How journalists are using Twitter to cover breaking news in Saudi Arabia
Twitter is one of the widely exploited global social networks which enable its users to send and read short messages called “tweets”. Generally speaking tweets do not encompass much information; therefore, they are easily read and perceived. Registered users can read and post tweets whereas unregistered users are allowed only to read them. With 35 offices across the globe and easy access and registration, Twitter has become a worldwide popular social network which counts more than 500 million users (Twitter Official Website). The popularity of tweets is stipulated due to its limited content which requires its user to encapsulate an idea, without giving specifics. It has been estimated that nowadays Twitter is actively utilized in a great assortment of spheres, including policing, legal proceeding, educational sphere, emergency, opinion surveying, campaigning, public relations, business, and news spreading. In regard to intensively increasing popularity of Twitter, more and more politicians, public figures, artists, journalists and other celebrities are creating an account in Twitter to apprise their follower about the latest events or decision made (Storck, 2010, p.13).
Although, Twitter is a global social network, it successfully conducts a censorship policy and allows blocking Tweeter on the territories of some countries. Hence, China, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, and Turkey intermittently block it mainly because of total state censorship. Unfortunately, the list of the countries that fight with the gloves off free media includes Saudi Arabia in which Twitter is a declared enemy of the government which successfully contradicts the totality of media censorship and permits inflammatory messages to get leaked to the press (Bauer, 2013). Although, the Saudi government threatens the population to block Twitter, it still remains one of the safest ways to spread information (Howard, 2013, p.45).
Social media in Saudi Arabia is generally known for its highly bowdlerized content as total censorship does not allow critics to penetrate masses and form public opinions. Therefore, people cannot get full access to all the materials as all the resources are either experience hardship of censorship policy or are totally banned. However, by providing such strict measures, the Saudi government makes no reckoning of the outcomes of globalization that results in intensive usage of social networks, including Facebook and Twitter (Comninos, 2011, p.15).
Moreover, if early on Twitter users shared their neutral ideas and opinions, since the Arab uprising of 2011, Twitter has turned into a stock of mass frustrations and criticism (Ghannam, 2013). Hence, Saudi Twitter today is a window into a profoundly conservative opaque state. Saudi people experience obvious lack of dread when critiquing corrupt, dysfunctional and archaic nature of the Saudi government. Robert Worth mentions that open criticism of Saudi state has long been taboo for Saudi people, but now people have enough courage to tweet and retweet trigger-happy posts written either by journalists or ordinary citizens. All in all, Saudi journalists consider that Twitter’s popularity in Saudi Arabia makes it a productive means to immediately make people aware of significant breaking news (Hauslohne, 2011).
In Saudi Arabia, Twitter as well as other social networks is used to assist with managing, copying and safety. Therefore, Yeslam Al-Saggaf states that “People in Saudi Arabia used social media for a range of practical purposes, including communicating the severity of the floods, advice on what to do and what to avoid, and mobilizing large numbers of people for help and rescue” (Al-Saggaf& Simmons, 2014, p.12)
Generally speaking, Saudi Arabia has the fastest developing Twitter community all over the world based on the total number of tweets from the country that have significantly increased in the past months. Riyadh, in turn, appears to be the tenth most intensively tweeting city in the world, especially outstanding for a country that has recently begun allowing public to access the Internet (Kinninmont, 2013, p.2). In July 2012, ASMS or Arab Social Media Survey arranged by the researchers from Dubai School of Government discovered that #Bahrain was the most frequently tweeted hashtag in Arab World made approximately 2,8 million times in English and about 1,5 million times in Arabic (Kinninmont, 2013, p.2). Although according to Communication and Information Technology Commission, in 2006 Saudi Arabia has been reported to have only 1,5% of the population having access to the internet connection, in June of 2012, 43% of Saudi citizens got mobile broadband. In regard to increased popularity of Twitter in Saudi Arabia and people`s lack of fear when tearing to pieces current Saudi state, the government starts to struggle against Twitter usage, but it has been intensively criticized, tweeted and retweeted by citizens (Kinninmont, 2013, p.4).
