News coverage analysis on SNS and Arab Spring: Using mixed methods

This study evaluated the importance of mass media texts and the role of social networking services (SNS) in the Middle East, which is an area that past studies have not explored. We investigated the standpoints of four major U.S. newspapers on the Arab Spring and the issue of SNS-driven changes in authoritarian countries using mixed method approaches of traditional content analysis and computerized semantic network analysis. The results showed a recent dramatic increase in the interest of Facebook and Twitter as instruments for political revolution in the Arab World and several authoritarian countries in Asia and Africa. While newspapers differed in their presentation, they universally framed the advent of SNS as new media and technology for information seeking or communication.