Blogging in Arab countries

Last updated

Blogging is increasingly used in many countries around the globe, including those with oppressive and authoritarian regimes. [1] In many Arab countries with oppressive and authoritarian regimes, where the government conventionally has controlled print and broadcast media, blogs and other forms of new media provide a new public sphere where citizens can obtain information they are interested in and exchange their personal opinion concerning several topics, including politics, economics, culture, love, life and religion. [2]

Contents

Theoretical impacts of blogging

The impacts of blogging and social media in general are widely debated. From an optimistic point of view they are often acclaimed as having democratising potential and described as important instruments to replace authoritarian regimes and to support democracy and freedom. [3] The active use of the Internet can provide a more intense democratic participation and will support a direct form of democracy. [4] The Israeli-American scholar Yochai Benkler, whose notion is typically discussed in this context, sees the Internet as an important benefit for individual independence and freedom. He describes the networked public sphere as an online space where citizens can cooperate, exchange their opinions and collaborate as guardians over the society. [2] In countries where political themes in public are still not welcome, blogging became an important instrument for citizen to express their opinion relating to political developments. Blogging provides a platform for the exchange of information and for political mobilisation that is difficult to control by governments. In countries where media are centrally controlled the Internet breaks the monopoly of communication that was confined to the government and enables each citizen to become a political broadcaster. [5]

The American legal scholar Cass Sunstein has a much more critical view of the Internet’s impact. He argues that the Internet and the use of social media tend to produce echo chambers where people with similar interests classify into small groups of likeminded. This leads to polarisation and divisions within society, since citizens disregard the information and news that do not fit in their pre-existing notions. [6] Scholar Kristin Lord also represents a pessimistic perspective on the Internet and the assumption that it brings peace and democracy. Lord argues that the new media’s channels, for instance blogs also transmit damaging and false information and spread hate and conflict as easily as peace and democracy. [7]

Origin of blogging in Arab countries

The first country in the Arab world with Internet access was Tunisia in 1992. All other Arab countries followed suit in the next years until 2000. [8]

Compared to other media which are often controlled by the government, the Internet gives its users access to many news source they are interested in. In this sense the Internet can be seen as a democratic medium that enables people to make their views public. [2] The introduction of Web 2.0 in recent years increased the democratic effects since it provides its users an active use and participation. The Web 2.0 applications made the revolution of blogging possible. [9] Initially a few bloggers, who wrote predominantly in English initiated the Arab blogosphere. Within a short time many people followed the blog entries and noted the advantages of blogging. Blogging enables people to spread their opinions faster than governments can control or censor it. Thereby citizens can obtain information that are usually not discussed in public and exchange their opinion concerning several themes. [10] Like their global counterparts, Arab bloggers are not necessarily journalists. Each citizen with Internet access has the possibility to produce blog entries.
In 2003 the war in Iraq caused many bloggers to write about the local situation. The Iraqi architect Salam Pax, who daily wrote about the war horror is the most prominent of these pioneers. Salam Pax and other pioneers inspired an explosion of bloggers who expressed their opinions on themes that were usually not discussed in public. Blogs became increasingly an alternative to newspapers and television. After the technology for Arabic language writing improved and became more available, many bloggers start to blog in Arabic. Since then blogging is increasingly used in the Arab world. In 2006 approximately 40.000 blogs exist in the Arabic blogosphere and the number is still growing. [11]

The Arab uprisings in 2011 have shown that bloggers can act as agents of change. Bloggers were effective in spreading information, mobilising citizens and circulating audio-visual materials about the excesses of government and their security forces. [12]

Analysing the Arabic blogosphere

In 2009 the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University analysed the Arabic language blogosphere to investigate the impact of the Internet on democratic processes in countries with oppressive and authoritarian regimes. The Arabic blogosphere is a complex network that include bloggers from Arabic speaking countries and Arab expats living in the United States, South America or Europe. The findings of the study “Mapping the Arabic blogosphere: politics and dissent online“ indicate that in part of the Arabic blogosphere there is an emerging networked public sphere where citizens obtain information they are interested in and exchange their opinion concerning several topics. [13]

Methods

For the analysis the researchers used a methodical combination of social network analysis of the linking behaviour of Arab bloggers, automated text analysis of blog content and human coding of individual blogs. The research group analysed the structure and content of approximately 35.000 Arabic blogs collected between March 2008 and April 2009 and identified the most connected ones. Hence 6451 blogs were left, which represent the structural and conversational core of the Arabic blogosphere. Afterwards they divided the most connected blogs into different attentive clusters and they used text-mining techniques to identify the themes which interest each of the cluster. Furthermore a team of Arabic speaking researchers conducted exploratory human coding of thousands of blogs to get more qualitative information about the blog content. [14]

Blog content

The researchers identified the below-mentioned topics that are overall discussed in the Arabic blogosphere.