Hence, Saudi government treats Twitter as a serious threat to national security. For instance, Twitter is believed to disclose essential public discontent with the state performance on addressing various domestic problems including corruption and unemployment. In addition, the Wahhabi religious establishment views Twitter as eroding traditional authority. The response of Saudi religion authorities to Twitter`s increasing popularity has been to censure the tool as well as those who use it to provide changes. As much as free press and the freedom of speech are banned in Saudi Arabia, Saudi journalists use Twitter to share their ideas on subject matter and provide interpretation of the claims of the Saudi authorities. In other words, the key idea for journalists to use Twitter is to reach public awareness, especially among the young generation who are believed to build the state (Boghardt, 2013).
The Saudi ministry of Culture and Information started monitoring Twitter with a view to edgy campaigns and agitations. However, by the state`s own account, the Twitter fields are impossible to regulate. Therefore, the kingdom turns out to be focusing on scrutinizing of Twitter users who stand in position of influence, including civil and political activists and journalists. For instance, Saudi authorities targeted activists and their supporters for judicial as much as tweets were regarded as illegal or offensive. In this regard, two journalists Abdullah al-Hamid and Muhammad al-Qahtani were sentenced to prison for using Twitter to promote their angles. Moreover, a famous Saudi Iman al-Qahtani with more than 73k followers was forced to delete her account on Twitter for promotion of human rights activities (Salem, 2011).
Despite total censorship, journalists still struggle for societal changes using accounts on Twitter as much as it is the only relatively safe mean to spread breaking news and not to be caught. Twitter in hands of skillful journalist turns into a powerful tool and serious threat to the Saudi government. Hence, a legendary “Arab Spring” arose from the so-called “Twitter Revolution” (Gladwell, 2013, p.32). Journalists by intensively spreading information, could organize the performance in a coherent manner and generate the Middle East`s ongoing upheaval. Twitter helped citizens to communicate when the authorities were persistently impassive to their requests (Chaudhry, 2014, p.11). Hence, in 2011 a survey conducted by Dubai School of Government has accentuated the role of social media tools in general and Twitter in particular in the “Arab Spring” rising, hinging on data collected from twenty-two nations, including Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and Iran. The study demonstrates that citizens of Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Syria, Palestine, and Yemen used Twitter to share calls for protest sent by journalists, correctly hashtagging it and indicating specific dates (Berger, 2015, p.4).
At that time, the number of Twitter users was increasingly growing. Journalists and activists along with ordinary citizens used Twitter either to raise public awareness, organize actions and meetings related to the movements and share information. The approximate number of tweets spawned by 1.15 million of active Twitter users over the first quarter of 2011 reached 22,750,000 and 252,000 tweets per day accordingly. During this period of time, the increasingly popular Twitter topics were #Egypt (1.4 million tweets), #jan25 (1.2 million hashtags), #Libya (990,000 tweets), #Bahrain (640,000) and protest (approximately 620,000) (Radcliffe, 2013).
Generally speaking, because of government inability to provide total control over Twitter, it is considered to be the only tool to discuss political discrimination, censorship, corruption, unemployment rates, injustice and archaic system of governing (Bauer, 2013). Journalists bring awareness to masses, promoting human rights and agitating campaigns (Freedom House). Moreover, they actively strive for getting rid of the vestiges of the past such as obsession with religious heritage (Worth, 2012). For instance, in 2012 a famous Saudi journalist, blogger and poet HamzaKashgari on the occasion of the Prophet Muhammad Birth`s wrote excerpts of his piece of poetry on Twitter, mentioning that “On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more” (Kulshrestha, 2009, p.2). Although it was surely a risking gesture in an enormously conservative strict Islamic society, he was arrested in Malaysia and deported back to Saudi Arabia and is still being imprisoned, awaiting a trial that may never come (Kinninmont, 2014, p.2).
