What Latin America and the Mid-East Think of the U.S. Elections, as Revealed by Social Media

النتائج الأولية بدأت تظهر.. يارب كريم انصر أوباما..

"Announcement of the initial results has begun. Oh God, please let Obama win!" --a tweet from Battal Algoos

by Katie Delahaye Paine

Regardless of how you might feel about the presence or absence of “fair and balanced” reporting in the traditional media, its role is one of reporting election results in a factual manner. Not so social media; as the unvarnished voice of the people, it reveals the personal opinions that distinguish one voter from the next.

So we thought it would be interesting to take a look at how the top social media influencers in a variety of countries viewed the U.S. presidential election results.

 We asked SocialEyez analysts in Latin America and the Middle East to report on the postings of the top bloggers and tweeters after the election. We've included below a sample of the original posts from the Middle East.

Latin America is more pro Obama than the Middle East

We found some interesting contrasts. First of all, Latin American social media influencers were far more enthusiastic about Obama than were their counterparts in the Middle East.

Interestingly, in Latin America the top social media influencers tended to be entertainers, and Shakira, JLo, and Ricky Martin were among the among the most positive. Mexico’s president Felipe Calderon was among the political figures that were positive towards Obama’s re-election, while Marina Silva, a former candidate for president of Brazil, voiced her disapproval of the results

In the Middle East the most influential tended to be media, political, or religious figures. Interestingly, 21 out of the top 50 most influential Mid-East social media bloggers chose not to write about the election at all. Of those who did, the most negative were human rights activists and media figures.

When we broke out results by country, we found that influencers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) were the most active, while their counterparts in Syria were the most negative.

 

 

A sample of verbatim comments from the Middle East:

Tareq AlSuwaidan

عندما يفوز أي رئيس أمريكي بولاية ثانية يصبح أكثر جرأة في قراراته ﻷنه لا يحق له خوض الانتخابات الفادمة فنتمنى دعمه للحق في فلسطين وسوريا

When any American president is elected for a second term, he makes bolder decisions because he can’t run for the next elections. So we hope he will be supportive to justice in Palestine and Syria.

https://twitter.com/TareqAlSuwaidan/status/266079145472184320

 

Battal Algoos 

النتائج الأولية بدأت تظهر.. يارب كريم انصر أوباما..

Announcement of the initial results has begun. Oh God, please let Obama win!

https://twitter.com/battalalgoos/status/265953418974212096

 

Hamza Namira

أكيد أوباما أحسن من رومني..بس استمرار نغمة انتصار الديموقراطية الأمريكية اللي أي رئيس أمريكي بيقولها دي أكبر اشتغالة

Obama is definitely way better than Romney, but to continue playing the tune of American democracy’s victory, which has been played by all American presidents, is the biggest lie ever. 

https://twitter.com/HamzaNamira/status/266074718317187073

 

Elissa

Wishing you all a very smooth* night while I'm in bed watching the American election. May this democracy spread all over our countries <3

https://twitter.com/elissakh/status/265962386605887489

 

Fahad Albutairi

Once you're on track, you can't go back.#Obama2012 #USElections [This tweet has been edited]

https://twitter.com/Fahad/status/266071129117036544

 

Faisal Al Qasim

عجيب هذا الاهتمام العالمي بالانتخابات الامريكية مع العلم ان الرئيس الامريكي يخدم الامريكيين فقط ويستخدم بقية العالم لمصلحة امريكا

How odd the international attention given to the US elections is since the US president is serving the Americans only while using the rest of the world for America’s benefit.

https://twitter.com/kasimf/status/266094240700973056

 

المفاضلة بين رئيس أو حزب أمريكي وآخر كالمفاضلة بين الببسي والكوكا كولا

Choosing between US candidates or parties is like choosing between Pepsi and Coca-Cola. https://twitter.com/kasimf/status/266105379568627713

 

منقول:الامريكيون يغيرون رئيسهم كل 4 سنوات والسوريون كل 40 سنة يعني الفارق صفر.. ولاشي

Copied: The Americans change their president every four years, while the Syrians change theirs every 40 years… So the difference is 0, which means there is no difference.

https://twitter.com/kasimf/status/266652559828197376

 

Ola Alfares

باسمي واسم الفلورز العظيمين نتقدم بالتبريكات ل أوباما ولو أنها تأخرت بس مشغولين طال عمرك ..عسى ان تكون رديفا للعرب في ماتبقى لك من سنين!😒

On behalf of my great followers, I extend congratulations to Obama. It’s kind of late, but we were busy, your honor. I hope you will be supportive to Arabs in your remaining years (as president).

https://twitter.com/OlaAlfares/status/266186901722116096

 

Feras Bugnah

الملياردير الأمريكي دونالد ترامب يصرخ: “أمريكا لم تعد ديموقراطية!” مشككاً في نزاهة الانتخابات. السبب ببساطة: أوباما سيرفع ضرائب الأغنياء.

US billionaire Donald Trump shouts: “America is not a democracy no more” and questions the integrity of the elections. Simply, he says so because Obama will put more taxes on the rich.

https://twitter.com/FMB4/status/266080671599034368

 

Malik Nejer

أوباما يفوز بفترة رئاسية ثانيه ، خبر جيد ، هو افضل السيئين، رومني كان بيزيد الطين بله

Obama wins a second term. This is good news, because he is the lesser of two evils. Romney would have made bad things worse.

https://twitter.com/Nejer/status/266074939621273600

 

Mohamad Sadoun

لا تضيع وقتك مع انتخابات أمريكا .. أيهما سيفوز سيكون من أولوياته دعم إسرائيل ومحاربة الإسلام و المسلمين ولن يرضون عنا أبدا إلا باتباع ملتهم

Do not waste your time with the American elections. The winning president’s priorities will be supporting Israel and fighting Islam and Muslims. They will never be satisfied until we follow their religion.

https://twitter.com/Ms3don/status/266031686830137344

 

###

Katie Delahaye Paine is the Chief Marketing Officer of News Group, a leader in international media monitoring and evaluation, as well as Chairman & Founder of Salience/KDPaine & Partners, the leader in integrated social and traditional communications measurement. Katie Paine is a dynamic and experienced speaker on public relations and social media measurement. Click here for the schedule of Katie’s upcoming speaking engagements. She writes KDPaine’s Measurement Blog and publishes The Measurement Standard. Katie and Beth Kanter are authors of the book “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” to published this year by Wiley.

The Measurement Standard is a publication of Salience/KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine will be glad to talk with you about measurement for your organization.

 KDPaine & Partners' Facebook page