Study: Vast Majority of Arab Twitter Users Are Anti-American
by News Editor
Slate – Is anti-Americanism motivated by specific U.S. policies or a more generalized antipathy to American culture? Do people who hate U.S. foreign policy also hate Americans?
These are among the questions addressed in an innovative new study of anti-American attitudes among Arab Twitter users, which was presented at the American Political Science Association annual meeting here in D.C. last week. The short version of the working paper’s conclusion is that Arabic Twitter is generally anti-American (though to a lesser extent than it is anti-Iranian) but that these attitudes are motivated more by specific events than general hostility to American culture. Unfortunately, these attitudes seem to be present on multiple sides of the region’s political divides.