Civic Engagement Promotion via Facebook: A Case Study of Nonprofit Youth Organizations in Palestine

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New Media and Digital Culture

MA Thesis

Civic Engagement Promotion via Facebook: A Case

Study of Nonprofit Youth Organizations in Palestine

June 21st, 2015

Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Karin van Es

Second Reader: Dr. Stefania Milan

By: Benaz Batrawi

Student Number: 10847499

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Acknowledgments:

My gratitude goes to all the people and institutes who provided me with assistance and support. Many thanks go to my supervisor Karin van Es for her professional and dedicated supervision, quick and detailed feedback, as well as to University of Amsterdam for its merit scholarship. My deep gratitude must go to my family; my supportive and caring husband, my lovely two daughters, who always stood by and inspired me.

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Abstract:

This study aims to investigate how non-profit youth organizations in Palestine are using Facebook for promoting civic engagement; what themes they are promoting, which posts users are more engaged with, how the organizations are addressing their public, and if this type of speech act is related to specific themes concerning civic engagement. The study draws on a theoretical account of civic engagement definitions and themes in addition to civic engagement relationship with social media in the international and Palestinian context. It also examines and analyzes two youth organizations as case studies, reaching to the conclusion that they are promoting five common civic engagement themes via informative and related posts which motivate the youth to interact with them on different engagement levels. These common themes are; youth media and art, community service and volunteering, advocacy and campaigning, social entrepreneurship and community development, and trainings and practices.

By analyzing the top ten posts that the two organizations address the public with when promoting civic themes, the study reveals that they are using primarily two speech acts; assertive and directive with very few exceptions for expressive act. Moreover, the study generates some insights and suggestions that might be useful and applicable to other youth organizations that are using Facebook platform to foster civic engagement.

Key Words: youth organizations, civic engagement, Facebook platform, users' activities and engagement, slacktivism, and speech acts.

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Appendix # 2: Sharek Youth Forum Facebook page posts coded into themes 87 Appendix # 3: Sharek Youth Forum Facebook page posts coded by speech acts 88 Appendix # 4: Palestinian Vision Facebook page posts coded into themes 96 Appendix # 5: Palestinian Vision Facebook page posts coded by speech acts 97

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Introduction

Social media platforms are powerful, influential and multipurpose tool of communication, used by individuals and institutions for entertainment, education information dissemination and other purposes. Civil society organizations use social media as a way to promote their work, communicate with their constituencies, advocate, raise awareness and socialize. Among Palestinian civil society organizations, nonprofit youth organizations use social media to promote social, economic, and political life aspects. These organizations use Facebook to foster civic engagement which means the ability of youth to address their own concerns and issues once provided with suitable platforms to participate in the decision making process of public life, and to be able to practice their leading role in the public sphere. Facebook is considered the most popular social media tool that youth are using for communication and interaction. In an opinion poll survey conducted in 2013, 52% of the surveyed youth in Palestine described Facebook as their mostly used social media platform; other platforms like Twitter, blogs, and Instagram were accessed by not more than 4% of the users (Sharek 2013a).

This study aims to investigate how non-profit youth organizations in Palestine are using Facebook for civic engagement. To meet the goal of the study, I will be addressing the following questions; what themes Palestinian non-profit youth organizations promote via their Facebook pages? Which posts users engage with mostly? How youth organizations are addressing the public, and whether the speech acts related to the specific themes. The main reason for conducting this study is my personal academic interest to investigate how Palestinian non-profit youth organizations use Facebook pages to communicate with youth and to inform them about civic engagement issues of interest, in order to be more engaged with their communities. By investigating this, I will understand how these organizations define civic engagement and identify their related Facebook practices and policies, then I will be able to generate insights that might possibly be useful and effective to contribute to their work.

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Until now, there is a lack of relevant empirical scholarly work on Palestine exploring the role of social media in general, and Facebook in particular, as tools used to promote civic engagement. Most of the existing sources on social media and civic engagement in Palestine are secondary, focusing on youth and media in general with very few exceptions on social media. These sources are very limited and available through few articles, NGOs online reports, blogs, etc. This study endeavors to contribute to filling this gap of knowledge by examining how youth organizations use Facebook to promote civic engagement, whether to inform, to raise awareness, to develop skills, to encourage innovations and entrepreneurships, or others. This research can be considered a modest asset as well for other researchers and media practitioners, as they might benefit from the theoretical framework or apply similar methods of the Facebook data collection and analysis in their studies or benefit from the research outcome as a whole.

To answer my formulated research questions, I used two empirical methods; a questionnaire and an analysis of retrieved data from the organizations’ activity on their Facebook pages. The questionnaire explains the general framework of how the organizations see civil engagement while the Facebook page analysis shows how the organizations practice civic engagement. Both enriched the civil engagement understanding.

For this purpose, two case studies were selected; Sharek Youth Forum in the West Bank and Palestinian Vision Organization in East Jerusalem, the selection criterion will be explained in the methodology chapter. The research methodology consists of several methods; first a questionnaire was designed to gather background information about each organization to consider how each reflects on the role of Facebook in promoting civic engagement themes. Second an analysis of the Facebook platform and pages structure; a platform studies perspectives was conducted to understand how the platform shapes the ways of interactions and communication and the type of data available for research. Third Netvizz tool was used to collect data from the two pages during the period between October 1st and December 31st, 2014, and then the data was analyzed as in the top ten posts for each type of engagement; Like, Comment, and Share. Finally the data was

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explored in terms of the speech acts that the organizations are using when addressing the public.

The study is structured in five chapters; the first chapter gives an account of the meaning of civic engagement within the academic debate, then introduces my own definition to be applied for this study, it also discusses the relation between civic engagement and social media. Moreover it discusses the role of civic engagement in youth organizations within the national Palestinian context, mainly defining the concept of civic engagement as generated from the applied programs and models on the ground. Then it explains why youth organizations are interested in using social media to promote civic engagement themes, and ends up by explaining some problems youth people might experience when participating in on line civic engagement.

