The Activists’ Use of Social Networking Sites in the Arab World

Social Networking Sites (SNS) became one of the most important tools to activate people in various issues including political and social causes. SNS is widely used by activist; individuals or groups, especially in the regions of conflict and chaos. Arab Spring is one of the recent and crucial examples to see how SNS is being used in activating and mobilizing societies against the autocratic state authorities. Thus, the roles that SNS can play by activists have been increasing day by day to the extent that activists are able not only in mobilization but in the functions of traditional media, such as setting the agenda of followers and exercising a gate-keeping function\process … etc. In this research study interviews will be conducted with the active users of SNS who have a power to mobilize their followers through the new media. The data that is collected with interviews will be analyzed in relation to the pre- defined thematic frames to answer the research questions of the thesis. The demographic data related to the activists is summarized in few tables with a statistical analysis. With the collected data, answers are tried to be found for the research questions such as: the role that activists play in setting the agenda of users, further forming mental images towards events, how SNS gratifies the needs of activists and their relation with the traditional media in light of SNS. Also, they attempted to examine the validity of SNS for collective actions such as campaigns, and the challenges that activists meet whether by governments, society, or even by SNS itself. iv The interviewees are chosen from different countries such as Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia, and Yemen. Some of the interviewed activists, due to political and economic reasons, are located in the countries different than their own nationalities such as in US, Malaysia, and Turkey. The findings of the research study showed that the activists consider SNS as suitable alternative to practice their roles in the society compared to traditional media where the abilities of SNS allow them to gratify their needs and desires. Also, the activists can play a role in forming a mental image of their followers, and setting the agenda of them towards certain issues. As well, the study found out the efficiency of SNS for conducting collective actions accompanied with reflections in reality. In addition, the study highlights the control mechanism that activists suffered from and the forms of censorship imposed on them whether by regime, society or the administration of SNS itself which contribute to restrict the activists of practicing their roles and the ways of meeting these restrictions. Keywords: SNS, Mobilization, Collective action, Agenda-Setting, Censorship