In light of the crisis and the struggle over the tools that would resolve the conflict between the two warring fronts, the Brotherhood’s media system is emerging as one of the most important axes in the raging conflict, while expectations about its future differ.
Expectations suggest the collapse of the Brotherhood’s media system in its current form, due to the escalating dispute between the Ibrahim Munir Front, who resides in London, and Mahmoud Hussein, who resides in Istanbul.
This can be answered for two reasons, the first is the desire of each party to extend its control and influence over the media to resolve the conflict in its favour, and the second relates to the negative repercussions that the group is facing due to the restrictions on its activities in general, during the past months, whether in Europe or Turkey.
Informing the Brotherhood for those who finance it
For his part, the Egyptian writer specializing in political Islam, Hani Abdullah, believes that “the Brotherhood’s media is for those who finance it,” expecting that the media system will remain affected by the current conflict, and suffer a state of diaspora and confusion until one of the parties succeeds in resolving the conflict in its favour, and thus directing the system completely. according to his agenda.
In a statement to “Sky News Arabia”, Abdullah confirms that the Brotherhood’s agenda does not differ much between Mahmoud Hussein or Ibrahim Mounir in terms of dealing with external events.
He said that the organization employs its own media, whether through its traditional means or electronic committees that spread through various means of communication, as a tool among the tools of the war it launched against Egypt and the Arab region, following its resounding fall from power following the Egyptian revolution in 2013.
two media fronts
With regard to the internal conflict, Abdullah believes that the media, as is the case with the organization, is divided into two parts. The first belongs to the London group and is financed by Ibrahim Munir, and the second belongs to the Istanbul group and is financed by Mahmoud Hussein, and each of them uses the part he controls in the war against the other party, and attempts to distort it to resolve the conflict in his favour.
Abdullah explains that the organization’s media plan during the past years relied on two main axes; The first is the establishment of a media network that includes television channels and large news sites, and the establishment of partnerships with a number of international newspapers, magazines and news sites that have a large following and trust among the public, through direct contributions or the infusion of advertisements and paid articles.
The second axis depends on the establishment of a huge Brotherhood network that broadcasts content that incites chaos and spreads rumors about Egypt and the Arab region, through social media pages, and relies on prominent and international personalities, and has millions of followers to broadcast news and poisoned ideas through it.
bleak future
In a related context, a recent study published by the “Trends” website for research and consultancy expected that the Brotherhood’s media face a bleak future, against the background of the dark fate that the organization is experiencing at the present time, and the confrontation that took place with the official media of Arab governments fighting extremism, led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In the period following the events of the so-called “Arab Spring”.
In his study, which was issued on October 12, entitled “Brotherhood Media: The Beginning and the End,” the writer Muhammad Al-Sawafi says that Egypt was at the head of the Arab countries that stood in the face of the group’s political expansion, after the goals of the terrorist group’s media experience were exposed, and its media discourse relied on lack of credibility and lack of Respecting the culture and values of Arab societies.
He pointed out that despite the short period of time that the Brotherhood spent in power, that period contributed greatly to the formation of Arab public opinion that the organization failed to play any development role under a national umbrella, and also revealed that its future in the media would not be better than it politically.
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