti-war vs the pro-war frame, and exploring the use of two sets of framing devices: graphic portrayal and emphasis, this framing analysis of 1387 photographs examined contrasting visual narratives employed by English- and Arabic-language transnational press...

Scholars have debated how successful the government was in managing coverage of the ground war in Iraq through the embed system, but few have surveyed the embedded journalists themselves to discover the degree they believe their press freedom was restricted. This study compares results from a survey conducted of embedded journalists in late 2005 an...

In July 2006, President George W. Bush vetoed a bill—the first during his administration of five years—that would have ended federal government restrictions placed on scientists with federal funding in the area of human em-bryonic stem cell research. In an administration policy statement, the president criticized the congressional bill as a "use of...