The second chapter explains the research methodology in detail. Case studies findings and analysis are introduced in the third and fourth chapters. The third chapter discusses the mission and vision of Sharek Youth Forum then the results from the questionnaire the respondent completed to understand the role of Facebook in promoting civic engagement. Then it analyses the organization’s Facebook page posts for the three-month period. This analysis aims to contribute to answering the three main questions of what themes are being promoted, which posts are most popular and engaged with, and which speech acts are being used to address the users. The fourth chapter follows the same approach of the third chapter and applies the same analytical methods but in relation to the second case study; the Palestinian Vision Organization. The final chapter includes a brief comparison between both cases and ends with a final conclusion of the whole research.

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1. Civic Engagement General Theoretical Framework and the

Non-Profit Youth Organizations in Palestine

In this chapter I am going to provide definitions for civic engagement and will explain its themes and discourses within the academic debate then will derive the definition for the purpose of this study. I will also discuss the relation between civic engagement and social media. Later on I will focus more on the Palestinian context and introduce a brief political background of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that indicates the urgent need for the youth organizations and their civic programs. Then I will show some general statistics related to the youth population in Palestine, moreover I will provide some examples of the applied civic engagement programs. Finally, I will discuss why youth organizations are interested in using social media to promote civic engagement giving some examples, and what problems the youth might face while participating in online civic engagement.

1.1 Civic Engagement Definitions

Civic engagement is being defined in terms of the connections between the citizens and their communities. It is described as ‘self-renewing, collective efforts by residents, organizations, and communities aimed at improving lives and strengthening communities’ (Loader, Vromen and Xenos 2014, 2). Another definition considers it as ‘values, beliefs, attitudes, feelings, knowledge, skills and behaviors concerned with conditions outside of the immediate environment of family and friends’ (Shaw et. all. 2014, 4). In other terms, civic engagement can be defined as thinking and acting outside the individual circle; the ‘We’ getting together collectively to make a change.

In the Middle East, the notion of civic engagement is emerging, and is considered new, as a result there is no accumulating positive impact yet, and is still not appropriated in the right direction. Kurtz (2012) for example defines Mercy Corps civic engagement program in the Middle East by saying that ‘it can take many forms including volunteering in a community service project; being involved in an organization working to address a social issue like corruption, and joining with others to raise concerns, such as through protesting’ (6). However, civic engagement means first identifying youth needs before moving to the community and institutional levels. Therefore, Kurtz (2012 ) criticizes the

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current applied programs in the Middle East because they did not generate a noticeable difference among youth like ‘tolerance of others, respect for pluralism and diversity, or a sense of shared identity’ (5) and are not proven that young people have more potentials for jobs after developing their skills (Kurtz 2012).

If so, the question then is what drives young people to be interested or involved in politics or civics? Rheingold (2008) debates youth engagement in politics stating that ‘youth need publics first—networked or physical—before they can engage in any form of political life. Politics start first with the school, with your friends then they grow to being about civics’ (6). This process seemingly leads youth to become indifferent to get involved with the mainstream political bodies like political parties and official institutes; instead they get active politically in their own way and by their alternative approaches. Loader, Vromen and Xenos (2014) claim that involvement of youth in politics comes as in;

‘Participation in social movements, rallies, protests, and consumer boycotts all point to the possible displacement of traditional models of representative democracy as the dominant cultural form of engagement by alternative approaches increasingly characterized through networking practices’ (3).

Such non-traditional civic engagement forms, like peers and social networks are affecting the political identity more than the traditional institutes (Loader, Vromen and Xenos 2014).

1.2 Civic Engagement Themes, Discourses and Final Definition

As discussed in the previous section, civic engagement takes different forms, but what are the main themes or issues of interest that people get engaged most with? Shaw et. al. (2014) in their article Understanding Youth Civic Engagement: Debates, Discourses, and Lessons from Practice grouped civic engagement areas of interest into six common categories; ‘community service and volunteering, advocacy and campaigning, youth media, social entrepreneurship and community development, leadership skills, and training and practices’ (4). This categorization scales youth civic engagement considering it as drivers for change and ‘is part of their individual agency and collective action

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towards the social change’ (5). Based on this categorization I coded the Facebook page posts of the two case studies under those themes, as explained in the methodology chapter.

When it comes to the discourses those related to civic engagement Shaw et. al. (2014) divide them into five areas; ‘democratic citizen, positive youth development, belonging, care and social justice’ (7). Democratic citizen views citizenship primarily in terms of ‘how political and civic identity is activated through engagement and influenced in the public sphere’ (8). Positive youth development civic engagement activities are about empowering youth through skills development (Shaw et. al. 2014). Belonging or community connectedness means the robust ties with the place and the space (Shaw et. al. 2014). Care discourse is ‘of relevance to young people who experience challenges, such as poverty, health issues, disability, and exploitation’ (10). Social justice youth development is ‘a form of engaging young people that incorporates a distinct political or social change objective [ ] Social justice models include elements of youth development frameworks such as emotional and social support’ (11). Such discourses can frame the Palestinian civics as well, but within the Palestinian cultural identity as an Arab nation. To conclude from all the above definitions, civic engagement means influencing individuals to step away from being distanced from the public life towards becoming more engaged and inspired. My own definition of civic engagement that will be employed throughout this research is involving youth as active participants in their communities, identifying their needs, fulfilling their ambitions, providing them with the required skills and opportunities so they can take a leading role in the public life and contribute to the political, cultural, economic, and social development.

1.3 Civic Engagement and Social Media

The internet is a space for all types of organizations to communicate, join forces, and liaise. It can be a space to inform and mobilize the public or a space to misinform and discourage them. Hollands (2008) claims that technology is highly political in that sense ‘technology of any kind is never neutral, it has the potential and capacity to be used socially and politically for quite different reason’ (315). In Palestine, internet has been localized and appropriated to suit conditions of Palestinian youth living under the Israeli

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occupation. The speed, cost effectiveness, interactivity and wide reach of social media in particular, made it a popular tool for non-profit organizations to deliver their messages and to receive immediate feedback.

It is noticeable that several Palestinian youth NGOs use their Facebook pages to motivate youth visibility in their communities urging them to take leading political, social, cultural and economical roles, hence encouraging them to participate and actively engage in the civic life. Such participation and engagement eventually leads to taking a role in the wider community at local and national levels, resulting in youth being key players and ‘to be recognized as a source of strength and opportunity for local communities, rather than a problem to be resolved’ (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Office 2011, 7).

