In deploying social media and other information technologies often not designed with MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) cultures in mind, users generate creative approaches to self-representation using virtual identities while preserving their cultural values. To understand and further empower such approaches, we present a mixed-method of computational and qualitative study, focusing on Qatar as a case of such communities in the MENA region. We analyzed a dataset of over 42,000 publicly available social media profiles using computational approaches (archetypal analysis) and qualitatively analyzed a separate set of 255 profiles. We augmented our descriptions with semi-structured interviews. As a result, we delineate a set of five needs/values exhibited by Qatari users supporting their creativity in effectively using virtual identities: Khaleeji features, self-expression, social connections, social monitoring, and physical and virtual identity contrasts. Finally, we propose an initial set of guidelines to support developers of virtual identity systems in better serving these users while preserving their cultural values and creative agency.

Current research demonstrates that when people engage in social photo sharing, they are mindful of how audiences perceive and interact with their photos. We extend this vein of inquiry to focus on photo sharing in the context of the Arab Gulf. We provide insight into how this activity is practiced in a region governed by strict adherence to cultural norms and Islamic traditions that dictate how to "appropriately" share content in digital settings. In particular, we look at the relationship between photo sharing and its effects on identity and self-presentation. To understand how Saudi and Qatari participants represent themselves through photo sharing applications, we conducted 42 face-to-face interviews. Our results reveal that Arab Gulf users engage in photo sharing practices that construct a collective self, distinct from an autonomous self. This collective self often trumps the autonomous self in shaping photo sharing practices.

Theories of privacy and how it relates to the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) have been a topic of research for decades. However, little attention has been paid to the perception of privacy from the perspective of technology users in the Middle East. In this paper, we delve into interpretations of privacy from the approach of Arab Gulf citizens. We consider how privacy is practiced and understood in technology-mediated environments among this population, paying particular attention to the role of Islam and cultural traditions in constructing norms around privacy. We then offer culturally sensitive design principles and suggestions for future research that incorporates previously unexplored characteristics of privacy, which play a role in how users navigate social media.

Recent research on social media use in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has focused on their role in the Arab Spring uprisings, but less work has examined the more mundane uses of these technologies. Yet exploring the way populations in the MENA region use social media in everyday life provides insight into how they are adapted to cultural contexts beyond those from which they originated. To better understand this process, we interviewed eleven Qatari nationals currently living in Doha, Qatar. Our analysis identifies ways users, particularly females, practice modesty, manage their own (and by extension) their family's reputation, and use social media to monitor and protect others. These findings are placed within a framework of social, or participatory surveillance, which challenges conventional notions of surveillance as a form of control and instead shows how surveillance has the potential to be empowering.

The use of social media to communicate timely information during crisis situations has become a common practice in recent years. In particular, the one-to-many nature of Twitter has created an opportunity for stakeholders to disseminate crisis-relevant messages, and to access vast amounts of information they may not otherwise have. Our goal is to understand what affected populations, response agencies and other stakeholders can expect-and not expect-from these data in various types of disaster situations. Anecdotal evidence suggests that different types of crises elicit different reactions from Twitter users, but we have yet to see whether this is in fact the case. In this paper, we investigate several crises-including natural hazards and human-induced disasters-in a systematic manner and with a consistent methodology. This leads to insights about the prevalence of different information types and sources across a variety of crisis situations.

We analyze microblog posts generated during two recent, concurrent emergency events in North America via Twitter, a popular microblogging service. We focus on communications broadcast by people who were "on the ground" during the Oklahoma Grassfires of April 2009 and the Red River Floods that occurred in March and April 2009, and identify information that may contribute to enhancing situational awareness (SA). This work aims to inform next steps for extracting useful, relevant information during emergencies using information extraction (IE) techniques.

This paper considers a subset of the computer-mediated communication (CMC) that took place during the flooding of the Red River Valley in the US and Canada in March and April 2009. Focusing on the use of Twitter, a microblogging service, we identified mechanisms of information production, distribution, and organization. The Red River event resulted in a rapid generation of Twitter communications by numerous sources using a variety of communications forms, including autobiographical and mainstream media reporting, among other types. We examine the social life of microblogged information, identifying generative, synthetic, derivative and innovative properties that sustain the broader system of interaction. The landscape of Twitter is such that the production of new information is supported through derivative activities of directing, relaying, synthesizing, and redistributing, and is additionally complemented by socio-technical innovation. These activities comprise self-organization of information.

This paper examines online, widescale interaction during an emergency event of national interest. Widescale interaction describes the potential for broad, immediate, and varied participation that the conditions of online forums, and social networking sites in particular, increasingly allow. Here, we examine a group on a popular social networking site as a virtual destination in the aftermath of the Northern Illinois University (NIU) shootings of February 14, 2008 in relation to related activity that happened in response to the Virginia Tech (VT) tragedy 10 months earlier. We consider features of interactions that are enabled when a vast audience converges under such conditions. We discuss how commiseration and information seeking are interrelated, and how geographical communities that share a common experience ally in such a public, online setting.