ABSTRACT
This chapter will emphasise how social media platforms Facebook and Twitter have been perceived and used very differently to discuss women’s issues. I will apply the concept of imagined affordances to delve into the analysis of these two social media platforms, though it must be clarified that any analysis of Facebook or Twitter is limited and incomplete. As a result, a choice was made as to what to analyse on these two platforms, based on the knowledge that I have acquired by working with local organisations and activists in these countries in addition to that accrued in working with data. The data extrapolated through the analysis of the blogosphere has brought two major issues to light: that of harassment in Egypt and the driving ban in Saudi Arabia. As a result, Facebook and Twitter have been approached with a rough idea, or structure, of what to look for. As a consequence, I will discuss the computational analysis and present the results, focusing particular attention on the issues that emerge from these two platforms.