One more problem that Saudi journalists struggle for is an improvement of women`s conditions in the country. In recent times, sports education has been permitted in the girls` private schools whereas women have been allowed to bike in public. However, the greatest achievement in an ongoing struggle for women`s rights is that King Abdullah has appointed thirty Saudi women for the positions at the Shoura Council – a formal consulting body of the state (Larse, 2011). In addition, it was reported that women will get a right to vote in 2016 and run in municipal elections (Boghardt, 2013). All these changes occur as an answer to the demands for more freedom for Saudi women and first appeared in Twitter. Saudi’s activists in general and women, in particular, regard Twitter as a tool to articulate their angles and intensively utilize it to provide significant changes.
Hence, according to Jeffrey Ghannam, Twitter has changed people`s perception of freedom of association and expression. It is believed to finally lead the society to greater voice and political participation over the next 10 years (Ghannam, 2011, p.16).
Media Professor of King Saud University in Riyadh and a famous Saudi journalist Neif Al-Wael specifies that Saudi women currently use Twitter for their own benefit, breaking multiple barriers that they used to have not so long ago that made them silent (Bauer, 2013). Neif Al-Wael states that “Women now understand the importance of their voice in society; they start to introduce themselves as partners in success and development in the country. And Twitter is one of the best tools for that” (Dosary, 2014, p.1). A Saudi media expert Maha Al-Wabel ensures that the voice of Saudi women is now considered on a superior scale. Maha Al-Wabeladds that “We have a wider participation in society and shaping the direction of the policy makers. Women start to address subjects that not only relate to them, but to society, in general, especially in supporting the kingdom’s reform strategy” (Chambers, 2015). Online communication is believed to be a place for reconstruction of identity. As much as Saudi Arabia has been living in regime of terror and total control for a long period of time, whereas government, by establishing strict regulations over each sphere of human`s life has formed citizens` identities, online communication in general and Twitter in particular can reshape people`s identities and therefore, raise protest instead of obedience (Guta&Karolak, 2015, p.118).
Evidently, Saudi journalists, in regard to total censorship take an advantage of Twitter considering it to be the only way to spread breaking news via hashtagging, sharing photos, posts and reposts and discussing significant societal problems raising public awareness of injustice, corruption and archaic system of the state. Saudi journalists share their views and ideas with their followers. Followers, in turn, share these views, and, therefore, spread the ideas in society.

Reference Page
Storck, M. (2010). The Role of Social Media in Political Mobilisation: a Case Study of the January 2011 Egyptian Uprising.
Hauslohner, A. (2011). Why I Protest: Ahmed Harara of Egypt. Content Time. http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102138_2102236,00.html
Howard, P.N. (2011). The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from:
Chaudhry, R. (2014). Can Twitter Promote Social Progress in Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Communication.University of Alberta, Canada.
Gladwell , M. (2013). Twitter and Democracy: A New Public Sphere? Oxford University Press.
Saudi Arabia. Freedom of the Net. Freedom House. Stanford University.
Mourtada, R., & Salem, F. (2011). Civil movements: The impact of Facebook and Twitter. Arab social media report, 1(2), 1-30.
Kulshrestha, J., Kooti, F., Nikravesh, A., &Gummadi, P. K. (2012, June).Geographic Dissection of the Twitter Network.In ICWSM.

Dosary, S.(2014).Twitter and Saudi Women: the Voice of the Voiceless. The University of Arizona.
Worth, R. (2012). Saudis Cross Social Boundaries on Twitter. New York Times.Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/world/middleeast/saudis-cross-social-boundaries-on-twitter.html?_r=0
Berger, J.M.&Morgan, J. (2015). The ISIS Twitter Census Defining and describing the population of ISIS supporters on Twitter.The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World.
Twitter Official Website. Retrieved from: https://about.twitter.com/es/company
Chambers, C. (2015). 3 Key Thing We LearnedAbout Twitter in the Middle Eastin 2014.University of Oregon. Retrieved from: https://damianradcliffe.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/3-key-things-we-learned-about-twitter-in-the-middle-east-in-2014/
Kinninmont, J. (2014). To What Extent Is Twitter Changing Gulf Societies? Chatham House.
