Hashtag Unity: Qatar’s digital nationalism in the Gulf crisis

Abstract

This article examines digital expressions of solidarity and unity that emerged on social media platforms in Qatar following the outbreak of the Gulf crisis in June 2017. The study undertakes an analysis of public tweets on the social network site Twitter published around Arabic hashtags in Twitter’s Qatar trends in the first two weeks of the blockade. The hashtags attracted thousands of users to form a digitally connected public calling for national unity and solidarity. An qualitative analysis of a sample from 402,962 tweets published around these hashtags reveals that users expressed national unity and solidarity through both visual and textual displays of strength, resilience, loyalty and pride. The article argues that following their emergence, the hashtags not only aimed to cement resistance against the blockade imposed on Qatar but also to forge a national identity that was centred on the persona of the nation’s leader, Sheikh Tamim Al-Thani, while denouncing social and cultural divisions that stemmed from transnational tribal identities.

Digital Nationalism on Weibo on the 70th Chinese National Day

“…Nationalism, as a word, was first mentioned in 1409 (Kecmanovic 1996); Many scholars further elaborated on the definition of nationalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Friend and Thayer 2017). However, due to the complex and multi-dimensional nature, the definition of nationalism differs depending upon how scholars define the nation as a community (Oruc 2019). Anderson (2006) defined nationalism as a sense of belonging to an imagined community.…”

“…Thus, Özkırımlı (2000) posited that language, history, and ethnicity are significant elements to construct a sense of nationalism; however, it is difficult to include all elements. Hence, nationalist discourse is a salient factor for examining the various forms of nationalism (Özkırımlı 2000), which serve as a common denominator (Oruc 2019). Therefore, Özkırımlı (2000) argued that there are three common features of nationalist discourse: national interests are the most important; the nation is the only legal agency to rule; and the significant differences between them and us.…”

“…Secondly, Sina Weibo, as a digital social media platform, gives users a sense of community by providing an imagined community network (Gruzd et al 2011). Thirdly, Oruc (2019) suggested that Twitter provides a range of information, which includes usernames, text, visual content, followers, number of followers, and hyperlinks. Therefore, this article believes that Sina Weibo, as the "Chinese Twitter" (Ren 2018), could offer the same type of information as Twitter.…”

“…Hence, Zhang, Liu, and Wen (2018, 4) suggested that "Weibo forms a space where diverse ideologies can coexist and compete." However, due to the substantial number of active users on Sina Weibo, this article followed Oruc's (2019) suggestion and examined the Chinese hashtags regarding the 70 th National Day celebrations mentioned in Weibo posts during the Chinese National Day. Oruc (2019) proposed that there is one main benefit for utilizing hashtags, in that hashtags allow researchers to easily examine targeted subjects (Mejova, Weber, and Macy, 2015).…”

“…To answer this research question, this article followed Oruc's (2019) suggestion and conducted a qualitative content analysis on Sina Weibo posts regarding the celebration of the National Day in China which was posted on October 1, 2019. This represents the seventieth year of China under the rule of the CCP; therefore, the Chinese government arranged a series of activities to celebrate this achievement with the highlight being a military parade.…”