Furthermore, when connected to social media, youth engagement is elaborated in terms of the societal necessities as ‘youth action in response to societal needs, in the form of supportive, deliberative, and collaborative practices in social media’ (Brandtzaeg, F ّlstad and Mainsah n.year, 2). Practices in social media are being classified first as supportive practices ‘that includes online petition, joining Facebook groups, and sharing information for specific societal cause’ (3). Second, as deliberative practices such as ‘discussing and debating purposeful societal issues’ (3), and finally collaborative practices ‘about collectively creating solutions for problems in society’ (3). The latest shows the highest level of youth interaction with the societal need.

In terms of youth and communication via Facebook in specific, Abdulla (2014) stresses on the technological structure of the Facebook as a medium by which ‘each user can control the experience and discourse via Facebook pages [ ] and there was a space that could be claimed as the user's own’ (Abdulla 2014, 2). She adds that Facebook exposed Egyptian youth to another communication pattern which is ‘a pattern of horizontal communication that had not been much afforded to them in their country’ (2). She explains the predominant type of communication as vertical addressing youth by ‘figures of authority including their parents, their teachers, and the government’ (2). For youth there was lack of chances to express their thoughts and life ambitions. In this regard, she considers the importance of Facebook communication as a space for showing equality

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‘horizontal communication that stems from an assumption of equality that did not exist’ (2). The same vertical communication pattern is applicable to the Palestinian youth who later found Facebook a tool to resist the traditional communication approach of the authority.

Al-Fatafta and Shurafa, in their book New Media Relation with Freedom of Opinion and

Speech in Palestine in 2011, proclaim that internet technology in general and Facebook in

specific have become spaces for youth to express their opinions, and have become an essential part of their lives that is difficult to detach; even Facebook has become some kind of a habit. They add that ‘debates on Facebook that some people consider a waste of time, in fact it led to better understanding of the citizens' reality’ (160). This understanding of reality, especially by youth, is being reflected through the creation of Facebook pages and the discussion of political and other issues of concern, as they both claim. For the authors, ‘politicians really underestimated the Facebook seriousness’ (160). Perhaps the living proof of this seriousness is the role that both Facebook and Twitter played during the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions.

Lance Bennett (2008) explains the role of social networks that encourage debates and promote civic engagement; he says that such sites can predominantly enable the actions rather than being the places of actions (lance Bennett 2008). He clarifies the actions steps as follows: first the users access the information about specific issues and connect with other users, and then they use tools to organize themselves and go out to the offline world to serve their communities (lance Bennett 2008).

Generally speaking, most youth offline participation in Palestine is political because of the Palestinian-Israel conflict. When it comes to online participation youth choose to practice electronic resistance in different forms such as ‘mass emails calling for demonstrations and meetings, signing petitions, and writing diaries’ (Machool, 2007). This type of resistance is growing and the active young Palestinian generation inside the country and in the diaspora is utilizing the technology as a tool to end the conflict.

Abu Al-Rub (2014) argues in his paper Social Media and the Change Concept Confusion that many event invitations are being disseminated via social media networks but there is a gap between the online and offline number of attendees. He argues that ‘pushing the

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Join button makes the user feel satisfied enough and feels that there is no need for taking further action’ (6). He blames the users for wanting to boast ‘this is part of getting used to and show off habit as an individual among a group’ (6). He also believes that it is a symptom of becoming more addicted to social media. For him, this show off habit and spending many hours in front of the screen come as an alternative for building the Arab and Palestinian character. He adds ‘the user expresses his/her concerns and issues via blogging, and debates in order to gain satisfaction through the high number Likes rather than initiating real offline actions and initiatives’ (6). For him social media thus becomes a space for relief instead of a space for actions.

Van Es, van Geenen and Boeschoten (2014) agree with Abu Al-Rub that the utilization of social media is more about feeling relieved than contributing to making a real difference. They use the term slacktivism to ‘describe online participation that requires little personal effort, and that is directed at achieving personal satisfaction rather than bringing about societal change’ (n.pag.). Moreover, Rotman et. al. (2011) define slacktivism as ‘a low-risk, low-cost activity via social media, whose purpose is to raise awareness, produce change, or grant satisfaction to the person engaged in the activity’ (3). Morosov (2009, n.pag.) defines it as ‘an apt term to describe feel-good online activism that has zero political or social impact’. Christensen (2012) adds to that definition by saying ‘it is the ideal type of activism for a lazy generation, who no longer bother with demonstrations when the rouse of the Internet is so much more appealing’ (3). She continues ‘this generation by the online participation pretends to care’ (3).

Finally in context of this study, the gap between the online and offline civic engagement participation is defined in terms of slacktivism as a low-cost activity expressing users’ laziness that seeks their own personal satisfaction more than seeking real change on the ground. Slacktivism will be discussed in the case study analysis with examples showing the gap between online and offline participation at the organization itself and when analyzing the types of users’ engagement with their Facebook pages.

From above discussion, one can recognize the different opinions about the use of social media and civic engagement where some are optimistic and see it as a tool for horizontal communication, promoting social change, participation and democracy, while others are

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pessimistic and see it as a space for relief that expresses lazy generation and encourages slacktivism with zero impact on the ground. I would argue that it depends on how users are using this technology, and for what purposes in the first place. Also it depends on the users’ level of awareness concerning the power and agency of such technology and its ability to deliver the intended messages. Social media can be used for entertainment, commercial reasons, and activism and civics purposes but at the end what makes a difference is why and how it is being used, in which context, and how much users know about its potential. In this study I am going to trace how the human and non-human agency shape the promotion of civic engagement. The Facebook as a social media tool is being used by youth organizations for purposeful and planned reason which is promoting civic engagement themes and that will be more elaborated in the upcoming chapters. Having established a definition of civic engagement and introduced the relationship between civic engagement and social media in the first part, in the following part I will focus more on explaining the national context of practicing civic engagement by non-profit youth organizations in Palestine.