Bauer, W. (2013). The self-censored world of Saudi social media.Your Middle East. Retrieved from: http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/columns/article/the-selfcensored-world-of-saudi-social-media_10516
Berger, J.M. (2013). The ISIS Twitter census: Making sense of ISIS’s use of Twitter. Brookings. Retrieved from:http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/03/isis-twitter-census-berger-morgan/isis_twitter_census_berger_morgan.pdf
Boghardt, L.P. (2013). Saudi Arabia’s War on Twitter.The Washington Institute. Retrieved from:http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/saudi-arabias-war-on-twitter
Larse, R. (2011). Civil movements: Facebook and Twitter in the Arab Spring. Journalist`s Resource. Retrieved from: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/international/global-tech/civil-movements-the-impact-of-facebook-and-twitter#sthash.fOTvALD2.dpuf
Radcliffe, D. (2013). Twitter takes off in Saudi – and other news of social media in the Arab world. BBC News. Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/832a893c-5bf3-3ea1-89eb-79e0caf6945f
Salem, M. (2014). 16 women journalists to watch in the Middle East.Amonitor. Retrieved from: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/galleries/16-women-journalists-to-watch-in-the-middle-east.html#ixzz3r8wsuo8y
Comninos, A. (2011). Twitter revolutions and cyber crackdowns User-generated content and social networking in the Arab spring and beyond.Association for Progressive Communications
Guta, H. &Karolak, M. (2015). Veiling and Blogging: Social Media as Sites of Identity Negotiation and Expression among Saudi Women. Journal of International Women’s Studies
Ghannam, J. (2013). Social Media in the Arab World: Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011. Center of International Media Assistance.
Al-Saggaf, Y.&Simmons, P. (2014). Social media in Saudi Arabia: Exploring its use during two natural disasters. Technological Forecasting & Social Change

How journalists are using Twitter to cover breaking news in Saudi Arabia
Twitter is one of the widely exploited global social networks which enable its users to send and read short messages called “tweets”. Generally speaking tweets do not encompass much information; therefore, they are easily read and perceived. Registered users can read and post tweets whereas unregistered users are allowed only to read them. With 35 offices across the globe and easy access and registration, Twitter has become a worldwide popular social network which counts more than 500 million users (Twitter Official Website). The popularity of tweets is stipulated due to its limited content which requires its user to encapsulate an idea, without giving specifics. It has been estimated that nowadays Twitter is actively utilized in a great assortment of spheres, including policing, legal proceeding, educational sphere, emergency, opinion surveying, campaigning, public relations, business, and news spreading. In regard to intensively increasing popularity of Twitter, more and more politicians, public figures, artists, journalists and other celebrities are creating an account in Twitter to apprise their follower about the latest events or decision made (Storck, 2010, p.13).
Although, Twitter is a global social network, it successfully conducts a censorship policy and allows blocking Tweeter on the territories of some countries. Hence, China, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, and Turkey intermittently block it mainly because of total state censorship. Unfortunately, the list of the countries that fight with the gloves off free media includes Saudi Arabia in which Twitter is a declared enemy of the government which successfully contradicts the totality of media censorship and permits inflammatory messages to get leaked to the press (Bauer, 2013). Although, the Saudi government threatens the population to block Twitter, it still remains one of the safest ways to spread information (Howard, 2013, p.45).
Social media in Saudi Arabia is generally known for its highly bowdlerized content as total censorship does not allow critics to penetrate masses and form public opinions. Therefore, people cannot get full access to all the materials as all the resources are either experience hardship of censorship policy or are totally banned. However, by providing such strict measures, the Saudi government makes no reckoning of the outcomes of globalization that results in intensive usage of social networks, including Facebook and Twitter (Comninos, 2011, p.15).
