ONLINE DISCOURSE IN THE ARAB WORLD: Dispelling the Myths

1. Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent presentation for US Institute for Peace June 17, 2009 John Palfrey Harvard University John Kelly Morningside Analytics Rob Faris Harvard University Harvard University Bruce Etling

2. Framework: Why the blogosphere?

3. Methods and Analysis: Core data: 35,000 Arabic language web logs meeting base criteria -determined by automated text analysis to be Arabic language -exclude blogspam, poorly connected blogs -exclude social network hybrids, platform-specific networks -except those that connect to central blogosphere Found no clear boundary with English, French! So… -identified English and French crossover blogs (approx 4,000) Social Network Mapping: selected 6,451 most connected, large network core structural clustering, attentive clustering, visualization Computer Analysis: text analysis, word and term frequencies metadata Human Coding: over 4000 blogs, 2 scripts, 10 Arabic speaking researchers Basic demographics Topics Qualitative descriptions

4. languages

5. languages English Scandinavian Persian Spanish French German Portuguese Hungarian Arabic Vietnamese Chinese Russian

6. Proximity Clusters:

7. Attentive Clusters:

8. 3-D Map Actually, it looks more like this:

9. Attentive Clusters:

10. Attentive Clusters:

11. Attentive Clusters: Western orientation Religious orientation

12. Major Zones: Levant/English Bridge

13. Major Zones: Maghreb/ French Bridge

14. Major Zones: Egyptian Blogosphere

15. Major Zones: National Arabic

16. Major Zones: Islam Focus

17. Surprises ?

18. 1 Where is Iraq?

19. metadata: tags

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31. 2 Media Ecosystem

32. outlink analysis Kuwait Arabic

33. outlink analysis Kuwait Arabic CLUSTER FOCUS INDEX

34. outlink analysis Kuwait Arabic sites preferred by this cluster CLUSTER FOCUS INDEX

35. outlink analysis Kuwait Arabic

36. outlink analysis

37. outlink analysis Muslim Brotherhood

38. outlink analysis Muslim Brotherhood CLUSTER FOCUS INDEX sites preferred by this cluster

39. outlink analysis Muslim Brotherhood

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47. 3 Everyone must be talking about America, right?

48. text analysis “ America” - 1 Year

49. text analysis “ corruption” - 1 Year

50. text analysis “ Palestine” - 1 Year issues bloggers discuss everywhere

51. text analysis “ Tomorrow Party” - 1 Year Egyptian reformist party

52. text analysis Speaker of Kuwaiti Nat’l Assembly “ Jassem Al-Kharafi” - 1 Year

53. human coding

54. human coding

55. human coding

56. text analysis “ corruption” - 2 weeks

57. text analysis “ Egypt” - 2 weeks

58. text analysis “ America” - 2 weeks

59. text analysis “ Obama” - 2 weeks

60. text analysis “ Obama” - 2 weeks

63. Implications Contact theory and bridge bloggers—The more contact (including virtual?) that groups have with one another, the greater their level of understanding and the lower the chances of conflict. Bridge bloggers are important interpreters of their home countries’ politics and cultures, perhaps allowing us to get beyond cartoonish views of one another, appreciate the complexity of views in the Arabic blogosphere. Problem: ‘mirror blogging’ Challenge: ‘bridge bloggers’ - understand who they are, levels of independence, and authenticity, just like traditional media. - be conscience of risks of elevating profile of bloggers who might then become the targets for state repression. - might too much attention hinder local development?

65. Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent presentation for US Institute for Peace June 17, 2009 John Palfrey Harvard University John Kelly Morningside Analytics Rob Faris Harvard University Harvard University Bruce Etling