Study of Social Media Activities During the Syrian Civil War

List of Key Chapter Titles

1. Introduction
2. Social Media Activity During the Syrian Civil War
3. Methods for Measuring Account Activity
4. Analysis of Regional Account Activity Trends (Jabal al-Samman and Latakia)
5. Comparison of Characteristics Between Inactive and Newly Created Accounts
6. Investigation of Abnormally Active Accounts in the Latakia Region
7. Discussion
8. Research Conclusions and Future Prospects

Document Introduction

In modern conflicts, social media has become a key factor in shaping digital narratives and influencing conflict dynamics. The Syrian Civil War is considered the civil war with the highest level of social media participation in history, with both non-state actors and the state regime attempting to disseminate information, spread propaganda, and garner domestic and international support through this platform. However, significant gaps remain in existing research regarding how conflict dynamics specifically affect civilians' daily social media use and the differences in user behavior across regions under different control.

This study, spanning 2014-2017, focuses on the account activity of Syrian Twitter users, aiming to reveal the correlation between local conflict dynamics and social media usage patterns. The research selects two regions with starkly different conflict situations—the Jabal al-Samman area (including Aleppo city) controlled by rebel forces and the Latakia area controlled by the regime—as comparative cases. By analyzing geotagged Twitter data, it explores the evolution patterns of core metrics such as account creation, changes in activity levels, and account deactivation.

The study employs a real-time data collection method, using the Twitter API to filter geotagged tweets from Syria between April 2014 and October 2017, ultimately obtaining 474,223 valid tweets and data from 20,926 unique accounts. It calculates on a monthly basis the number of tweets, active accounts, newly created accounts, and deactivated accounts (defined as having no tweet activity for three consecutive months). Simultaneously, through qualitative analysis and sentiment computation, it compares user characteristics, tweet length, and sentiment tendencies of accounts across different regions and time periods.

Key findings show a high correlation between critical conflict junctures and changes in social media account composition: at the end of the Siege of Aleppo in December 2016, the Jabal al-Samman region experienced significant fluctuations with 369 account deactivations and 71 new account creations, and the deactivated accounts used positive vocabulary at a significantly lower frequency than the overall sample; during Russia's military intervention in October 2015, tweet volume in the Latakia region surged, primarily driven by a small number of vertical accounts (including K-pop fan accounts). Furthermore, regional trends exhibited periodic divergence from national trends, reflecting the direct impact of territorial control changes on the composition of social media user groups.

This study fills a gap in research on the dynamics of civilian social media use during wartime. Its conclusions indicate that shifts in social media content patterns stem not only from changes in individual sentiment but are also closely related to structural adjustments in user group composition. The research findings provide a new methodological perspective for analyzing conflict dynamics through social media data, holding significant reference value for international relations scholars, conflict researchers, and policy analysts.