What Are Qatari Twitter Users Talking About? An Analysis of Twitter’s Role as a Medium for Citizen Collaboration, Online Activism and Public Debates

Twitter is a famous microblogging website where people interact and communicate with each other using hashtags. During the Arab Spring, Twitter played an important role in political discussion. Twitter usage has documented controversial issues and political activism in the Arab world. However, there is still a lack of research on Twitter’s use as a public sphere by citizens in specific Arab countries. This study, therefore, focuses on Twitter use in Qatar and explores the ways in which Qatari citizens use the platform to share their opinions, debate issues of common concern, and engage with others to bring about positive social or political change. Data involving nineteen controversial topics was collected using Twitter Archiver over a period of four months involving 37 unique hashtags and 18125 tweets. A sentiment analysis was carried out on a sample of 2,065 tweets to evaluate users’ feelings on the various topics. In addition, this sample was subject to a qualitative analysis in order to understand how Qataris use Twitter and for what purpose. The study concludes that citizens use twitter for a number of purposes. Firstly, Twitter is used as a space to share information and collaborate with fellow citizens for public benefits and services. Secondly, Twitter is used as a tool for online activism allowing users to express their opinion and demand changes related to the environment, land use and certain policies. Thirdly, citizens use Twitter as a space to generate debate on issues related to religion, society, culture and gender which fall into the category of “moral panic”. This study concludes with the importance of Twitter’s role in Qatar as many issues are discussed constructively. Citizens collaborate with fellow citizens and the government to discuss policies and suggest alternatives.