FormalPara By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

  • Develop an understanding of recent research on the Qatar blockade

  • Learn about the psychological and attitudinal effects of the blockade

  • Understand how development of a sense of national identity influenced Qataris’ well-being during the blockade

  • The main social networking applications used in Qatar by Qataris and Non-Qataris

  • The use of social media before and after the blockade and how social media were used to support the government after the blockade

5.1 Qatar Blockade, Well-Being and Social Identity

After the inception of the blockade in 2017, the Qatari National Human Rights Committee (QNHRC) reported that the blockade and the closure of borders created a sense of fear and risks of adverse psychological outcomes and led to damages between Arab cultures and societies in the region. After the blockade, the researchers aimed to examine the social-psychological effects of the siege of Qatar on Qatari people. An important line of research in this regard was to examine the effects of the blockade on Qatari people’s self-esteem, well-being, and identity. There are some studies on well-being and mental health of Qatari migrant and non-migrant people. Researchers such as Schoenbach et al. (2018) reported that mental health problems are rather frequent among Qatari young people. Moreover, Al-Attiyah and Nasser (2016) found that Qatari women were higher in terms of life satisfaction than men. Furthermore, Abdel-Khalek (2013) reported that there were positive relationships between religiosity, mental health, and subjective well-being among Qatari men.

However, until recently, there was a lack of high-quality research on mental health, self-esteem, and identity among young adult citizens in Qatar (Al-Rashid et al., 2021; Amin et al., 2021). Moreover, there was a dearth of studies on the effects of the blockade on such psychological characteristics among Qatari people. Recently, some researchers have used the social identity theory (Tajfel, 1974, 2010; Tajfel & Turner, 1979) to examine Qatari nationals’ sense of identity and its associations with their psychological health and functioning. To address this gap, Amin et al. (2021), in a large-scale study, investigated the psychological, socio-political, and identity-related outcomes of the blockade. Using self-report data, they examined the relationship between self-esteem, national identity, perceived threat, and well-being among 1410 secondary school student in Qatar. They found that self-esteem and perceived threat significantly negatively predicted well-being while self-esteem positively predicted. Amin et al. (2021) reported that national identity did not predict well-being significantly. Amin et al. concluded that young Qataris, showing lower levels of threat and higher levels of self-esteem, had stronger levels of overall well-being.

Moreover, Al-Rashid et al. (2021) examined the effect of the blockade of Qatar on sense of belonging to the national identity among Qatari people. They also investigated the role of national identity in Qataris’ attitudes toward the blockade and their perceived threat, self-esteem, and psychological well-being and reported that participants’ degree of belonging to the Qatari national identity was the highest when compared to their level of belonging to the Arab or the Gulf identity. Moreover, their results showed that Qatari national identity was positively correlated with negative attitudes toward the blockade, perceived threat, self-esteem, and psychological well-being. Al-Rashid et al. (2021) found that Qatari national identity functioned as a mediator both between negative attitudes toward the blockade and psychological well-being and between perceived threat and self-esteem.

5.2 The Attitudes of Qatari People About the Blockade

Al-Sayed et al. (2017) in a large-scale study aimed to examine Qatari people’s attitudes toward the economic, political, and social developments that were resulted from the blockade. They reported their findings in regard to five main domains including the legal, political, economic, human development, and social implications. Prior to going through these five key aspects, it is important to note that Al-Sayed et al. (2017) believed that the decision to blockade Qatar was made only by the leaders of the blockading countries and the people of these countries not only were against such an act but also were surprised by such a decision. The results of the survey administered by Al-Sayed et al. showed several interesting results about the Qataris beliefs about the blockade and the political situation wherein they were. Their findings indicated that democratic participation in the parliamentary elections would not allow political conflicts to arise rapidly (62% of the respondents agreed with this idea). It is worth mentioning that recently, in October 2021, Qatar held its first Shura Council elections through which 30 individuals elected directly by people. The participation rate in the elections in terms of candidacy and voting indicates that Qatari people have become more interested in political affairs after the blockade. Al-Sayed et al. (2017) reported that the percentage of interest in political issues moved from 49% to 90% after the blockade. Moreover, the results indicated that 78% of the participants considered the blockade as the most important issue for Qatar during the blockade. Furthermore, the results showed that Qatari people are highly aware of the relationship with neighbors and Gulf Corporation Council (GCC). Al-Sayed et al. reported that the participants believed that Qatar should aim to be independent from the regional powers and showed a lack of confidence in the regional environment. Also, the participants had differing views about the role of Qatar in the crisis and its responsibility. While some believed that Qatari government should try to normalize the ties with the countries, some other believed that Qatari government is not responsible for the situation.

The results related to the role of Qatar and Al Jazeera network indicated that 92% of the participants believed that Qatar should continue support for Gaza people. Moreover, a majority of the participants (58%) stated that Al Jazeera plays a significant role in pursuing Qatar’s political interests. Additionally, they believed that a major shift has happened in people’s beliefs about their allies. The survey showed that the participants rated UAE (66%) and Saudi Arabia (11%) as the most threatening and Iran (1%) as the least threatening regional powers to Qatar. They also rated Turkey and Kuwait as their biggest allies. Moreover, 92% were very satisfied with how Qatar managed the political crisis successfully.

In terms of economy, the results by Al-Sayed et al. reported that around 80% of Qatari people were not worried about the economic issues during the blockade since they did not face any economic challenges and issues in the market. Interestingly, 96% had positive attitudes toward the future of the business and commerce in the country, and 87% believed that the family financial situation would be better off even with the blockade. Of course, some investors who had businesses in the blockading countries reported that there were some damages to their investments. Instead, 77% of the participants reported that they had good investment opportunities inside Qatar. In addition, in terms of availability and price of products, the results of Al-Sayed et al. (2017) showed that participants had access to high-quality products. Qatari citizens also expressed that they had negative attitudes toward products from blockading counties, with 82% reporting that they did not buy products from those countries. Overall, the results showed positive attitudes toward the local market and the economy of Qatar.

