Attitude Correction

How Jonathan Guyer got our survey of Palestinian social media wrong

Jonathan Schanzer
ForeignPolicy.com
03 November '10

Writing for Foreign Policy's Middle East Channel, Jonathan Guyer recently panned "P@lestinian Pulse: What Policymakers Can Learn from Palestinian Social Media," a study I co-authored with Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Guyer's review is wrong on several critical points, and necessitates corrections.

For short summation:Palestine's Web 2.0 by Jonathan Schanzer and Mark Dubowitz

Dubowitz and I undertook our study to explore the relatively new realm of Palestinian social media. Our study found that, in their discussions online, Palestinians are generally opposed to diplomacy with Israel. We also found that the Fatah faction, the most prominent party representing the Palestinians in U.S.-led peace talks, is divided somewhat evenly over the utility of violence against Israel. We also found that Hamas supporters online do not waver in their jihadist view of violence against Israel. Indeed, they appear to be in sync with a growing contingent of Salafists on this point.

How did we reach these findings? We commissioned ConStrat, a company with powerful and proprietary technology the U.S. military uses to analyze Internet trends for myriad national security concerns. They mined hundreds of thousands of sites to match key words on topics relating to peace, diplomacy, violence and radicalization. The goal was to shed some additional light on Palestinian public opinion, particularly since polling data has been wildly inaccurate in recent years.

Guyer begins with an inaccuracy of his own: "The last time you visited your favorite blog, how wide of a cross-section of public opinion did the comments represent? It probably depended on the blogger, on the article, and on the mood of the day."

This is simply wrong. Take the online environment in the United States. Politically active bloggers support the Tea Party or MoveOn.org, depending on whether they lean right or left. Few can be classified as neutral. Accordingly, content is usually driven by ideology, not mood.

(Read full article)

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