Western News and Social Media Websites Broker Information for Iraq's Political Web

Abstract

In Iraq’s online political networks, Western news media such as the BBC and CNN and social media such as Wikipedia and Wordpress serve as the primary brokers for news and information about elections and campaigns. Iraq’s political parties are more likely to link to these sites than to each other. Despite the unstable political and security situation on the ground, Iraq’s political parties have built a vibrant public sphere online. But perhaps surprising is the degree to which Western media and social networking applications are brokers for political news and information for that country’s online political discourse.To understand online information brokerage in Iraq, a comprehensive list of political party URLs was drawn up for the official websites of Iraq’s political parties. These sites were then crawled to catalogue links structure and create a network map of Iraq’s online political landscape.