The Arabic blogosphere
Jun 20th, 2009 by MESH
From MESH Admin
The Internet and Democracy project at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society (which graciously provides hosting services for MESH) has produced a map of the Arabic blogosphere. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge, and download the full report here. The key finding:
Most bloggers write mainly personal, diary-style observations. But when writing about politics, bloggers tend to focus on issues within their own country, and are more often than not critical of domestic political leaders. Foreign political leaders are discussed less often, but also more in negative than positive terms. Domestic news is more popular than international news among general politics and public life topics. The one political issue that clearly concerns bloggers across the Arab world is Palestine, and in particular the situation in Gaza (Israel’s December 2008/January 2009 military action occurred during the study). Other popular topics include religion (more in personal than political terms) and human rights (more common than criticism of western culture and values). Terrorism and the US are not major topics. When discussing terrorism, Arab bloggers are overwhelmingly critical of terrorists. When the US is discussed, it is nearly always critically.