ABSTRACT
Egyptian broadcasting traditionally confined religious content to a few minutes of Quran recitation and one weekly programme. Under Mubarak, however, changes in economic and media regulation combined with satellite technology to challenge the state media monopoly, causing the government to veto any religious channel that formally identified itself as such. Even so, proliferating satellite channels, funded internally and externally, included many linked to Salafi interests, the Muslim Brotherhood or the Coptic church. Exploring specifics of channels in each group, this chapter shows how tight government censorship, instead of containing sectarianism, exacerbates a situation in which members of different faith communities rarely hear each other.
