Media Use in the Arab Gulf: A Longitudinal Study

This survey will build on a study conducted by Northwestern University in Qatar in 2013, which focused on news and information in 8 Arab countries, including Qatar, and which achieved success and recognition by both creating unique knowledge on the economically and socially crucial subjects of media use within Arab states. NU-Q made the information freely available to academics, journalists, governments, businesses, and the general public. This study will make a similar contribution to the understanding of regional media. In 2014, NU-Q hopes to continue this line of research in a similar the Arab Gulf states of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, for the purposes of scholarly and media industry comparison. This research will provide knowledge of traditional and digital media consumption for academics, practitioners, and students. This project seeks to establish a longitudinal study that builds upon one previous study conducted by Northwestern University in Qatar, and a second study that is currently in process. The first study, completed in 2013, surveyed news and information use among 10,027 respondents in eight Arab countries, including Qatar. This study achieved success and recognition by creating unique knowledge on the economically and socially crucial subject of media use and cultural attitudes towards privacy, freedom of speech and tradition vs. modernity within Arab states. Additionally, NU-Q made the survey data freely available to academics, journalists, governments, businesses, and the general public. The second study, currently underway in six Arab countries, also including Qatar, surveys 6,000 respondents about their entertainment media use and cultural attitudes. This study similarly seeks to provide a baseline dataset that captures entertainment media consumption and cultural attitudes in the Arab Gulf. For the three-year period from 2014 to 2017, NU-Q intends to continue this line of research in three states in the Arab Gulf: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The first and third years of the project (News Media Use in the Arab Gulf) will replicate and update NU-Q’s 2013 Media Use in the Middle East study, and the second year of the project (Entertainment Media Use in the Arab Gulf) will replicate NU-Q’s 2014 entertainment media study. By building on the baseline studies that have already been completed and carrying out the survey research on a longitudinal basis for a three-year period, NU-Q will make a needed contribution to existing knowledge of both traditional and digital media consumption and cultural attitudes in the Arab Gulf region. Finally, NU-Q will freely share the results of this longitudinal study, providing knowledge of traditional and digital media consumption and cultural attitudes to academics, media practitioners, policymakers, students and the general public. For each of the three years of this project’s duration, questionnaire development and refinement will take place from September through October, fieldwork, and data collection will be completed November through December. This was the timeline followed for NU-Q’s previous media surveys described above. This allows for data analysis in the winter months, a public rollout of the data in the spring, and further presentation of the data in the summer, when the disciplines of journalism and mass communication field their largest academic meetings (International Communication Association in May, and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in August.) The specific breakdown of the p