Analyzing Public Discussions About #SaudiWomenCanDrive Using Network Science

Abstract

Twitter has become a common place to share opinions about various issues. One such issue was the driving of women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Many researchers have addressed this issue using methods mostly from social sciences, however, these studies are on a smaller scale. In this paper, we take the approach of understanding the public discussions related to the topic #SaudiWomenCanDrive using methods from network science. Network science allows us to understand the influential people, topics, and communities related to the topic on a large scale. Around two million tweets posted by 630 thousand users are analyzed. Retweet, mention, co-mention, and hash-tag networks are extracted from these tweets. Analysis shows that most influential users include women rights activists like Loujain Hathloul and Manal Alsharif, as well as the political leadership like King Salman bin Abdulaziz and government departments like Ministry of Interior (MoI) and Traffic Department (Moroor). Most important topics identified through hashtags include the support for the movement like (The King Supports Women’s Driving) as well as against it like (Saudis Refuse Women’s Driving). Analyzing such discussions is important for gaining insights into public discussions for understanding public concerns and can be used by the government and non-government organizations to address them.

Keywords

• Network science
• social network analysis
• public discussions
• social computing
• social media analytics
• Twitter