The Arab perspective on the position of Christians is different to the Western point of view and it is therefore both interesting and useful to analyze how the Arab media has reported on Christians. This database includes all the articles from the Arab-West Report archive that were published in the Arab (and primarily Egyptian) media related to the position of Christians in the media. The articles have been ordered chronologically and include information about the author, newspaper and title of the article so that a future researcher could make use of the information to analyze certain trends that emerge throughout the course of the ten years that the database covers.

The publications included in this database are Al-Ahrām, al-Akhbār, al-Jumhūrīyah al-Wafd, al-Ahrār, al-Hayāh and al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-^cArabī, al-Ahālī, ^cAqīdatī, al-Liwā' al-Islāmī, Sawt al-Azhar, Sawt al-Ummah, al-Usbū^c, al-Qāhirah, al-Maydān, Watanī, al-Kirāzah, Rose al-Yūsuf, October, al-Musawwar, Ākhir Sā^cah, Sabāh al-Khayr, al-Ahrām al-^cArabī and Watani International

To further aid the researcher each article in the database has also been allocated a main topic. These vary from articles that include information about sectarian strife to texts that debate personal status issues and discrimination against Christians. Interestingly, the topic that received more than double the amount of articles than any other one was 'problems concerning church building'. Church building issues seem to continue to crop up throughout the ten year period and continue to arise in the Egyptian media to this day. Many of these articles cover discussions about the need for a unified law for building houses of worship as well as specific cases of churches being built, demolished or altered. [For more information about discussions relating to church building in the Egyptian media click here]

The overview shows how the reporting on these topics has developed and changed. For example, there are almost no articles on Article 2 of the Constitution until 2006 and then there are 83 in 2007, as a result of the Constitutional amendments that were taking place at that time [For more information about the discussion about article 2 of the Constitution click here]. On the other hand discrimination against Christians is more of a 'steady' topic that arose throughout the ten years, though it should be noted that a third of the articles on this issue were published by Watanī.

The benefits of such a database are many. Not only can researchers see how certain topics have risen and fallen away from the press limelight but trends or bias in certain authors or publications are also revealed. Furthermore, the topics in the database could be used individually or taken as a collective. We hope that in the future students or academics will be able to make use of this archive to aid their own research papers.

See the attached paper

Clare Turner
April 1, 2009