Moreover, if early on Twitter users shared their neutral ideas and opinions, since the Arab uprising of 2011, Twitter has turned into a stock of mass frustrations and criticism (Ghannam, 2013). Hence, Saudi Twitter today is a window into a profoundly conservative opaque state. Saudi people experience obvious lack of dread when critiquing corrupt, dysfunctional and archaic nature of the Saudi government. Robert Worth mentions that open criticism of Saudi state has long been taboo for Saudi people, but now people have enough courage to tweet and retweet trigger-happy posts written either by journalists or ordinary citizens. All in all, Saudi journalists consider that Twitter’s popularity in Saudi Arabia makes it a productive means to immediately make people aware of significant breaking news (Hauslohne, 2011).
In Saudi Arabia, Twitter as well as other social networks is used to assist with managing, copying and safety. Therefore, Yeslam Al-Saggaf states that “People in Saudi Arabia used social media for a range of practical purposes, including communicating the severity of the floods, advice on what to do and what to avoid, and mobilizing large numbers of people for help and rescue” (Al-Saggaf& Simmons, 2014, p.12)
Generally speaking, Saudi Arabia has the fastest developing Twitter community all over the world based on the total number of tweets from the country that have significantly increased in the past months. Riyadh, in turn, appears to be the tenth most intensively tweeting city in the world, especially outstanding for a country that has recently begun allowing public to access the Internet (Kinninmont, 2013, p.2). In July 2012, ASMS or Arab Social Media Survey arranged by the researchers from Dubai School of Government discovered that #Bahrain was the most frequently tweeted hashtag in Arab World made approximately 2,8 million times in English and about 1,5 million times in Arabic (Kinninmont, 2013, p.2). Although according to Communication and Information Technology Commission, in 2006 Saudi Arabia has been reported to have only 1,5% of the population having access to the internet connection, in June of 2012, 43% of Saudi citizens got mobile broadband. In regard to increased popularity of Twitter in Saudi Arabia and people`s lack of fear when tearing to pieces current Saudi state, the government starts to struggle against Twitter usage, but it has been intensively criticized, tweeted and retweeted by citizens (Kinninmont, 2013, p.4).
Hence, Saudi government treats Twitter as a serious threat to national security. For instance, Twitter is believed to disclose essential public discontent with the state performance on addressing various domestic problems including corruption and unemployment. In addition, the Wahhabi religious establishment views Twitter as eroding traditional authority. The response of Saudi religion authorities to Twitter`s increasing popularity has been to censure the tool as well as those who use it to provide changes. As much as free press and the freedom of speech are banned in Saudi Arabia, Saudi journalists use Twitter to share their ideas on subject matter and provide interpretation of the claims of the Saudi authorities. In other words, the key idea for journalists to use Twitter is to reach public awareness, especially among the young generation who are believed to build the state (Boghardt, 2013).
The Saudi ministry of Culture and Information started monitoring Twitter with a view to edgy campaigns and agitations. However, by the state`s own account, the Twitter fields are impossible to regulate. Therefore, the kingdom turns out to be focusing on scrutinizing of Twitter users who stand in position of influence, including civil and political activists and journalists. For instance, Saudi authorities targeted activists and their supporters for judicial as much as tweets were regarded as illegal or offensive. In this regard, two journalists Abdullah al-Hamid and Muhammad al-Qahtani were sentenced to prison for using Twitter to promote their angles. Moreover, a famous Saudi Iman al-Qahtani with more than 73k followers was forced to delete her account on Twitter for promotion of human rights activities (Salem, 2011).
Despite total censorship, journalists still struggle for societal changes using accounts on Twitter as much as it is the only relatively safe mean to spread breaking news and not to be caught. Twitter in hands of skillful journalist turns into a powerful tool and serious threat to the Saudi government. Hence, a legendary “Arab Spring” arose from the so-called “Twitter Revolution” (Gladwell, 2013, p.32). Journalists by intensively spreading information, could organize the performance in a coherent manner and generate the Middle East`s ongoing upheaval. Twitter helped citizens to communicate when the authorities were persistently impassive to their requests (Chaudhry, 2014, p.11). Hence, in 2011 a survey conducted by Dubai School of Government has accentuated the role of social media tools in general and Twitter in particular in the “Arab Spring” rising, hinging on data collected from twenty-two nations, including Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and Iran. The study demonstrates that citizens of Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Syria, Palestine, and Yemen used Twitter to share calls for protest sent by journalists, correctly hashtagging it and indicating specific dates (Berger, 2015, p.4).
