By Salman Siddiqui/Staff Reporter
Less than 50% of the Qatar residents feel it “safe to say whatever one thinks about public issues” on the Internet, says a new survey report released yesterday.
According to the Northwestern University in Qatar’s Media Use in Qatar’s survey results, residents of Qatar are mixed when it comes to speaking out online.
The results were presented at the university’s third Media Industries Forum held yesterday.
While over three-quarters (79%) of Qatar residents say the Internet is the “first place I go for information,” only a bare majority (54%) feel comfortable “saying what I think about public issues.”
Also, 46% feel it “safe to say whatever one thinks about public issues.”
A small majority (52%) feel “people should be free to criticise powerful institutions on the internet,” and slightly more (57%) feel the “internet in Qatar should be more tightly regulated than it is now.”
Only about a third (38%) worried that “powerful institutions” are checking what they are doing online. The report notes that Westerners in Qatar are most likely to believe “people should be able to express their opinions online,” while Qatari nationals are the least likely to agree (68% vs 57%).
Also, Westerners and Asians (46% each) are more worried “powerful institutions” checking what they do online, compared with one-third Qatari nationals and other Arabs.
The survery report also says nearly two thirds (62%) of Qatar residents feel the quality of news reporting in the Arab world has improved over the past two years, with a slight majority (53%) finding the news media to be credible. It adds that this seems a tepid endorsement, particularly as it is coupled with split agreement (50%) that “the media can report the news without interference.”
Also, while nearly 70% of Asians and 67% Westerners find the internet to be reliable, a minority (41%) of Qatari nationals feel this way as do fewer 37% Arab expats.
Other interesting results from the survey include the fact that Qatari nationals are far more likely than non nationals to be using Twitter (65%) and Instagram (48%). Nearly half of Arab expats (48%) are also on Twitter, unlike Asian (27%) and Westerners (24%).
Qatari nationals and Arab expats living in Qatar choose Arabic almost exclusively to read newspapers, in the same way that Westerners and Asian expats read their papers primarily in English.
Leading representatives of the media industry in Qatar shared their views at the Northwestern University in Qatar’s third Media Industries Forum.
