Abeer Najjar (PhD)
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Mass Communication-American University of Sharjah
Arab Youth And Social Media
Grouping and ClassificationIs there Arab youth?
1. Geography 2.Culture 3. Socioeconomic 4.Consumption 5.Education (literacy, bilingual, …)
a fantasy or empowerment according to media theories what are the possible changes on the youth behavior regarding social/ political / cultural and consumer activism functions and purposes /liability to be influenced room for proactiveness when it comes to their own lives how does this translate when it comes to real life as in relation to
the pleasure they can get online (space, function, lack of accountability and choice) comparing to their lives where they have to live within the boundaries of accepted behavior and social appropriateness
The sky is the limit Users are empowered to
create and add a large number of applications express their opinions without being liable for accountabilitymake connections that are not monitored by family & friends construct a desired self image (unattainable in life)explore options and self potentials
Arab Social Sites Arab company The Social Media it mimics Language Country of Origin No. of Posts/comments/ hits Possible Marketing Applications
WatWetStarted 2007
Twitter- 12,266 members in the Arab world
Arabic Jordan 25,000 users mostly in Jordan with a growth rate of 25% since March.
It allows you to link your account to twitter+fb+receive smses
NaqaTube2009
YouTube Arabic Saudi Arabia 5,000 to 6,000 posts within the first two months according to the site's
moderator
Politically and socially clean version of youtube
TamTem2009
Fmylife.com Arabic Jordan Daily Pageview-5963; Daily Ads Revenue-$17.89;daily
Wizards ProductionsMarch 2009
MMOG-Online gaming Arabic Jordan 94,400 registered player over 30 million page views and 500,000
visits
Games are freePrepaid cards for upgrade
Viral marketing through giving points to players once they invite their friends
Shop Gates Ebay ArabicSouq.com
2005Ecommerce English UAE and sells to
Saudi and Jordan45,000 users the Gold ‘UAE Web Award’ in the ‘Best e-
commerce website’ category
NahelJuly 09
Ebay B2C selling English Dubai,UAE not enough information not enough information
CashUJuly 02
Online credit card payments
English UAE cashU is now available in 28 countries around the world
not enough information
Azharna Order flowers online English Jordan not enough information not enough information
Shawshara09
community project documenting Arabic music lyrics. Anyone can edit this
information
English + Arabic Palestinian based in USA
51,000 hits Use of advertisements on website
Rose Desert‐Facebook
Khaliha Tsaddi (Leave it to Rust)
Saudi youngmenIt was against a decision by car agents in KSA to raise the car prices by 12% at the beginning of the finacial crisisjournalist Muhammad bin Abdellatif al Sheikh asked the Saudi customers to stop car purchasing and delay it for 6 months The slogan of the campaign is (Khaliha tsadi)The campaign was taken to face book
Khaliha t3anes campaign‐Spinster
Oral to visual culture
Religiosity to social liberation
Role models and loyalty
Twitter 12,266 members in the Arab world (Spot PR 09)Iranian elections Metro Dubai Users are focused in the GCC especially UAE where 40% of the Arab users reside
Watwet‐the Arab Twitter
Tamtem‐the Arabic copy of Fmylife
Naqa Tube‐ the religious version of You Tube
Blogsphere
Diary style‐personalLocal news‐criticism against leadersInternational news‐negative One topic of focus significance across countries is Palestine (Israel war on Gaza)Differences across nationalityArab bloggers are generally, young and male Arab blogsphere is organized around countries
Arab bloggers (Egypt, KSA & Kuwait)English Bridge (Levant & Iraq)Maghrib/French Bridge (relevant to religion focused group)Islam focus (various countries)
Trends‐ Arab users of social media Male biased users (i.e., twitter, face book, social media production, blogging)Empowerment in expression and creating impression Conservatism, religiosity Politically oriented (alsheikh al Shatri) fans of al skeikh / marawaa sherbini case (june 09)More political courage than social : anonymity and power things happening on social media are not communicated in realityLanguage and ideology