Media use in the Middle East

Arabs are sensitive about how their countries and regions are portrayed in the media.

Face to Face were conducted in six countries – uae-ksa-tunisia-lebanon-egypt-Qatar

Qatar phone interviews were included

6000+ Randomized sampling

Margin of errors +_ 3%

Nationals and non-nationals were interviewed

Half the samples were female

Age of response was 35 average

More people access Internet via their phone rather than laptop 93% phone 73% laptop/desktop

Facebook and twitter usage is falling in arab world

Instagram exploded in the last few years

Freedom of speech – Percent of ppl who agree its okay to express ur ideas online even if unpopular
First number = 2013 second number = 2015

Ksa- 74-64 lebanon 61 61 uae 59 61 Qatar 57 58 egypt 48 45 tunisia 57 37 Average 59 52

Tv still most important source of news, internet coming close

Tv 81 78 internet 62 71

Women are more interested than men in religious content

People who say international news coverage is biased against their country are more likely to follow national and international news

Optimism rises about the direction of ones country except in Saudi Arabia

Uae 95%! – 87 95 Ksa 79 67 Egypt 42 64 tunisia 27 42 Lebanon 14 24

More highly educated support online freedom of speech in principle, but in practice are less comfortable expressing political opinions