Demographic data

Cluster description

The results of the study show a formation of nation-based clusters in the Arabic blogosphere. In this context a cluster can be described as a matched bundle of blogs with similar blog content and links to same online sources. The primary clusters that can be found in the Arabic blogosphere are summarised in the below-mentioned table. The table illustrates the main content of each cluster and demographic data about the bloggers in each cluster. [17]

clustergeneral informationblog contentage of bloggersgender
Egyptlargest cluster in the Arabic blogosphere, contains several sub-clusters, bloggers are actively engaged in political movements- political discourse, criticism of Mubarak, human rights, poetry & literature, cultural issues, religion/Islam, support for campaigns (freeing bloggers, calling for reform, promoting social issues etc.)-> no data availablebloggers are predominantly male
Saudi Arabiasecond largest cluster in the Arabic blogospherepersonal issues, few political topics, preference for technology-> no data available46% female bloggers
Kuwaiti Englishbloggers write mainly in English and prefer English language sourcesinternational news and policy, economic issues, ethnic minorities, poetry, literature, support for the Western culture77% of bloggers in the 25- to 35-year-old rangebloggers are predominantly male
Kuwaiti Arabicbloggers write mainly in Arabic and prefer Arabic language sources domestic news and policy, support for domestic leaders, Islam, pop culturebloggers are younger than the Kuwaiti English groupbloggers are predominantly male
Levantine/
English Bridge		located in the countries of the eastern Mediterranean including Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanoninternational news and policy, local affairs, human rights, women rights, Western culture, criticism of terrorism->no data availablebloggers are predominantly male
Syriacriticism of domestic leaders, religious issues, criticism of Western culture50% of bloggers in the 25- to 35-year-old range87% male bloggers
Maghreblocated in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, language mix of Arabic English and Frenchcriticism of domestic and foreign leaders, criticism of terrorism, human rights, poetry, literature, art-> no data available89% male bloggers
Islam - focusloosely connected group of bloggers from several Arab countriesIslamic discourse, personal religious thoughts and experiences, policy-> no data availablebloggers are predominantly male

Notes

  1. ↑ Ameripour 2009, p. 1
  2. 1 2 3 Benkler 2006, pp. 129-272
  3. ↑ Aday 2010, p. 5
  4. ↑ Hague 1999, pp. 211-222
  5. ↑ Karolak 2011, p. 3
  6. ↑ Sunstein 2011
  7. ↑ Lord 2006, pp. 23-91
  8. ↑ Rasha 2010, p. 75
  9. ↑ Rasha 2010, pp. 76-78
  10. ↑ Hamdy 2009, p. 92
  11. ↑ Hamdy 2009, p. 93
  12. ↑ ltantawy 2011 1207-1224
  13. ↑ Etling et al 2010
  14. ↑ Etling et al. 2010, pp. 13-14
  15. 1 2 3 Etling et al 2010, p. 4
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 Etling et al 2010, p. 5
  17. ↑ Etling et al. 2010, pp. 15-30

Related Research Articles

A blog is an informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. Until 2009, blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) emerged, featuring the writing of multiple authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into the news media. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social networking service in which everyday authors can publish their opinions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instapundit</span>

Instapundit is a conservative blog maintained by Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee.

Following a crackdown on Iranian media beginning in 2000 many Iranians turned to weblogging to provide and find political news. The first Persian language blog is thought to have been created by Hossein Derakhshan,, in 2001. Derakhshan also provided readers with a simple instruction manual in Persian on how to start a blog. In 2004, a census of blogs around the world by the NITLE found 64,000 Persian language blogs. In that year the Islamic government also began to arrest and charge bloggers as political dissidents and by 2005 dozens of bloggers had been arrested.

Canadian blogosphere is used to describe the online predominantly English Canadian community of weblogs that is part of the larger blogosphere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yochai Benkler</span> Israeli-American technology law expert, political economist, and author

Yochai Benkler is an Israeli-American author and the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. In academia he is best known for coining the term commons-based peer production and his widely cited 2006 book The Wealth of Networks.

