Yemen and Social Networking

Yemen is a small country in the Middle East who has just recently established national borders with Saudia Arabia.  Since 1990 Yemen states have been in turmol however in the last decade they have been unified as the Republic of Yemen.  Yemen is major population is Arabic people.  Although Yemen is a republic they are a Muslim country and are strongly influenced by surrounding countries and the Muslim law.

When looking at one of the biggest social networking sites worldwide, facebook it is interesting to see how the belief system of Yemen can play a huge part in how facebook works in this country.  For example, when comparing statistics the male to female ratio is 78% to 22%.  Males between the ages of 18 and 24 are the prodominat users.  This is an interesting observation that reflects the Muslium background of Yemen.  It was also interesting to find that Yemen has a lot of online dating sites for Muslims to join and find other respectable Muslims withing their community.  This is a modern way for the people of Yemen to meet and date.

As we see with Facebook and basic Muslim traditions, women do not have many of the advantages as men expecially with social networking.  Interestingly, Blogging is becoming a huge part of women's life in Yemen due to the fact that it gives them a voice and allows them to raise awareness. Workshops and training sessions are held specifically for women to learn how to work the internet and blog.

It is also interesting to see Yemen government using social networking as a way to discuss terrorism and their issues with Al Qaeda. They have been allies with the United States antiterroist policies and by posting web videos and news article on the web they are aloud to voice to the world issue and concerns with terrorism.

It is really interesting to to look at how a country like Yemen views social networking because we it is different from what we are use to.  It is easy just to think that the rest of the world is just as connected as we are but that is not the case.   The people of Yemen do have more freedom when it comes to modern social networking but it is still interesting to see how Muslim value systems greatly influence the usage of social networking and the demographic that uses social networking.

Source:
http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/20/ewamt-blogging-and-social-networking-energizes-women-in-yemen/

http://www.bestmuslim.com/bycountryview.php?country=Yemen

http://www.govloop.com/events/us-counterterrorism-strategy

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ym.html

http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/yemen