1.4 The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

When Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967 the life of thousands of Palestinian have changed. They became under occupation and others become refugees and were displaced to the nearby Arab countries. By doing this, Israel aimed to expand its settlements, and control all the surrounding space politically and economically. The conflict continued causing a daily human struggle ‘since the eruption of two uprisings of 1987-92 and 2000-2006, the hostilities have produced a particularly tensed situation, in which Palestinians are suffering from the Israeli measures and actions such as curfews, checkpoints, shut-downs’ (The Augean Stables 2015, n.pag.). Since 2002 Israel has been building the Separation Wall inside the West Bank that has a length of 810 km and isolates villages and cities from each other in addition to confiscating 46% of West Bank land (Stop The Wall, n. year) affecting people’s life as Hart (2007) explains ‘this wall and the checkpoints served to hinder movement, increasing the time, cost and effort involved in pursuing the activities of everyday’ (5). Under these circumstances Palestinian youth lived in hardship, and their daily life became controlled by all means.

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During the years of occupation and mainly before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Israeli Government, people were supported by civil society institutes who provided community services and volunteering, welfare subsidies, non-formal education, social awareness raising, and life skills development. However, the history of Palestinian civil society goes back to 1917 where organizations like ‘religious groups, clubs, labor unions, women's societies, charitable organizations, and village guest houses’ (Musleh 1993, 260) were operated to serve their communities. After signing the Oslo Accords, some parts of the West Bank and the Gaza strip became under the control of the Palestinian Authority resulting in increasing the number of civil society organizations ‘in 1995, the estimated number of NGOs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip ranged from 800 to 1,200’ (Hammami 2000, 16).

The Palestinian Society is considered young as youth in Palestine aged between 15-29 years compose 30% of the overall 4.550.368 population (Palestinian Center Bureau of Statistics 2014b). However ‘the unemployment rate among youth is 56%, while 25% of youth are under poverty line in 2014’ (Sharek and Palestinian Center Bureau of Statistics 2014, 5). The consequences of unemployment and poverty are reflected in what the youth desire ‘to immigrate because of lacking options and feeling insecure’ (7).

Within this complicated context there was a necessity for non-profit organization to fulfill the youth needs and aspirations and contribute to opening new horizons for them (Innovations in Civic Participation 2015, n.pag). In 2013 there were approximately 500 non-profit youth centers and clubs in addition to 250 non-profit youth organizations (Sharek 2013a) that are offering different services such as culture, continuing education, career development, and recreational and leisure activities.

Part of their role as well, is implementing civic engagement programs to support youth and provide them with the space and skills they need to have better opportunities, and contribute to their communities positively. In addition, undergraduate students have to serve the community by 120 hours to be able to graduate (Innovations in Civic Participation 2015, n.pag), so the youth organizations are providing them with suggested initiatives and required skills to do that.

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1.5 Examples of Civic Engagement Applied Programs

The applied programs in Palestine are mainly focusing on enhancing the participants’ life capacities and then connecting this enhancement to serve their own communities. Stewart (2001) defines civic engagement as giving a voice for the youth, it is about ‘the inclusion of young people as a meaningful part of the creation and implementation of service opportunities’ (5). He gives an example of a civic engagement program which is ‘a youth centered-community based service learning program implemented by Ruwwad NGO in Ramallah city’ (Stewart 2011, 29). This program takes a community approach that aims at rising youth potentials, and allowing them to impact their communities (Stewart, 2009). The program applies a model called 30/30 ‘where the volunteer receives in 30 days a training to participate in public service program […] after going into five stages; recruitment, orientation, training, placement, and coaching’ (Stewart 2011, 30). This program equips the participants with the necessary skills required to participate in the public life.

Other implemented civic engagement programs are focusing on using media to empower youth and enable them to express themselves via media tools. Hart (2011) clarifies three components for such programs ‘learning attitudes and practices in order to be citizens in a democratic state [..] achieving self-realizations through self-conscious [..] and protagonism where youth are getting empowered in order to transform the structure and practices that prevent them from inclusion’ (2&3). She discusses the Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation (PYALARA) which functions in West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem as an example. In 1999 PYALARA founded a newspaper called ‘Jerusalem Times’ to create a journal that addresses adolescence (Hart 2011). The newspaper ‘was written by and for youth and embraces social, cultural, and political issues’ (Hart 2011, 12). Another media tool the organization is using is a TV program called ‘Alli Sawtak or Speak Up’ (Hart 2011, 12). This program is a joint production with the Palestinian official TV and is aired once a week aiming to discuss varied aspects related to the current affairs.

1.6 Youth Organizations and the Use of Social Media Tools

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Facebook, to promote civic engagement themes, two case studies are being selected for the purpose of my study; Sharek Youth Forum based in the West Bank, and Palestinian Vision Organization based in East Jerusalem. The two organization have overarching similarities such as implementing civic engagement program, and using social media tools especially Facebook to promote civic engagement.

But why are these youth organizations using social media tools? Aren’t traditional media tools like newspapers, radio and TV programs enough to accomplish that mission? Aren’t alternative media like theatre, photography, video (Norman, 2009) are also enough to do so? One of the reasons might be to follow where youth are going to seek information and opportunities. The statistics indicate that the Palestinian youth has high interest in social media as 81.7% of youth aged between 20-29 years are using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics 2014a). Statistics also state the purposes of using those tools among the persons who are 10 years and more ‘75% are using them for acquaintance, 25.8% for political discussion, 34.2% for discussing religious issues, while 33.3% to debate cultural and heritage issues’(n.pag.). Moreover, 52% of the youth in Palestine described Facebook as their mostly used social media platform and they spend an average of 3-4 hours per day using it (Sharek 2013a). Facebook therefore, is a strategic media platform for those organizations to inform and educate the Palestinian youth. At the same time, it can be a platform that youth themselves could utilize to express their hopes and aspirations.

Many youth organizations have realized the importance of social media for reaching and connecting with the Palestinian youth. One good example is Taghyeer Social Media which means (Change), it uses Facebook and blogs to raise youth awareness concerning sensitive issues like the so-called honor killing, and fighting corruption. It explains on its Facebook page the reason for such media utilization ‘our role is to create platforms, to make a change, life is a platform, social media are about platforms, everyone has a story, so the story must be told via a platform’ (Taghyeer, 2015a, n.pag.).

