Can I read Arabs and Atheism: Religious Discussions in the Arab Twittersphere on EtoBox?

Arabs and Atheism: Religious Discussions in the Arab Twittersphere by Hariri, Youssef Al; Magdy, Walid; Wolters, Maria is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Arabs and Atheism: Religious Discussions in the Arab Twittersphere about?

Most previous research on online discussions of atheism has focused on atheism within a Christian context. In contrast, discussions about atheism in the Arab world and from Islamic background are relatively poorly studied. An added complication is that open atheism is against the law in some Arab countries, which may further restrict atheist activity on social media. In this work, we explore atheistic discussion in the Arab Twittersphere. We identify four relevant categories of Twitter users according to the content they post: atheistic, theistic, tanweeri (religious renewal), and other. We characterise the typical content posted by these four sets of users and their social networks, paying particular attention to the topics discussed and the interaction among them. Our findings have implication for the study of religious and spiritual discourse on social media and provide a better cross-cultural understanding of relevant aspects.

Author

Hariri, Youssef Al; Magdy, Walid; Wolters, Maria

Published

2019

Language

EN