Blogging in Gaza a Casualty of Arab Spring
Gaza's established bloggers lament the decline in traditional blogging as Twitter and Facebook take bigger shares of readership.
GAZA — Microblogging on Twitter and Facebook has contributed to a decline in traditional blogs throughout the world, and in particular the Gaza Strip. Although some estimate that there were once more than 1,500 Palestinian blogs, they have declined without prompting any political change in the Palestinian territories.
Mahmoud Omar, 22, has been blogging since 2008. He believes that the decline in Palestinian blogging was part of a decline in Arab blogging in general. “This is due to the boom in social-networking sites and microblogging, which attracted many people, dooming blogging to its final end in the time of high-speed communication,” he said.
“This reluctance to engage in politics on Palestinian blogs is relative and the result of abstention from being involved in politics on the street, especially after the events of mid-2007, which dragged Palestine into a vicious cycle. Many people have lost confidence in their ability to make a change to the status quo,” Omar told Al-Monitor during an online interview from his residence in Cairo.
Ibaa Rizk, 23, who started blogging in 2011, is not convinced that blogging has come to an end. He said that blogging continues to play a minor role in the ongoing crisis, which requires a radical solution: “the people’s presence on the streets.”
