mapping the arab blogosphere

presentation forUS Institute for Peace

June 17, 2009

John Palfrey

Harvard University

John Kelly Morningside Analytics

Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent

Rob FarisHarvard University

Harvard University

Bruce Etling

Framework:

Why the blogosphere?

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 corestructural clustering, attentive clustering, visualization

Computer Analysis:text analysis, word and term frequenciesmetadata

Human Coding:over 4000 blogs, 2 scripts, 10 Arabic speaking researchersBasic demographicsTopicsQualitative descriptions

languages

languages

English Scandinavian Persian Spanish

French German Portuguese Hungarian

Arabic Vietnamese Chinese Russian

Proximity Clusters:

Attentive Clusters:

3-D Map

Actually, it looks more like this:

Attentive Clusters:

Attentive Clusters:

Attentive Clusters:

Western orientation

Western orientation

Religious orientation

Religious orientation

Major Zones:

Levant/English Bridge

Major Zones:

Maghreb/French Bridge

Major Zones:

Egyptian Blogosphere

Major Zones:

National Arabic

Major Zones:

Islam Focus

Surprises

?

1

Where is Iraq?

metadata: tags

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2

Media Ecosystem

outlink analysisKuwait Arabic

outlink analysisKuwait Arabic

CLUSTER FOCUS INDEX

outlink analysisKuwait Arabic

sites preferred by this cluster

CLUSTER FOCUS INDEX

outlink analysisKuwait Arabic

outlink analysis

outlink analysisMuslim Brotherhood

outlink analysisMuslim Brotherhood

CLUSTER FOCUS INDEX

sites preferred by this cluster

outlink analysisMuslim Brotherhood

outlink analysis

outlink analysis

outlink analysis

outlink analysis

outlink analysis

outlink analysis

outlink analysis

3

Everyone must be talking about America, right?

text analysis“America” - 1 Year

text analysis“corruption” - 1 Year

text analysis“Palestine” - 1 Year

issues bloggers discuss everywhere

text analysis“Tomorrow Party” - 1 Year

Egyptian reformist party

text analysis

Speaker of Kuwaiti Nat’l Assembly

“Jassem Al-Kharafi” - 1 Year

human coding

human coding

human coding

text analysis“corruption” - 2 weeks

text analysis“Egypt” - 2 weeks

text analysis“America” - 2 weeks

text analysis“Obama” - 2 weeks

text analysis“Obama” - 2 weeks

Surprises

1. Iraq enmeshed in bridging region to English, US blogosphere

2. Web 2.0 platforms have largest reach, bigger even than Al Jazeera

3. US not a dominant topic: domestic issues, terrorism, internal cultural struggle is more important

Implications

Results from the study:

• We did not find a cluster focused on extremism or advocating violent jihad.

• In the blogs in the public blogs we investigated, we did not find any significant support for extremism

• It appears that this type of conversation is hidden in ‘private publics’—walled off private spaces such as password protected chat rooms

• How can we promote free and open networked public sphere?

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?

Future research

• Look at particular conflict zones, drill-down on issues, compare online and offline networks

• Dig more deeply and with additional context into extremist views online in the Middle East.

• Deeper textual analysis and human coding to understand framing in blogs.

• Do blogs adopt frames of mainstream, often state owned media in conflict zones, or adopt different frames when discussing conflict. Is it a truly alternative medium?

presentation forUS Institute for Peace

June 17, 2009

John Palfrey

Harvard University

John Kelly Morningside Analytics

Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent

Rob FarisHarvard University

Harvard University

Bruce Etling