Emerging Syrian Media and the Framing of Sectarianism in the Syrian Conflict

The 2011 Syrian uprising laid bare many of the structural pressure points of the modern Syrian polity; most controversial of which is the relationship between the religious and ethnic components of the country and the role that they play in the informal politics of the country, i.e. sectarianism. This paper will attempt to analyze how the emerging opposition-minded media sphere represents the issue of sectarianism, and what that means in terms of its values and its conceptualization of the future of the country. This will be done by looking at several case studies from emerging Syrian print journals, and analyzing their framing of the place of sectarian divisions in the Syrian conflict.