Another example of youth citizen engagement via social media at the same organization is training youth on how to be good citizens by applying a project called You Know where youth can via ‘a digital interactive platform for web and mobile question the

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decision makers in health and social issues and advocate on behalf of the right for information access’ (Taghyeer, 2015b, n.pag). Nevertheless, such projects and because of its digital type, should be preceded by introductory training courses so any young participant can contribute to without facing a technological barriers.

1.7 The Problems of Online Youth Engagement

Having elaborated on the significance of using social media in promoting civics, I will now address the potential problems of youth online engagement, such as the networking and the access to this technology; are all youth networked in the social networks on equal basis? What about differences in gender, race, socioeconomic class, geographic location, level of education, occupation and other factors? Who has access to the internet? When and in which context internet is being used? Loader, Vromen and Xenos (2014, 6) state that ‘educational and employment opportunities for young people have been significantly influenced by social and cultural factors such as class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and location’ (6). This is applicable to the Palestinian youth where not all youth have access to the internet or connected equally (Sharek, 2013a) also education and jobs opportunities for youth are being influenced basically by class, gender, and locality. Young people who live in cities are receiving better education and jobs more than who live in villages; consequently those social cultural factors affect youth level of engagement in the civics. After discussing the civic engagement definitions, discourses and themes, elaborating on the relationship between civic engagement and social media and presenting some of the civic engagement programs and practices in the Palestinian context, the next chapter will illustrate the study methodology in details.

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2. Methodology

As illustrated before the goal of this thesis is to analyze how non-profit youth organizations in Palestine are using Facebook to promote civic engagement. To help me research this, I have formulated the following sub questions that will guide my research of the Facebook pages.

What themes do Palestinian non-profit youth organizations promote via their Facebook pages?

Which posts do users engage with mostly?

How have the organizations addressed the public in these most popular posts? Is this type of speech act related to specific themes concerning civic engagement? In this study I used two empirical methods; a questionnaire and an analysis of content and activity on Facebook pages. The basis of my study is the Facebook pages of two youth organizations located in two different geographic locations in Palestine. Sharek Youth Forum is based in the West Bank and Palestinian Vision Organization is located in East Jerusalem. The discrepancy in their geographic location is a factor that may affect the findings of the case study due to the fact that each geographic area has its own political context, where the West Bank is under the control of the Palestinian National Authority, and East Jerusalem is under full control of the Israeli Authorities. However, I chose to compare the two because they have their similarities in terms of implementing a civic engagement program, owning an English Website and using an Arabic Facebook page. In what follows, I explain how I designed and conducted my questionnaire in support of my research goals. Subsequently, I briefly analyze the Facebook platform and the pages from a software and platform studies perspective to consider how it shapes possible forms of interaction and communication. Also how it influences the type of data I have at my disposal for the research. Finally, I discuss using Netvizz tool to collect data from these pages and the methods used to interpret the data.

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Before designing the questionnaire, I sent via e-mail an introductory letter to several youth organizations asking if they would be willing to participate in the research and answer a questionnaire. Subsequently, I collected background information about each organization’s vision, mission in general, and their civic engagement program in specific, by either referring to their English Websites or Facebook pages upon availability. Based on the information gathered, I designed a questionnaire with specific questions to their civic engagement programs in relation to Facebook users (see Appendix #1).

There are several types of questionnaires such as face-to-face interviews and telephone surveys, but for my research I opted to use an-email questionnaire which is considered ‘a mailing self-completion survey’ by the respondents (Negrine and Newbold 1998, 234). This is due to the fact that the two case studies are in Palestine while I am studying in the Netherlands. This type of questionnaire has the benefit that it is relatively cheap (Negrine and Newbold 1998). Moreover, it is better than skype for example because it gives the respondent enough time to think and consult others when needed before answering the questions. However, an e-mail questionnaire has its drawbacks, most notably the absence of contact between the respondent and the researcher. Negrine and Newbold (1998) claim that ‘the absence may affect the quality of answering the questions and the completion rate’ (234). More specifically, it may demotivate the respondents from answering the questions and prohibits them from asking questions in case any question is unclear. Therefore, I reviewed the questionnaires upon their completion, and sent them back to the organization in order to fill the unanswered questions. I also explained unclear question to the other organization via email.

Negrine and Newbold (1998) explain that in order to have an ideal questionnaire the design must be specific to the subject, clear and short as the respondent has less commitment to answer the questions and may not be attracted enough to do it fully. Therefore, I designed the questionnaire in three pages divided into two main sections where the questions were simple, short, and self-explanatory.

As for the structure of the questionnaire, it started with a short introduction explaining what the research is about, followed by a form that allows the collection of some of basic information about the organization. When structuring the questionnaire, sloppy ordering

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can impact negatively the results as the place of the question ‘plays an important role not only in a numerical sense but in a contextual way as well’ (Negrine and Newbold 1998, 246). The questionnaire was organized in a logical manner where each part flow led to the other; I started by introducing the research aim and asking about the organization bio data, then moving to two main sections; the first about the organization and its use of the Facebook page, while the second section zoomed in specifically on Facebook page users. Each question belonged to its place to make sure that the respondent understands the context and the logic behind it. For example, I ordered the questions from general to specific such as asking about the civic engagement program activities then asking more specific question about the media tools that the organization is using to promote the program activities, followed by a question about how the organization is using the Facebook page for such promotion.

In terms of formulating the questions, literature points out that it is important to take wording into consideration, it should be framed as ‘clear, simple and with minimum efforts required by the respondent to answer it’ (Negrine and Newbold 1998, 245). Therefore, I chose the words that were easy to understand with no room for confusion, for example I asked what types of activities you use through civic program?. It is also important to note that I chose to ask questions with an objective tone and provide the respondent with different choices to respond, as Negrine and Newbold (1998) argue that questions should always seek proper answers and should not direct the respondent towards predetermined answers.

Literature suggests that varying types of questions helps in changing the responding pace, keeps the respondent from feeling bored and encourages him/her to continue filling the questionnaire. For that reason, the questionnaire included closed questions with “yes” or “no” answers, followed by questions for more elaboration. Moreover, it included open-ended questions to give the respondent more space for explanations, but that added more work during the analysis (Negrine and Newbold 1998).

