Social Media Impact in the Middle East

"The Technology industry has been growing by leaps and bounds in the past few years, and it does not simply involve mobiles, tablets, laptops and other devices. Equally important, and perhaps less expected, is that social media networks allow for unprecedented connectivity and transparency and create a leveled playing field for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and young job seekers to pursue their aspirations.

Tremendous economic and social changes are underfoot, and social media is one of the most important leaps forward. Employment, entrepreneurship and SMEs in many regions are significantly influenced by internet connectivity and social media." (Labin)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-labin/in-the-arab-world-social-_b_6075866.html

Throughout this course we have learned many things about how social media is used to bring together people in various ways. We have also seen how social media has an impact on people and the society around them. Do you believe that social media has a greater impact in the United States or in another country? Based on the article above it appears to be having a greater impact with developing countries than the United States.

The reason being is that social media helps companies connect with people from all over the world in order to help promote their business and to also hire people for employment within their company. "According to a study revealed by Deloitte in 2014, extending internet access in developing countries to levels seen in developed countries today means that long-run productivity could be enhanced by as much as 25%. Entrepreneurship and SMEs have increasingly become a priority for governments in the region, who see these enterprises as key to solving the challenge of improving competitiveness, raising incomes, and generating employment." (Latin)

It is interesting to see how far social media has come and how it is able to help people find jobs and connect with employers. With this new way of using social media in developing countries we can expect to see an increase in the countries income and employment opportunities. Will this continue to help developing countries in the near future? Will social media be a great tool for business to be able to connect with people and find people for employment? Do you think that social media only helps developing countries or does it help all countries in general? Why or why not?

Campaigns in the Middle East

In recent weeks the class has been learning a lot about media campaigns, debates, and how the media interprets quotes by candidates in order to either use them against them or in favor of them. We see this happening a lot during elections in the United States but most of the time we don't see it happening anywhere else in the world. Most of the time this is do to the media coverage and what they want to report to the people. On the other hands some countries keep most of it hidden or closed off from the rest of the world as well. In a recent article, there is discussion about campaigns to remove the 'Temple Mount' from all the media maps.

The PLO, to which the Palestinian Authority is subservient, has escalated its campaign to remove all connection between Judaism and the site of the destroyed Holy Temples by appealing to international media to stop using the ”inaccurate term Temple Mount.”

“The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is not a disputed territory and all other terms, therefore, are null and void,” according to a PLO statement published by the official Palestinian Authority WAFA news agency.

It claimed that the Al Aqsa mosque has been under exclusive Muslim sovereignty and control since the construction of the Dome of the Rock in 692 CE, which is a blatant lie.

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/plo-campaigns-to-wipe-temple-mount-off-the-media-map/2014/11/09/

As the article mentions, the term 'Temple Mount' is inaccurate to use towards the Holy Temples and they are now using the international media in order to spread there message around the world for people to stop using that term. The Holy Temples has been an area of long dispute between Israel and Palestine because each of them claim that the Temple is for them and not for the others. This dispute has been going back for ages now and it seems it will continue on that way for years to come. How do you guys view the campaign being used in the international media? Do you think that it will help or not?

Rise in Social Media Popularity in the Middle East

For its most recent advertising push, the Saudi Arabian telecommunications giant Mobily did not turn to the street or television to engage with customers. Mobily paid to promote itself on Twitter.

The use of social media exploded during the Arab Spring as people turned to cyberspace to express themselves. On the back of that, social media networks, including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, have moved into the region commercially, setting up offices to sell advertising products to companies like Mobily, which has over 200,000 Twitter followers, to capitalize on the growing audience.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/world/middleeast/social-media-firms-move-to-capitalize-on-popularity-in-middle-east.html?_r=0

This article that I found was very interesting in-regards to how the popularity of social media is growing within the Middle East. We have seen how social media has effected our society over the years. People use social media today in order to communicate with each other, express themselves, promote advertising, and so much more. Since the Arab Spring, social media has taken off in Saudi Arabia and in other places of the Middle East.

In last weeks and this weeks class we have been talking about advertising and how it is used in today's society as a tool for candidates and so much more. Advertising has been also in the Middle East in order to change the way advertising is presented in the Middle East. With the new era of advertising appearing, do to social media, we can see a new age appearing, not only in the Middle East, but all over the world.

According to the article people in Saudi Arabia are using social media, such as Twitter, more and more in order to communicate with each other. Major brand in Saudi Arabia, such as Pepsi Arabia, uses social media in order to promote their brand and advertise with everyone online. This helps them be able to keep up with the ever growing population of people using Twitter and other social media everyday. Do you think that our major brand companies use social media, as much as the brands in Saudi Arabia, to promote and advertise? Do you think that in the near future more and more brands are going to be turning to online media in order to advertise or are they going to continue to remain advertising through the newspaper and television?

Varied Media

The extremists who have seized large parts ofSyria and Iraq have riveted the world’s attention with their military prowess and unrestrained brutality. But Western intelligence services are also worried about their extraordinary command of seemingly less lethal weapons: state-of-the-art videos, ground images shot from drones and multilingual Twitter messages.

ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, is using every contemporary mode of messaging to recruit fighters, intimidate enemies and promote its claim to have established a caliphate, a unified Muslim state run according to a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/world/middleeast/isis-displaying-a-deft-command-of-varied-media.html?_r=0

As we have been seeing in our class discussions and readings, social media, is a huge part of the everyday norm to people in today's society. Social media also presents a lot of different uses for different groups of people. As you can see from a section of the New York Times article above, ISIS is using social media as a way to get their message across to people all over the world. They are also using social media to recruit followers to their cause as well. 

