Our first step was to conduct computer searches of the terms: “social media Middle East” and “social media” paired with the names of all of the individual countries listed in endnote 1. Today’s social media typically offer several ways for members to connect virtually with one another, including both synchronous (e.g., instant messaging, texting, video chat) and asynchronous (e.g., email) modes of communication. Not surprisingly, the use of the Web and social media is especially common among wealthy, young, college educated Middle Easterners. A little more than 50% of the Middle Eastern population can now tune into to the Web. In the 5 years from 2007–2012, it grew from 20 to 77 million, a 294% increase, and it is still growing rapidly (Royal Pingdom 2012).
Although in the Middle East the Web is subject to more widespread regional restrictions than in any other area of the world, its popularity is increasing exponentially. By 2012, the number of Internet users worldwide had reached 2.27 billion. Today, throughout the world, Internet access is ubiquitous. They are media for social interaction (Cohen 2011, p.
Social media are the online technologies and practices that people use to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives, and media themselves. But first: what do we encompass in the term “social media”?
A second goal is to provide some ideas as to the impact of the burgeoning social media on the world of tomorrow in the Middle East. We suspect that currently most scholars underrate their popularity and ubiquity in this area of the world. One aim of this paper is to point out how popular such sites have become. Let us begin by defining “social media” and discussing their prevalence in the Middle East a.
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