I finalized the questionnaire design by having a third party proofread the language, and by pre-testing with some volunteers. I asked the volunteers to make sure that questions were understandable, followed by analyzing the pre-testing data and incorporating any

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adjustments into the final version. When analyzing the questionnaire findings, I classified them under five main subheadings; First the organization mission and vision, second definition of the civic engagement program goals and activities, third the role of Facebook in the organization itself, fourth Facebook administration and policy, finally the Facebook and users interactions. Subsequently, I grouped the findings of the collected data thematically according to relevance.

I sent the final questionnaire to the head of each organization asking if they could complete it along with the Facebook page administrator. However, these instructions were not exactly followed. For the Sharek Youth Forum in Ramallah, the respondent was Inas Abu Shirbi, the Public Relations Officer, as for the Palestinian Vision Organization in East Jerusalem the respondent was Rami Naser Al-Deen the Executive Director. Both respondents informed me that they completed the questionnaire with the help of their media teams.

2.2 Facebook as a Social Media Platform

The organizations examined in this research, indicated that they use several social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, however, they prioritized Facebook over others to communicate with their users, because of its vast easy access and common use among Palestinian youth. Before discussing the Facebook data collection and analysis process, I will draw attention to the Facebook history and interface. Within this framework, I will reflect on types of interactions on the Facebook pages that encourage and discourage users to interact, how Facebook shapes ways of communication and affects the types of data I retrieved.

Boyed and Ellison (2007) write that Facebook ‘began in early 2004 as a Harvard-only Social Network Site, in order to join a user had to have a harvard.edu email address’ (218). However, this changed as the user base grew. Beginning of September 2005, ‘Facebook expanded to include high school students, professionals inside corporate networks, and, eventually, everyone’ (218). Since then, Facebook continually updates and develops the platform interface and apps. After registering to use the site, ‘users can create a user profile, add other users as friends, exchange messages, post status updates

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and photos, share videos and receive notifications when others update their profiles’1. Users can join groups or like pages that belong to organizations, schools, companies, friends or others.

Since I am studying the Facebook pages of the two organizations, I am going to define what a page means, and how pages are being moderated and structured. According to the Facebook help center ‘pages are for businesses, brands and organizations to share their stories and connect with people’ (Facebook 2015, n.pag.). Pages can be modified as personal profiles by posting stories and photos, supporting causes and encouraging reviews, and adding new apps.

According to the Facebook help center, there are five different types of roles for people who manage pages ‘administrator, editor, moderator, advertiser and analyst’ (Facebook, 2015, n.page.). Changing the roles of the people who manage the page is only allowed by the page administrator. The roles are sometimes overarching when related to duties. A page administrator can see the page insights, which means the peoples’ activities on the page ‘where under the posts one can see number of people the post reached, number of people who clicked the post and number of people who liked, shared, and commented on the post’ (Facebook 2015, n.page.). Users choose to like the page in order to get notifications, and posts. Notifications then appear on their News Feed in their profile pages. The more the page gets Likes the more its publicity increases, because more users mean more interactions and more talk about it. After liking the page users can interact with its content upon their free will, passion ‘users choose their level of participation, which may include active engagement i.e. posting status updates, sharing links, chatting etc. or passive engagement i.e. viewing others’ status updates, looking at others’ pages etc.’ (Necula 2013, 8).

By accessing Facebook pages of the two case studies, I found that the structure of the page for Palestinian Vision organization is divided into five sections; Timeline, About, Photos, Reviews, and More. Timeline shows the posts of the page, About is the

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informative section of the page where the vision, mission, and goals of the organization are illustrated, Photos come in folders to show events of the organization, and Reviews demonstrate the public opinion and evaluation of the organization’s work, while More is left for varied contents such as Likes, Events, and Mailing List. The Sharek Youth Forum Facebook page has a slightly different structure with Timeline, About, Ouneh Festival, Sharek Tube, and More. Timeline shows the main interface of the page and the posts, Ouneh Festival has texts and photos emphasizing on the voluntary work, while Sharek Tube screens all the online material published via YouTube. The More section indicates varied matters like Tamayyaz project, photos, events, likes, and Twitter, however there is no place for Reviews.

It is worth mentioning that on both pages the page administrator is the only one who can post on the status. Users have no access to the page status and can only post by replying. Aside from Facebook’s own community guidelines there is no official content policy on those pages provided by the organizations themselves. Usually when signing up for Facebook the user agrees to the terms of use and the user says that he/she will follow the community guidelines – this of course influences the actions because Facebook can intervene. From my questionnaire, however, I found that monitoring is taking place. The questionnaire respondents said that as part of the content policy control, no offensive political, religious or abusive comments are allowed. In this sense, deleting the offensive political, religious or unethical comments leads to question the definitions of those categories and implies some kind of censorship over the users comments, and sets boundaries for what must be said and how. This eventually will impact the type of data I might retrieve when analyzing the users’ engagement with each Facebook page of the case study.

In order to study the use of Facebook by non-profit youth organizations it should be considered that the platform itself is a powerful actor shaping how people can communicate. Van Es, Van Geenen and Boeschoten (2014) confirm its power by claiming that ‘the power of Facebook in shaping interaction should not be ignored. The interface design of the Facebook pages and the algorithms working beneath the surface, configure the power relations between participants in the discussion’ (n.pag.). In other

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words power of the interface design and algorithms are the ones affecting the ways of users’ engagement with the youth organization’s page posts and consequently shaping the ways of communication between the organizations and the users at the end.

With reference to the News Feed feature, Bucher (2012) also claims that Facebook determines what to be seen and not seen for ‘ideological reasons’ (1168). She gives an example for the development of the News Feed introduced in 2011 where the News Feed was divided into two versions ‘Top News and Most Recent News and Facebook deploys an automated and predetermined selection mechanism to establish relevancy ultimately demarcating the field of visibility for that media space’ (1167). What the user should see, when, and to what extent is being determined by the Facebook specific ranking and with no neutrality. In my case, although users have liked the Facebook page of the organizations it is not guaranteed that they actually encounter what is posted to these pages. Particularly those users that are not that active on the page may find that activities on that page are not registered in their custom-tailored News Feed.