From the article you can also see a video that is from an ISIS drone that over looks parts of the city of Falluja. It is very interesting how videos can be used  in order to recruit people and be able to pass messages along to people from all over the world with just a push of a the button in order to upload it to the internet.

Digitized War

We know that journalist use the media for, as it is mention in Graber, Muckraking such as simple muckraking, leaping impact muckraking, truncated muckraking, and minor role of public opinion. Yet journalist also use different tactics to help influence policies as well. Journalist act as political factors by acting as surrogates, mouthpieces, and chief framers. We know that Journalist use all of these techniques and so much more in order to report the news but they are not the only ones who use it.

"A group of mud-brick, single-room houses, flanked by lone palm trees, establishes the video clip, shot from higher ground. The scene then switches to a GoPro camera video feed. To the dramatic beat of anasheed music [religious or nationalist songs], balaclava-wearing fighters jump from a pick-up truck in a series of slow motion shots.

This is not, as some may first suspect, a video game. As you watch animated overlays of red targets tracking fleeing soldiers, what you are viewing is a surprise attack on a Yemeni army checkpoint. The ambush in the Heinan region of Hadramut Province in Yemen, is led, and recorded, by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) fighters." (Cecco)

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/middle-east-digitised-battlefields-201471313481586137.html

Many groups in the Middle East are now using technology and certain forms of journalism in order to recruit new members, show people what they are doing, to deliver a message, and so much more. GoPro's which people use to record their white water rafting trip are now use to show the scenes of war that not even the media, in many countries, will show to the general public. 

"Twitter is often used to announce the deaths of fighters and update followers with victories in battle. Instagram is now the medium for mobile images of war. YouTube and LiveLeak are becoming increasingly important tools when staking out a strong social media presence." (Cecco)

Why do you believe that social media and journalism has evolved to this form? Do you think that we might eventually see it used in the U.S.? 

Social Media Revolutions

Social media has been causing change all over the world and it appears to not be slowing down anytime soon. Now more and more people use social media than resent times. Social media can be used for so much, from keeping in touch with people, to online dating sites, and so much more. Social media is not just seen as a place for people to have fun online anymore but it is also a tool to help bring people together to form revolutions. 

We have seen a huge increase in recent years with the use of social media in the Middle East and North Africa. According to an article written about social media in MENA,

 "An estimated 94% of social media users in MENA are on Facebook, which adds up to 56 million active Facebook users in the region. So what about other social media platforms? They’re pretty active, too. About 3.8 million social media users log in to Twitter each day, tweeting 73% of their posts in Arabic and 17% in English. What’s more astonishing is that YouTube attracts 285 million users in MENA each day – that’s the 2^nd highest regional consumption worldwide. "
http://wayvs.com/2014/05/15/social-media-mena/

Social Media in MENA has changed rapidly and it has caused for many revolutions in different parts of the Middle East and North Africa to the point that people all over the world become aware of the revolution and other things occurring in a particular country. Below is a article that talks about the many different types of revolutions that have occurred in the Middle East and North Africa, take a look and tell me what you think about all the revolutions.

http://www.tednguyenusa.com/social-media-ignites-revolutions-in-middle-east-and-north-africa/

Do you think that social media's pros out weight their cons? Can you see social media being used for more than just a tool for revolutions or any other day to day activities? Do you believe that social media will eventually be faded out in exchange for something newer in the near future?

Social Media War

Social Media has changed tremendously over the years and it appears that it will continue to changes more rapidly in the future. With social media changing it takes a lot for people and the government to continue to adapt to the changes. Social media is now used to communicate with people from all over the world. We can share events that are happening anywhere in the world in a blink of an eye by simply posting and post of Facebook, a Blog, a tweet on Twitter, and so much more. Many people also use social media to keep up to date with the news because media outlets now have their own websites that give people greater movement, diversity, and community. Social media provides us with a lot of diversity because journalist can post what ever they want online because of the vast amount of space that the web provides unlike the newspaper which has a limited amount of space and really is not adapt to satisfy everyones different opinions and viewpoints. It also provides greater movement because, unlike a newspaper where you read a column and then move to the next or flip to the next page, online sources have different categories of news to choose from, different locations all over the world to choose from, and so much more. Last of all social media helps to keep a community going because it helps keep people informed about what is happening in their home towns by just accessing the media outlet online that is associated with their home town. 

With all these different changes that social media brings we have also seen a change in how the government tends to use social media as well. In a recent article it talks about how the U.S. government is fighting ISIS with social media by putting out videos on the internet to deter people from joining ISIS, these videos are being used to counteract the videos the ISIS has been using in order to recruit people to their cause. The government has also taken action by finding the site that followers of ISIS use and shutting them down. The article calls is "a game of whack a mole."

Social media sites around the world have been trying to crack down on postings from radical jihadists. At one point, ISIS followers fled to a Russian Facebook competitor, VK.com.

But, this week, that site also started blocking ISIS activity, so instead of displaying an official ISIS page, followers now get an error message.

It's a game of digital whack-a-mole. As soon as one is shut down, another pops up under a new account or on a different site.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/combating-isis-online-campaign-a-game-of-digital-whack-a-mole/

It is interesting to see how social media can be used for recruitment by anyone now and how it can also be used as a tool for war. My question to you then class, is how do you feel about the changes of Social Media turning in these's directions? It is harmful or good for society? Do you think that social media will hang even more in the near future?