The Berkman Centre and Harward Law School is conducting a study on Intenet and Democracy. As part of that study a mapping of blogs in the Arab World has recently been published on this link.
On Jordan the report says:
This cluster contains mainly Jordanians, but also some Palestinians. It has the highest proportion of women in the Levantine/English Bridge group. Female bloggers comprise 40.2%, 30.2%, and 33% of the Jordanian, Lebanese, and English Bridge clusters, respectively. Women’s issues are more widely talked about here than any other cluster (54.2% vs. 19.1% across the map). Jordanian bloggers are less critical of domestic leaders than Lebanese (29.2% vs. 51.6%), probably reflecting Lebanon’s more democratic system. Bloggers in this cluster use the word ‘Palestine’ more frequently than any other cluster, and ‘Nakba’ (1948 Palestinian exodus) more frequently than all but the Egyptian Religious cluster.
Any comments?
June 29, 2009 at 17:07
Very very interesting. Thanks for the details!
June 29, 2009 at 23:36
Interesting, but now I want to know more (you’re giving homework now on your blog) like how did they decide to classify bloggers? Did they count me as a Jordanian blogger (which I am by both location and nationality)? Or, since I am also American (not mentioned among the mostly Jordanian with some Palestinian bloggers above) are we simply not counted? And how do they distinguish between Jordanian and Palestinian bloggers?
Thanks for the heads-up, now I just have to find the time to find out more…
June 30, 2009 at 00:50
Yes! A very large percentage of Jordanian, Lebanese and Palestinian bloggers blog from outside their countries, mainly from North America and Europe. I wonder if these bloggers were included because this can change all these stats signiicantly.