Throughout the last two years, Egypt has witnessed a renewed state of media censorship, some aspects of which are reminiscent of the regime before the revolution, while others are new in scope and mode. Through the power of state institutions, impunity for those that assault media workers, editorial pressure and a consolidated media ownership, a new practice of censorship has taken root, while older methods have also persisted. In an attempt to document the structure of censorship in Egypt, Visualizing Impact and Mada Masr collaborated in creating a series of visuals, the first of which tells the story of how media freedoms are curbed today. It was originally released on World Press Freedom Day (3 May, 2015).

In this first visual, censorship practices and their function in preventing message dissemination are explored. ‘Shadowed Signals’ aggregates information from the reports of media monitoring organizations, local and international press, to paint a visual metaphor of how real world events are filtered or blackedout altogether. The visual raises the salient point that mainstream press (both state-run and privately owned) are susceptible to, or complicit in, the muting and manipulating of messages before they are ever even broadcast.