ABSTRACT
When the coronavirus started spreading in 2020, discourses of blaming a seemingly irresponsible ‘other’ followed suit and were oftentimes used to legitimise nationalist policies and a (discursive) re-bordering. In this chapter, we investigate the media coverage of state-owned, private and partisan print media or their online outlets in four Arab countries during the period of the first global lockdown in the spring of 2020. The selected countries, Egypt, Iraq, Oman and Yemen, represent different levels of authoritarian control over the media and thus different impacts on media discourses and blaming strategies. In our analysis we ask who is held responsible for the coronavirus crisis in the media of these countries and how othering is manifested in media coverage related to COVID-19. The results show a general tendency of illegitimate othering in all countries, albeit on different levels: in Egypt and Yemen, an aggressive tone against other nations and political opponents, if not foreigners in general, can be observed, while media outlets in Oman focused on a nationalist rhetoric and Iraqi media blamed both China and the USA.