Aside from shaping how people can communicate on the platforms, the platform also has an implication for research. Marres and Gerlitz (2015) introduce Facebook as ‘presenting new sites for the production, collection and analysis of social data’ (1). However, they are more critical about Facebook when it comes to social media research methods. They claim that;

‘There are obvious methodological biases in the social media such as the way in which Facebook explicitly facilitates acts like friending, liking or submitting a complaint, but not contesting and critiquing, and thereby favors a particular, highly partial type of social Analysis’ (Marres and Gerlitz 2015, 2).

Meaning that if the disliking is allowed on the Facebook platform the collected and analyzed data will be different. They continue by saying ‘social media research may call into question the relationship between the research agencies [..] such as the relationship between the subject and the object’ (Marres and Gerlitz 2015, 2). For example, as a researcher when I chose to study the Facebook page posts, was it my decision to use the page and group method or my decision was affected by the object of study with its

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apparatuses? (Marres and Gerlitz 2015). To summarize, when conducting social media research the Facebook platform determines the research tools and consequently affecting the research outcome.

2.2.1 Between Liking, Sharing and Commenting

There are three main types of possible Facebook buttons, each corresponding to different levels of engagement. The most common used Facebook button is the Like button. It shows a connection between users and page post content ‘the button provides a one-click shortcut to express a variety of affective responses such as excitement, agreement, compassion, and understanding’ (Gerlitz and Helmond 2013, 11). However, the Share button is also considered a one-click shortcut, but still it means that the user is making a moderate effort of engagement which ‘enables publics to become a voluntary messenger of organizational message to their own social group’ (Choa, Schweickartb and Haasec 2014, 565). While a Comment is considered the highest level of engagement among others ‘because it requires more effort by the public to directly respond to organizational messages’ (Choa, Schweickartb and Haasec 2014, 565) and it entails more visible contribution and expression. On the other hand, Lampinen argues (2015) that sharing can be political as ‘Facebook encourages peer-to-peer sharing, in part because the more we share, the more data they can amass about everyday activities that used to be difficult to track’ (2). For youth organizations peer-to-peer sharing can be utilized as a tool for data collection and documentation for the purpose of studies and surveys.

Returning to the question of platform politics, authors have discussed the absence of the Unlike button. Stumple (2011) argues that ‘the company is persistently against the thumbs down […] the company claims that would create hate among the users and the abuse would be great’ (278). Though Stumple (2011) disagrees with Facebook explanation and considers all because the ‘company seems to persistently obscure its commercial reasons for not adding it by putting forward an ethical argument, which shows the company in its best light’ (278). The absence of the Unlike button impacts on the data that I will retrieve as users have limited choices when interacting with the posts content.

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The questionnaire findings draw the general framework of the analysis by obtaining information about the organization in general and its civic engagement program, the Facebook page administration and policy, and the users’ interaction with page. The Facebook data analysis sheds the light on how the organization is using the Facebook page; what content is communicated through posts, what posts users are engaging more with, and how the organization addresses the public through the most popular posts. The data was extracted via Netvizz application. This application currently retrieves data from three diverse sections of the Facebook platform; ‘personal networks, groups, and pages’ (Rieder 2013, 4). I extracted the data from pages to analyze both posts and users engagement with those posts. Rieder (2013) explains how Netvizz functions when extracting the data from a page ‘page represented as a bipartite network, with both posts and users as nodes. If a user comments on, or likes a post, a directed edge between user and post is created’ (5), which helps a researcher to ‘determine the most active users and identify the posts with highest engagement rates’ (Reider 2013, 5). Data are retrieved in files that can be opened and analyzed (Reider 2013) by a program like Excel.

For my research, I extracted data from two Facebook pages of Sharek Youth Forum, and Palestinian Vision between October 1st until December 31st, 2014. I selected this timeframe for three reasons; first to retrieve fresh and recent data, second to avoid the possibility of bias data reflecting on the war in Gaza between July and September 2014, and thirdly because of the scope of this research. If the scope of this research was for a longer period of time like a year, then the timeframe of the study could have been for six months or a whole year.

The data extraction process via Netvizz application went as follows: I opened Netvizz V1.05 'pages and groups only' then went to the bottom and clicked on Page data – 'creates networks and tabular files for user activity around posts on pages'. I retrieved the posts between Oct 1st, 2014 and Dec. 31st, 2014, then clicked on 'get only post statistics no network, comment, and per country files, much faster and can deal with larger page'. I then searched for Organization 'Page ID' by pasting the Facebook URL on Facebook ID

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finder and then pasted it on the page ID, finally clicked on 'get post by page only'. The data was retrieved in (A tabular file (TSV) that listed different metrics for each post, and it could be opened via Excel Microsoft Program.

2.4 Facebook Data Analysis 2.4.1 Analyzing the promoted themes

In my thesis, I discuss each of the two cases in a separate chapter, and for the purpose of analysis I coded the posts under themes. Specifically, I analyzed the posts in terms of the civic engagement themes in order to understand which themes the organization is most actively promoting for the development of the community. This analysis is important to first know what posts content under classified themes are promoted via Facebook in order to be able to answer the main question which is how the organizations are promoting the civics. Additionally the analysis is crucial as it generates data that would help as a base in answering the second and third questions.

Based on the classification of Shaw et. al. (2014), I grouped the themes into six common themes ‘community service and volunteering, advocacy and campaigning, youth media, social entrepreneurship and community development, leadership skills, and training and practices’ (4). However, in the process I found that the themes categorization did not cover all the posts I came across. It was therefore necessary to add two more themes; Shadow Local Youth Councils and Studies & Surveys for Sharek Youth Forum because of its large scale in the civic engagement program.

To explain the coding process and in order to analyze the three-month data, I coded all retrieved posts one by one from the excel sheets2, as one can ‘transcribe and decode in any type of software or tool, even pen and paper’ (Lamerichs, n.d. 17). I coded each post under the most relevant theme. I also left a category for posts not related to the civic engagement themes, including unexplained photos, unrelated events or themes, links to other organizations, and positive quotations. Then I counted the number of posts under each theme in order to arrange the promoted themes via Facebook page from the highest number to the lowest. However using this one by one coding process is fairly subjective,

2_{Note: The top ten posts of both cases were translated from Arabic into English by the}

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as sometimes I found two posts overlapping, so I had to depend on my judgment where to locate each.

