The Ethnicization of Syria's Conflict: A Social Media Analysis

• In Event: OK Computer: Conflict Processes in the Information Age

Abstract

Ethnic conflicts are often seen as especially violent and intractable. Yet, how and why do some conflicts become “ethnic”? This project will study this question by collecting and analyzing original social media data from the ongoing conflict in Syria. Beyond its intrinsic importance, the Syrian conflict makes an ideal case with which to study the ethnicization of conflict for two reasons. First, while the conflict began as an anti-regime revolution during the Arab Uprisings, it took on an increasingly ethno-sectarian hue. Second, the Syrian conflict has been described as “the most socially mediated civil conflict in history” (Lynch, Freelon, and Aday 2014). Consequently, sectarian discourse became more prevalent in the Syrian conflict over time (though not uniformly so), and this process can be traced and analyzed using online data.

Drawing on new, geo-referenced Twitter data from the Syrian conflict, including an original measure of sectarian rhetoric, we analyze how elite entrepreneurship, exposure to violence, and demography affect the spread of sectarianism on and offline. In doing so, we seek to advance the constructivist literature on the sources of ethnic identity and conflict. This literature suggests that the “ethnic” quality of ethnic conflict is not intrinsic to conflict itself but is, rather, the outcome of a (contested) process of framing and interpretation. In other words, ethnic conflict occurs when the individuals within a given conflict come to understand it in ethnic terms. By analyzing the real-time adoption of sectarian frames and narratives of the Syria conflict online, we illuminate how such understandings become prevalent and, therefore, the factors driving the “ethnicization” of conflict more generally.

Authors

• Alexandra Arons Siegel, Stanford University

• Yael Zeira, University of Mississippi