At that time, the number of Twitter users was increasingly growing. Journalists and activists along with ordinary citizens used Twitter either to raise public awareness, organize actions and meetings related to the movements and share information. The approximate number of tweets spawned by 1.15 million of active Twitter users over the first quarter of 2011 reached 22,750,000 and 252,000 tweets per day accordingly. During this period of time, the increasingly popular Twitter topics were #Egypt (1.4 million tweets), #jan25 (1.2 million hashtags), #Libya (990,000 tweets), #Bahrain (640,000) and protest (approximately 620,000) (Radcliffe, 2013).
Generally speaking, because of government inability to provide total control over Twitter, it is considered to be the only tool to discuss political discrimination, censorship, corruption, unemployment rates, injustice and archaic system of governing (Bauer, 2013). Journalists bring awareness to masses, promoting human rights and agitating campaigns (Freedom House). Moreover, they actively strive for getting rid of the vestiges of the past such as obsession with religious heritage (Worth, 2012). For instance, in 2012 a famous Saudi journalist, blogger and poet HamzaKashgari on the occasion of the Prophet Muhammad Birth`s wrote excerpts of his piece of poetry on Twitter, mentioning that “On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more” (Kulshrestha, 2009, p.2). Although it was surely a risking gesture in an enormously conservative strict Islamic society, he was arrested in Malaysia and deported back to Saudi Arabia and is still being imprisoned, awaiting a trial that may never come (Kinninmont, 2014, p.2).
One more problem that Saudi journalists struggle for is an improvement of women`s conditions in the country. In recent times, sports education has been permitted in the girls` private schools whereas women have been allowed to bike in public. However, the greatest achievement in an ongoing struggle for women`s rights is that King Abdullah has appointed thirty Saudi women for the positions at the Shoura Council – a formal consulting body of the state (Larse, 2011). In addition, it was reported that women will get a right to vote in 2016 and run in municipal elections (Boghardt, 2013). All these changes occur as an answer to the demands for more freedom for Saudi women and first appeared in Twitter. Saudi’s activists in general and women, in particular, regard Twitter as a tool to articulate their angles and intensively utilize it to provide significant changes.
Hence, according to Jeffrey Ghannam, Twitter has changed people`s perception of freedom of association and expression. It is believed to finally lead the society to greater voice and political participation over the next 10 years (Ghannam, 2011, p.16).
Media Professor of King Saud University in Riyadh and a famous Saudi journalist Neif Al-Wael specifies that Saudi women currently use Twitter for their own benefit, breaking multiple barriers that they used to have not so long ago that made them silent (Bauer, 2013). Neif Al-Wael states that “Women now understand the importance of their voice in society; they start to introduce themselves as partners in success and development in the country. And Twitter is one of the best tools for that” (Dosary, 2014, p.1). A Saudi media expert Maha Al-Wabel ensures that the voice of Saudi women is now considered on a superior scale. Maha Al-Wabeladds that “We have a wider participation in society and shaping the direction of the policy makers. Women start to address subjects that not only relate to them, but to society, in general, especially in supporting the kingdom’s reform strategy” (Chambers, 2015). Online communication is believed to be a place for reconstruction of identity. As much as Saudi Arabia has been living in regime of terror and total control for a long period of time, whereas government, by establishing strict regulations over each sphere of human`s life has formed citizens` identities, online communication in general and Twitter in particular can reshape people`s identities and therefore, raise protest instead of obedience (Guta&Karolak, 2015, p.118).