2.4.2 Analyzing user engagement

After coding all posts and to figure out what themes are being promoted by Facebook pages, I analyzed the users’ engagement actions of Like, Comment, and Share. By this analysis I was able to comprehend what posts interest youth more and motivate them to interact, which reveal the level of users activities on the page and consequently the organizations can emphasize on such posts content and build on them to reinforce their civics. I made a separate table for each top ten users’ actions as in Like, Comment, and Share, each table contained the post number, post content, and the action total number. Then I counted posts that have the highest number in each table and explained the findings. Furthermore, in the conclusion of each case study, I compared the tables to identify similarities and differences, relating it to the theoretical framework.

2.4.3 Analyzing Speech Acts

The last section of the analysis focuses on how each organization/case study uses the most popular posts to address the public in relations to the themes content when communicating with them via the Facebook page. To figure out more about the effective online communicative way with the users, the media content of the page posts must be examined in terms of the speech acts which can also can benefit the organizations to identify which speech act generates high level of engagement and which does not. Khushi and Ilyas (2012, 2 &3) claim that ‘posts content analysis explores which speech act

motivates users to make efforts to engage as in Share and Comment actions and what leads to low-level engagement as in the Like action’. In their article Facebook Status Updates: A speech Acts Analysis they also explore the communicative purposes of posts on Facebook and study how identities were constructed through language. They analyze the posts into seven specific speech act framework; assertive act that ‘counts as an attempt to explain the actual state of affairs’ (2), commissive act where the utterers obligate themselves to do actions (Khushi and Ilyas 2012), directive act that is used when the recipient is being asked to do an action (Khushi and Ilyas 2012), expressive act that reveals the addressors emotional conditions (Khushi and Ilyas 2012), declarative

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statements ‘that change the world by their utterance’ (3), quotations refer to poem or positive and motivational words ‘that are generated by others not the speakers’ (3), and poetic verses ‘these express a variety of emotions from joy to sadness, love, loneliness’ (3).

In my analysis, I applied the same method to the top ten page Likes, Comments, and Shares for each case study based on the seven speech acts. I grouped each top ten action as in Like, Comment, and Share in a separate table where I classified the speech acts, wrote the properties of each speech act next to it, quoted the post for each speech act and located the post under its theme . Then I compared which speech act counted the highest level of interaction by each engagement action within the same case study. Finally in the chapter conclusion, I compared the two case studies to identify which speech acts reflected the users’ interacted mostly with.

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3. Sharek Youth Forum in the West Bank

In this chapter I will introduce the mission and vision of Sharek Youth Forum and discuss how they approach civic engagement on Facebook based on information from their website and information generated through the questionnaire. Then I will move to an analysis of their Facebook page from October 1st till December 31st, 2014. By doing so, I gain insights into how Sharek Youth Forum is using the posts in order to promote civic engagement themes and to figure out what posts users are interacting with most, how the organization addresses the public using these most popular posts and whether this is done in relevance to the themes

3.1 Background Information and Questionnaire Findings

3.1.1 Mission and Vision

According to Sharek Youth Forum’s official website (2015c), the organization was launched in 1996 as an initiative by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) then institutionalized as an NGO. The organization is based in Ramallah city but has offices throughout the West Bank. Sharek acts as an issue-based organization with a philosophy of involving youth as active participants within civil society (Sharek Youth Forum, 2015c). Its main ambition is to provide opportunities for youth, investing in their ideas, demonstrating their ingenuity, and applying community development projects. (Sharek Youth Forum, 2015c).

When designing youth development projects Sharek adapts a bottom-up approach where youth needs and ideas are first determined then activities are derived that are mainly enhancing the youth active participation and leadership skills (Sharek Youth Forum, 2015c).

The organization’s mission is to ‘Contribute to the development of youth through designing, supporting, and implementing youth initiatives, programs in Palestine. The organization strives to get the youth heard, and acts as a platform for advocacy of social, economic, cultural and political youth-related issues’ (Sharek Youth Forum, 2015c). While it envisions ‘a Palestine where youth have opportunities to capture on their personal potentials’, it envisage youth ‘as leaders in the state-building, and as active

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participants in the economic, social, cultural, and political life in Palestine’ (Sharek Youth Forum, 2015c). Sharek’s mission and vision are mainly about youth empowerment, inclusion and involvement in the public life.

3.1.2 The Civic Engagement Program

According to the respondent Inas Abu Shirbi, Sharek’s (Public Relations Officer) Sharek’s civic engagement program started in 1996. The civic program is about ‘involving youth as active participants within civil society through providing a space for Palestinian young people to develop their skills within their communities’.

It aims at youth involvement in society development through volunteerism reinforcement, knowledge exchange, and adolescents. To achieve its objectives Sharek partners with different stakeholders including civil society organizations, the private sector, government, and international organizations in order to create job opportunities for youth. Abu Shirbi says that‘the program’s long-term activities are targeting economic empowerment and youth participation, in addition to volunteering activities, and launching advocacy campaigns’.

3.1.3 The Role of Facebook in the Organization

In the following section, I will illustrate when and what media tools Sharek is using, and why Facebook in specific, in addition to defining the main themes that are promoted via the organization’s Facebook page, and finally I will mention whether any gap exists between the offline and online activities.

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Sharek circulates information and promotes activities via both traditional and new media. It started using social media in 2010, and their media staff are active on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The civic engagement program is promoted across all of Sharek on line activities.

As to why the organization promote civic engagement via the organization’s Facebook page in specific Abu Shirbi asserts that ‘the majority of young people are using social media to access information and to interrelate with the community’. Thus means that Sharek is using the Facebook because youth are interested in it, and are using it for interaction. She adds that due to their partnership with other national and international youth organizations, new trends of online communication are being developed. Therefore, the organization has to keep up with those new trends. She claims that

‘According to the global technological trends, organizations now communicate and cooperate online without any formal introduction. Therefore, having a wide scope of partners of international and local organizations made it clear that Sharek needs to change or use up-to- date communication platforms’. Sharek Youth Forum Facebook page https://wwwfacebook.com/Sharek.Youth.Forum?fref=ts