| dc.description.abstract | At the centre of events in 2013, General ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Sīsī played a prominent role in the military coup that deposed the democratically elected Muḥammad Mursī. Only a year later, al-Sīsī became president of the Egyptian Republic. During his rise to power, he sworn to lead the combat against terrorism to achieve national security. As hopes of democratic reform weaned, Egypt slowly regressed to its authoritarian past. The new regime imposed laws and increased arbitrary repression to safeguard its claims to power. News media’s democratising potential in political transitions mainly informs the current research. This thesis examines it from the other side of the spectrum, enabling an understanding of state-affiliated media’s role in authoritarian adaptation. Combining content and critical discourse analysis, the thesis analyses Egyptian state-affiliated newspaper Al-Ahrām’s terrorism coverage from June 28, 2013, to August 16, 2013, and from December 28, 2022, to January 27, 2023. The analysis is informed by securitisation and framing theory, revealing Al-Ahrām’s role in securitising terrorism. The findings reveal a shift in the newspaper’s terrorism discourse: from one where terrorism is framed as an existential threat to one where it is an issue readily solved by the state. As such, it finds that terrorism is being de-securitised by rearticulation a decade following the coup. The thesis demonstrates the importance of examining state media as a soft power tool to the regime in times of authoritarian adaptation. The findings indicate that although securitisation effectively solidifies regimes’ grips to power, its claims cannot be sustained for long periods. | nob |