Evidently, Saudi journalists, in regard to total censorship take an advantage of Twitter considering it to be the only way to spread breaking news via hashtagging, sharing photos, posts and reposts and discussing significant societal problems raising public awareness of injustice, corruption and archaic system of the state. Saudi journalists share their views and ideas with their followers. Followers, in turn, share these views, and, therefore, spread the ideas in society.

Reference Page
Storck, M. (2010). The Role of Social Media in Political Mobilisation: a Case Study of the January 2011 Egyptian Uprising.
Hauslohner, A. (2011). Why I Protest: Ahmed Harara of Egypt. Content Time. http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102138_2102236,00.html
Howard, P.N. (2011). The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from:
Chaudhry, R. (2014). Can Twitter Promote Social Progress in Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Communication.University of Alberta, Canada.
Gladwell , M. (2013). Twitter and Democracy: A New Public Sphere? Oxford University Press.
Saudi Arabia. Freedom of the Net. Freedom House. Stanford University.
Mourtada, R., & Salem, F. (2011). Civil movements: The impact of Facebook and Twitter. Arab social media report, 1(2), 1-30.
Kulshrestha, J., Kooti, F., Nikravesh, A., &Gummadi, P. K. (2012, June).Geographic Dissection of the Twitter Network.In ICWSM.

Dosary, S.(2014).Twitter and Saudi Women: the Voice of the Voiceless. The University of Arizona.
Worth, R. (2012). Saudis Cross Social Boundaries on Twitter. New York Times.Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/world/middleeast/saudis-cross-social-boundaries-on-twitter.html?_r=0
Berger, J.M.&Morgan, J. (2015). The ISIS Twitter Census Defining and describing the population of ISIS supporters on Twitter.The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World.
Twitter Official Website. Retrieved from: https://about.twitter.com/es/company
Chambers, C. (2015). 3 Key Thing We LearnedAbout Twitter in the Middle Eastin 2014.University of Oregon. Retrieved from: https://damianradcliffe.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/3-key-things-we-learned-about-twitter-in-the-middle-east-in-2014/
Kinninmont, J. (2014). To What Extent Is Twitter Changing Gulf Societies? Chatham House.
Bauer, W. (2013). The self-censored world of Saudi social media.Your Middle East. Retrieved from: http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/columns/article/the-selfcensored-world-of-saudi-social-media_10516
Berger, J.M. (2013). The ISIS Twitter census: Making sense of ISIS’s use of Twitter. Brookings. Retrieved from:http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/03/isis-twitter-census-berger-morgan/isis_twitter_census_berger_morgan.pdf
Boghardt, L.P. (2013). Saudi Arabia’s War on Twitter.The Washington Institute. Retrieved from:http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/saudi-arabias-war-on-twitter
Larse, R. (2011). Civil movements: Facebook and Twitter in the Arab Spring. Journalist`s Resource. Retrieved from: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/international/global-tech/civil-movements-the-impact-of-facebook-and-twitter#sthash.fOTvALD2.dpuf
Radcliffe, D. (2013). Twitter takes off in Saudi – and other news of social media in the Arab world. BBC News. Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/832a893c-5bf3-3ea1-89eb-79e0caf6945f
Salem, M. (2014). 16 women journalists to watch in the Middle East.Amonitor. Retrieved from: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/galleries/16-women-journalists-to-watch-in-the-middle-east.html#ixzz3r8wsuo8y
Comninos, A. (2011). Twitter revolutions and cyber crackdowns User-generated content and social networking in the Arab spring and beyond.Association for Progressive Communications
Guta, H. &Karolak, M. (2015). Veiling and Blogging: Social Media as Sites of Identity Negotiation and Expression among Saudi Women. Journal of International Women’s Studies
Ghannam, J. (2013). Social Media in the Arab World: Leading up to the Uprisings of 2011. Center of International Media Assistance.
Al-Saggaf, Y.&Simmons, P. (2014). Social media in Saudi Arabia: Exploring its use during two natural disasters. Technological Forecasting & Social Change