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Final NUQ-Media use-Cover_Front.pdf 1 5/25/15 11:55 AM C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Final NUQ-Media use-Cover_inside left page.pdf 4 5/25/15 11:54 AM C M Y CM MY CY CMY K MEDIA USE IN THE MIDDLE EAST 2015 A Six-Nation Survey Conducted by: Everette E. Dennis, Justin D. Martin, and Robb Wood Northwestern University in Qatar In association with Harris Poll Artwork Media Use_NUQ without cover.indd 3 5/21/15 4:31 PM NU-Q has made data from this survey publicly and easily accessible in a custom-built interactive platform that allows both professionals and casual users to explore the results by nationality, demographics, and attitudinal variables. Find the interactive and the online report at mideastmedia.org Artwork Media Use_NUQ without cover.indd 4 5/21/15 4:31 PM mideastmedia.org Media Use in the Middle East, 2015 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 6 Introduction 10 Overview 12 Freedom of Speech and Political Empowerment 18 Social Media 26 Credibility of News Media 32 Key Indicators of Media Use 42 Profiles of Media Users 50 International Comparisons 58 Focus on Qatar 64 Conclusions and Discussion 68 Appendix A: Methodology 72 Appendix B: Related Research Artwork Media Use_NUQ without cover.indd 5 5/21/15 4:31 PM 6 Media Use in the Middle East, 2015 mideastmedia.org INTRODUCTION Tracking people’s use of and attitudes about the this time, our work is generously funded by the media in the Middle East is a systematic means of Qatar National Research Fund, in addition to our understanding the region itself that goes beyond own resources. We have excluded countries like news headlines and subjective commentary. How Syria and Iraq where the ability to conduct survey people use media—and what they think about research is difficult to impossible. However, in them—offers insights about the social and political probing media use in Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, climate itself as well as the state of freedom of Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, we expression. examine large and small countries from North Africa to the Gulf, some that are quite stable, some more Since 2013, Northwestern University in Qatar turbulent; media-rich and media-poor with different has conducted survey research on media use in regimes and degrees of freedom of expression and the region to better know, appreciate, and work media regulation. with these vital social institutions. This annual study, conducted in January and February 2015, We recognize, of course, that the mood in any is the third such effort by NU-Q. As a school country is conditioned by current developments that educates communication, journalism, and there and in the region. With roiling civil wars media professionals, it is our obligation to “know in Syria and Yemen, the high profile of ISIS the territory” within which we teach and study. (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), with its barbaric Moreover, how people use media in everyday life, beheadings of journalists and humanitarian workers, and what they think of their relationship to society and dustups among some GCC members, many and government, is a barometer for assessment with factors affect media habits, attention span, and useful cues for charting change. Such intelligence attitudes. Within the realities of access and funding, is vital in an era of massive media disruption in we’ve tried to present a representative picture which the online digital world has challenged and where norms across the region can be compared surpassed what we now call legacy media. with data from each country. Thanks to an interactive website, users of this study can do their Of course, the whole concept of media keeps own probes and comparisons. changing with the flurry of new social and digital media in which any person can be a communicator This is rapid-response research, something rarely with less “mediation” of what they do, see, attempted by academic institutions, in which we and create. Between 2013 and 2015, the media frame our study, settle on emphasis and questions, landscape globally and in the Middle East changed then go immediately into the field in the six significantly, with new players and brands now countries, gathering data, analyzing it and preparing being used by our respondents. it for publication in less than four months. We are concerned with fresh information, and in connecting NU-Q’s second media use study in 2014, tracked that information to the academic and professional entertainment media in the context of changing use media communities, as well as others, with dispatch. of leisure time in the internet era, thus broadening Changes in the field suggest that this is necessary our view of media and people in the region. Now to avoid perishable information. At the same time, with a commitment to long term media tracking or we recognize that radical changes over a two longitudinal studies, we present the latest findings year period are not likely, so it is the incremental in this series: Media Use in the Middle East, 2015. contours of the study that tell the story of new developments. Even subtle changes, however, As with the 2013 study, this project contributes can be instructive as they will likely affect tens of to the World Internet Project and adds to that thousands, if not millions, of viewers and users, global effort by ensuring that the Middle East is not to mention the economic impact and social not skipped over as in many other multinational consequences that a small movement of the media research projects, and by providing points of metric dial can have. comparison with other parts of the world. And Artwork Media Use_NUQ without cover.indd 6 5/21/15 4:31 PM mideastmedia.org Media Use in the Middle East, 2015 7 This study has a trove of new data, some analyzed As in other countries, Arabs are sensitive about here, and some that will benefit from the secondary how their country and the region is portrayed in analysis of others who are welcome to use these international news coverage, especially now that findings. major networks like Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, and many others from Iran, Russia, and China broadcast Some of our findings are striking and might seem in the region. By and large, people in the region counterintuitive, while others are not remarkable believe that international news coverage of their on the surface, but can signal stability or subtle country is either favorable or fair while the belief change that is important. Especially notable in the that they are “biased against” varies widely. 2015 study is that most people access the internet Countries where there is more turmoil seem to have on their phones rather than by laptop or desktop less confidence in international media, as witnessed computers. That is true in every country in our in Lebanon, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia, while tiny sample except Egypt, where an ailing economy has percentages in Qatar and UAE assert that global slowed the adoption of new technologies common media are “biased against” them. This will seem elsewhere in the region and most dramatically in ironic to close observers of elite attitudes toward the Gulf states of UAE and Qatar. In a few short international news coverage in both countries where years, people now spend more time on the internet international incidents and controversies about than any other media, including the all-powerful labor issues and the World Cup (in Qatar) have television and radio (the most popular media driven negative news coverage in major outlets worldwide). The gap between the internet and other such as The Guardian and the New York Times. media grew from 2013 to 2015. Another dramatic While the leaders in both countries may seethe change since 2013 is that the internet application about such coverage, most Qatari and Emirati WhatsApp has soared in use as some 93% of those citizens don’t agree: just 7% in Qatar and 3% in UAE in the study send direct messages compared with lament negative bias against their country. Why 84% who use e-mail, which is clearly losing ground. this is so deserves a deeper dive and analysis than quantitative data can provide. Whether citizens In 2013, we reported that respondents across the agree with the tone and nature of international Arab world said the quality of news reporting in coverage of their country, or simply don’t watch or their country had improved in the aftermath of care, is not known. the “Arab Spring”. Perhaps, we thought, that the massive coverage of the uprisings and regime The state of support for freedom of expression, a changes by local and international media might central feature of multiple Arab uprisings, seems be the cause. This time, results were more mixed. to have cooled somewhat across the region; where When asked whether “the quality of news reporting in 2013, 59% agreed that people should be able to in the Arab world has improved over the past two express their ideas on the internet, “even if they years,” people in Egypt, Tunisia, and the UAE said it are unpopular,” the figure dropped to 52% in 2015. had not, while those in Lebanon, Qatar, and Saudi Only in the UAE and Qatar were slight increases Arabia were affirmative. At the same time, watching reported. Decreases of 10 and 20 percentage news and commentary was eclipsed by viewers points were reported in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, who prefer comedy, thus suggesting a modest, but respectively, while declines in Egypt were modest important, migration from hard news.