Voice of the Muslim Brotherhood: da'wa, discourse, and political communication

Abstract

In the wake of the January 25 revolution, and the coup that followed in 2013, Egyptian bookstores recorded a significant increase in demand for books by and about the Muslim Brotherhood. However, despite the burgeoning literature on the Brotherhood, knowledge about the movement is still rather limited, particularly with regards to its most strategic tool - media and communications. This book offers a fresh and close look into the communication strategy of the group, focusing on published periodicals, biographies and websites that represent the voice of the Brotherhood. The book analyses the core mission of the Brotherhood, namely its da`wa (call) - how it is articulated and how it is defined by the movement as an ideology and a process. Have the media represented a coherent voice of the Brotherhood over the past decades? What can they communicate regarding the Brothers' perception of the needs of their audiences? How have the media served to sustain, preserve and distinguish the movement for nine decades? The book argues that the Brotherhood media speak with an intermittent voice and deliver an incoherent message whose tone is changeable and fluctuating and cannot be claimed to truly represent the heterogeneity of the group. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach which integrates Media Studies and Social Movement Theory, the book provides a fresh analysis of the Brotherhood movement as an interpretive community and will be a valuable resource for anyone studying Egypt or the Muslim Brotherhood