A CASE STUDY FOR EVALUATING FACEBOOK PAGES WITH RESPECT TO ARAB MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA

In this paper, we propose a framework to analyze and evaluate social networking pages based on usage data with respect to Arab mainstream news media. The paper introduces new metrics such as: Page Penetration and Ranking Index, as well as new evaluation methods. The framework considers the twenty-two Arab countries in addition to seven Facebook pages that belong to seven prominent Arab satellite channels. The proposed framework is used to evaluate countries for their Internet and Facebook penetration rates, as well as consumption of news through those pages. Results reveal that Arabs highly credit natively Arabic news media rather than news media that only speak Arabic. Furthermore, 65% of the Arab countries have more than 50% Facebook users who are news consumers via Facebook. Additionally, Arab countries that suffered unrest, civil war or political crises in the recent years show higher page penetration rates, such as Yemen, Syria, Egypt and Libya.