Social Media in the Arab World:
Social Media in the Arab World:
Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011
The Center for International Media Assistance at the National
Endowment for Democracy commissioned this report, Social Media in the Arab World: Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011, several months before the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, and it was completed just as they broke out. It is published as a stage-setter for the events that are rapidly unfolding in the Arab world.
The Arab world has experienced an awakening of free expression that has now entered the body politic of Tunisia and
Egypt and has helped break down the stranglehold of statesponsored media and information monopolies in those countries.
Indeed, from Morocco to Bahrain, the Arab world has witnessed the rise of an independent vibrant social media and steadily increasing citizen engagement on the Internet that is expected to attract 100 million Arab users by 2015. These social networks inform, mobilize, entertain, create communities, increase transparency, and seek to hold governments accountable. To peruse the Arab social media sites, blogs, online videos, and other digital platforms is to witness what is arguably the most dramatic and unprecedented improvement in freedom of expression, association, and access to information in contemporary Arab history.
Worldwide, the number of Internet users by late
2010 was expected to exceed 2 billion users. The number of Internet users in the Arab world is ever increasing, but governments are said to exaggerate their numbers. Between 40 and 45 million
Internet users were found in 16 Arab countries surveyed in late 2009, including Arab nationals and non-Arabic speakers in the region, according to the Arab Advisors Group, a research and consulting firm based in Amman, Jordan. The
Arab Knowledge Report 2009 placed the number of Arabic-speaking Internet users at 60 million.
Clearly, the region’s vast potential is recognized by Google, which sponsored its first
Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011
The Center for International Media Assistance at the National
Endowment for Democracy commissioned this report, Social Media in the Arab World: Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011, several months before the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, and it was completed just as they broke out. It is published as a stage-setter for the events that are rapidly unfolding in the Arab world.
The Arab world has experienced an awakening of free expression that has now entered the body politic of Tunisia and
Egypt and has helped break down the stranglehold of statesponsored media and information monopolies in those countries.
Indeed, from Morocco to Bahrain, the Arab world has witnessed the rise of an independent vibrant social media and steadily increasing citizen engagement on the Internet that is expected to attract 100 million Arab users by 2015. These social networks inform, mobilize, entertain, create communities, increase transparency, and seek to hold governments accountable. To peruse the Arab social media sites, blogs, online videos, and other digital platforms is to witness what is arguably the most dramatic and unprecedented improvement in freedom of expression, association, and access to information in contemporary Arab history.
Worldwide, the number of Internet users by late
2010 was expected to exceed 2 billion users. The number of Internet users in the Arab world is ever increasing, but governments are said to exaggerate their numbers. Between 40 and 45 million
Internet users were found in 16 Arab countries surveyed in late 2009, including Arab nationals and non-Arabic speakers in the region, according to the Arab Advisors Group, a research and consulting firm based in Amman, Jordan. The
Arab Knowledge Report 2009 placed the number of Arabic-speaking Internet users at 60 million.
Clearly, the region’s vast potential is recognized by Google, which sponsored its first