The UAE's 'twitterati' speak

Dubai: Gulf News asks the UAE's top new media enthusiasts about their views of the trend.

• site: www.alrams.net
• Ahmed Al Tunaiji
• Unique visitors: 600,000 a month
• Page views: 2.2 million a month

 Discussion forums beat traditional media because they don't face the same constraints such as withholding news to protect exclusivity for print… Al Rams is a small site with a small team of volunteers and we have beaten some the UAE's biggest papers in attracting visitors…

• twitter: @ SultanAlQassemi
• Sultan Sooud Al Qasimi
  
• Followers: 34,000

Social media had been dismissed earlier as a medium for youngsters to connect, flirt and socialise with each other. As late as 2010, Twitter and Facebook were dismissed by old media organisations in the Middle East as an unnecessary distraction. One of the major TV networks in the region only employed one person to cover tweets and social media across five of its stations. However, post Tunisia and Egypt we have seen an explosion in adoption of social media by old media.

• twitter: @ThemerSalman
• Thamer Saeed Salman
• Followers: 3,391 

[Social media] platforms can provide a prodigious amount of news that needs to be scrutinised and filtered by the reader to verify its credibility, in a process which does not differ much from verifying news published in traditional media. Ultimately they both depend on the credibility of the news source. I can't think of a major traditional news provider that does not report news via social media networks such, which enables them to extend their reach and attract segments and types that were previously indifferent and unresponsive to news."

• twitter:@algergawi
• Misha'al Al Gergawi
• Followers: 3,711

I maintain the view that social media performs an important role within the larger media universe and society. If a Facebook page gets enough members or a tweet is retweeted enough times then traditional media and society as a whole is forced to take note. So it is in that sense media's relativity monitor and society's conscience. Social media doesn't affect change as much as it affects the speed of that change."