"What is Trending on Social Media in the Middle East?" is a regular feature of the Quick Thoughts special segment on Status. It offers insight into subjects that dominate online discussion in the Middle East. With every Issue, we will talk to Laila Shereen Sakr, who monitors, collects, and analyzes social media trends for R-Shief.
The data visualizations for this episode (below) illustrate the patterns of hashtag use in the Middle East pertaining to various topics in Summer 2015 (mid-June through mid-August). Created by R-Shief, these visualizations show the top five hashtags for this period from a set of two thousand hashtags being tracked.
Laila Shereen Sakr's interview, which can be found in the player below, explains these visualizations, highlights the most compelling aspects of these trending hashtags, and offers insight into how they should be understood.
For more on what defines a trend, see the first "What's Trending?" report on Jadaliyya.