Social Media and Political Participation in Saudi Arabia: The Case of the 2009 Floods in Jeddah

The aim of this study was to explore the use of social media for political participation in Saudi Arabia taking the case of the Jeddah 2009 floods as an example. Data were collected for this qualitative study between 2010 and 2012 and were analyzed with the help of NVivo, a software for qualitative data analysis. The study followed the principles of thematic analysis to analyze 40 posts and the readers’ comments on them from YouTube, Facebook, an online community, and Al Arabiya site. The findings of this study show that people used social media to express their feelings and emotions about the loss of lives, express their opinions about what happened and call for action about what should happen or organize themselves to take part in volunteer work. The results of this research contribute to an understanding of the role of social media in encouraging political
participation in countries where participation in public affairs in some cases is not encouraged and in others, for example, street protests is not permitted.