Trolling and Praising the Arab Spring on Twitter

Abstract

Numerous studies have been written on the role of social media during the Arab Spring and the nature and goals of the popular protests that engulfed the Arab world, but there is little empirical research on the online Arabic discussion on the Arab Spring on Twitter. This chapter empirically examines over 1.2 million tweets referencing the Arab Spring. Theoretically, the study is situated within the discussion of online trolling, and the preliminary findings show that there are two main active groups. The first one shows support for the Arab Spring event as a catalyst for democratic change, often calling the protests “revolutions” leading to positive political progress. On the other hand, the second online community discusses the Arab Spring in the framework of foreign conspiracies, social chaos, and political regression, framing it as a pathway for political Islam to take over Arab countries. This community focuses its attacks on Qatar and its Doha-based Al Jazeera channel, accusing them of engineering popular protests in different countries with the help of the Muslim Brothers. The chapter contextualizes the findings to provide more insight on the political developments in relation to the public discourses on the Arab Spring.