Document details

#HashtagSolidarities: Twitter Debates and Networks in the MENA Region

Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) (2016), 62 pp.

Series: SWP Research Paper, 5-2016

ISSN 1863-1053

"This study identified three local or subregional incidents that led to heated debates on Twitter: a video shared on Twitter of the sexual assault of a woman on Cairo’s Tahrir Square in June 2014, anti-fracking protests in southern Algeria in early 2015, and Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen in March 2015 [...] By closely tracing how Twitter debates on these three issues unfolded and conducting interviews with agenda setters for these debates, this study sheds light on Twitter’s role in important social and political discussions as well as on the scope and patterns of Twitter networks. In other words, it highlights the various ways Twitter is being utilized by ordinary people, activists, media outlets, and officials, and it provides an idea of the political impact they can have via Twitter." (Page 5)
The Role of Twitter in the MENA Region / Mareike Transfeld and Isabelle Werenfels, 9
The Sexual Harassment Debate in Egypt: Impacting Discourses and Pressuring the State in a Polarized Society, #Tahrir_Taharrush / Mareike Transfeld, 18
Fracking in Algeria on Twitter: Connecting the Periphery to the Center and the World, #InSalah / Isabelle Werenfels, 29
Saudi Intervention in Yemen: Domestic Lens, Regional Solidarity, #OpDecisiveStorm / Mareike Transfeld, 43
Beyond the Individual Twitter Debate / Mareike Transfeld and Isabelle Werenfels, 56