Zeitschrift für Massenkommunikation und Journalismus

Frame Analysis of Egyptian Opinion Leaders Tweets: A Study on a Sample of Contents Relevant to the Democracy Issue

Abstract

Amany Albert

In this study the researcher conducted frame analysis for opinion leaders’ tweets, to explore different types of frames that shaped the democracy debate after the revolution. The research took place in a period of 21 days, in the memory of the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, starting from: January 15, 2013 to February 4, 2013, before the revolution date and after. This study proceeded from a quantitative content analysis of 12 members’ messages on Twitter. Over all, it includes 386 tweets from three groups of opinion leaders, 53 from Former presidential candidates, 123 from Islamists leaders, and 210 from Political analysts. The aim of this study was to investigate the dominant frame, and compare which frames each group used. Analysis was conducted according to what type of “topics and issues covered, the tone of tweets (neutral, negative, positive), the key actors (government, politicians, and the public) and 5 frames analysis conflict, human interest, attribution of responsibility, morality and economic consequences according to Semetko and Valkenburg. Comparing which frames each group used results showed that, the attribution of responsibility and human interest frames were the most commonly used by the opinion leaders, followed by the morality frame then conflict frame and finally economic consequences. Attribution of responsibility and Human interest were most visible in the first group, former presidential candidates. Morality frame, Attribution of responsibility and Human interest were most visible in the second group, Islamist leaders. Finally, Attribution of responsibility and Human interest and conflict frame were most visible in the third group, political activists. Economic consequences frame was less visible compared to other frames. So we can conclude the whole analysis as: Responsibility frames are more often utilized by Former presidential candidates and Political activist while Moral frames are more often utilized by Former Islamist leaders.