Blogging Tories is the name of a group of Canadian bloggers who come from the centre, centre-right, right-wing and libertarian sides of the political spectrum. The Blogging Tories are composed of many individual blogs, whose content is aggregated on the main Blogging Tories website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arab culture</span> Culture of the Arab people

Arab culture is the culture of the Arabs, from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast. The various religions the Arabs have adopted throughout their history and the various empires and kingdoms that have ruled and took lead of the Arabian civilization have contributed to the ethnogenesis and formation of modern Arab culture. Language, literature, gastronomy, art, architecture, music, spirituality, philosophy and mysticism are all part of the cultural heritage of the Arabs.

J-blogosphere is the name that some members of the Jewish blogging community use to refer to themselves. Blogs with a Jewish focus are called J-blogs. The name "J-blogosphere" was coined by Steven I. Weiss when he was the leader of "Protocols," a now defunct group J-blog, and one of the first notable Jewish blogs. Variations on the term were employed there as early as August 2003, and the first use of "J-blogosphere" appears to have been made in February 2004.

Fashion blogs are blogs that cover the fashion industry, clothing, and lifestyle.

An art blog is a common type of blog that comments on art. More recently, as with other types of blogs, some art blogs have taken on 'web 2.0' social networking features. Art blogs that adopt this sort of change can develop to become a source of information on art events, a way to share information and images, or virtual meeting ground.

Blogging in New Zealand is dominated by a community of around 600 blogs that comment largely on New Zealand politics, society and occurrences. One list of over 200 "author-operated, public discourse" blogs in New Zealand suggests New Zealand blogs cover a wide range of ideological positions but lack female contributors. Blogging is an active part of the media of New Zealand.

Courtney Radsch is an American journalist, author and advocate for freedom of expression. She is the author of Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Change and worked as the advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists until 2021. She has written and been interviewed extensively about digital activism and social media in the Middle East since 2006.

A feminist blog presents the issues of feminism through a blog. Feminist blogs serve the purpose of spreading ideas, sparking debates, raising awareness, discussing opinions, sharing stories, and virtually spreading the notion of feminism throughout the Internet.

The Canadian political blogosphere includes political commentary using any social media technology. Its culture differs from that of Europe or the US. The term 'blogosphere' was first formed colloquially in 1999, and has since evolved to mean "the cultural or intellectual environment in which blogs are written and read."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nawaat</span>

Nawaat is an independent collective blog co-founded by Tunisians Sami Ben Gharbia, Sufian Guerfali and Riadh Guerfali in 2004, with Malek Khadraoui joining the organization in 2006. The goal of Nawaat's founders was to provide a public platform for Tunisian dissident voices and debates. Nawaat aggregates articles, visual media, and other data from a variety of sources to provide a forum for citizen journalists to express their opinions on current events. The site does not receive any donations from political parties. During the events leading to the Tunisian Revolution of 2011, Nawaat advised Internet users in Tunisia and other Arab nations about the dangers of being identified online and offered advice about circumventing censorship. Nawaat is an Arabic word meaning core. Nawaat has received numerous awards from international media organizations in the wake of the Arab Spring wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

An anonymous blog is a blog without any acknowledged author or contributor. Anonymous bloggers may achieve anonymity through the simple use of a pseudonym, or through more sophisticated techniques such as layered encryption routing, manipulation of post dates, or posting only from publicly accessible computers. Motivations for posting anonymously include a desire for privacy or fear of retribution by an employer, a government, or another group.

The Al Jazeera effect is a term used in political science and media studies to describe the impact of new media and media sources on global politics, namely, reducing the government and mainstream media monopoly on information and empowering groups which previously lacked a global voice. The primary example is the effect's namesake – the impact of the Al Jazeera Media Network on the politics of the Arab world.

A personal styleblogger is an individual who manages an online platform that covers several aspects of fashion. These blogs, often produced independently, post pictures of the blogger to show their outfits and lifestyle to a number of followers. They influence consumer taste and preferences, often functioning as an intermediary between businesses and consumer. From a company perspective, the blogger is perceived as a promotional tool. From the consumer side, high-reputation bloggers are considered opinion leaders. This often results in material benefits, rewards, branded fashion clothing and paid sponsorship, as well as status in the field of fashion.

Mommyblogs is a term reserved for blogs authored by women that are writing about family and motherhood, a subset of blogs about family-and-homemaking. These accounts of family and motherhood are sometimes anonymous. In other cases, women will achieve a sort of social media or blogger celebrity status through their digital life writing. Mommyblogs are often considered to be a part of the mamasphere. Mommyblogging can take place on traditional blogging platforms as well as in microblogging environments like those of popular social media sites.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.