With respect to the social implications, the survey study by Al-Sayed et al. (2017) reported interesting findings. While there have been some political tensions between the Arab states in the region, the political conflicts did not affect communication between the citizens who have many familial and kinship ties. However, the blockade of Qatar was the first to affect communication between people. Al-Sayed et al. reported that 75% of Qatar citizens had relatives in the blockading countries, with the majority of the participants saying that they could not meet their relatives in the blockading countries. Thus, the blockade negatively influenced the cohesion among Qataris and their relatives in the blockading countries. Moreover, 73% of the participants expressed that they would not travel to blockading countries for tourism purposes after it ends. This was because they wanted to show their support for the government’s policies and decisions.

Finally, in regard to human development, Al-Sayed et al. reported that Qatar pursued its human development objectives. Al-Sayed et al. (2017) believed Qatarization policy setting unrealistic targets due to the percentage of Qataris in the labor market. However, they mentioned that the diversification policy of educational opportunities can positively contribute to having qualified working Qataris.

5.3 Social Media in Qatar: Communication During the Blockade

The use of social media is very prevalent among Qatari people. Qataris use different social media such as Flicker, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Based on the available information, there are around 2.87 million social media users in Qatar, which is almost 98% of the population in January 2021 (datareportal.com, 2021). The country has 4.67 million mobile connections which is 160.6% of the total population (datareportal.com, 2021).

The information made available by Qatari Ministry of Information and Communication Technology in 2015 shows that most people in Qatar are familiar with social media. El Gazzar (2015) reported that Facebook has more 400,000 registered users from Qatar. Moreover, El Gazzar reports from Gulfaslo that Qatar has the fourth highest percentage of Facebook use in the Arab world. Based on Dubai School of Government (2013), 34% of Qatari people have Facebook accounts and 13% have LinkedIn accounts. Of course, the data show that non-Qatari residents are more aware of social networks such as Facebook and use it more than the Qatari ones. The data by Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (2015) shows that people in Qatar were aware of different social networks such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, BBM, and Instagram. The results also indicated that WhatsApp and Facebook were the most used social networks in Qatar.

Moreover, the data of the usage and awareness of social media for Qatar citizens is lower than that of the whole population including non-Qatari residents (Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, 2015). The numbers have gone under significant changes since 2015 so that, based on the information presented by Statcounter.com, 66.21% of people had Facebook accounts in September 2021. The statistics also show that Twitter is the second favorable social networking application in Qatar with 16.96%. The other most used social networks are Pinterest (5.81%), YouTube (5.3%), Instagram (4.19%), and LinkedIn (0.78%). In terms of messaging applications, available data from Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (2015) shows that WhatsApp is the most widely used application in Qatar with a rate of 96% in the country.

Research studies on communication pattern of Qatari citizens before or during the blockade are not numerous. In this section, we first review the studies on the communication strategies in Qatar before the blockade and then present the findings of a qualitative study on political culture in Qatar and how it influenced the use of media during the blockade. El Gazzar (2015) investigated the use of social media in Qatar and highlighted the importance and significance of social networking in today’s world and the role that it plays in dissemination of ideas and information. El Gazzar noted that the use of social media in the time of crisis becomes very remarkable and provides some examples of how social media are used in the time of crisis in Qatar.

Akkas and Camden (2020), in an interesting study, examined the effect of recent developments in Qatari state-society relations and national identity on the political culture of Qatar. They argue that there exists a gap in the literature on mass political culture and its associations with national identity in Arab countries in the region and contend for a study that apply a methodology that integrate theory and qualitative case study of the public opinion. To this end, they used qualitative methodology and interview tools to explore the attitudes and ideas of Qatari citizens. The participants of their study were college-educated female people whose age ranged from 20 to 35. With the results of thematic analysis about the set of political orientations within Qatari society with respect to the political culture, Akkas and Camden first highlight the role of oil and wealth and its role in the construction of the political system of the country. However, they argue that the state and society are not separated in Qatar. Rather, the state is embedded in the society and the society influences the state in some subtle ways. In other words, in Qatar, the state structure has evolved out of the tribal tradition of the society. The tribal tradition makes people to consider the leader as an equal and someone like them and not as a political person. Akkas and Camden believe that this kind of state-society relationship is in line with the notion of political culture (Almond & Verba, 1963) because in Qatar the Emir is considered the first leader among equal leaders and the state believes in elite decision-making. They also report that majlis and online forms are important venues for decision-making and sharing ideas and sometimes the Emir recognizes a family by participating in their majlis. Interestingly, the results of Akkas and Camden (2020) showed that currently most Qatari people talk about the blockade and its effect in al-majaalis. Some participants also believed that Qatari women have also found to share their ideas online. During the blockade, in major cities of Qatar, there were banners in the entrance of buildings with a space for Qataris or expatriates to express their support for the Emir of Qatar. Online platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, were also used by Qatari citizens to use hashtags to express their solidarity and support for the ruling family and the Emir of Qatar. Akkas and Camden (2020) also consider Majlis Al-Shura or the Advisory Board as another indication for political expression in Qatar. In 2017, four women were appointed for Al-Shura which indicates that this majlis is composed of different groups. Moreover, a majority of participants in this study proposed that the blockade of Qatar would potentially have positive influences on civil engagement in Qatar.

Overall, social networks received higher attention and are used more during the blockade, and Qatari people used social networks, beside other more traditional ones such as banners, to express their support and respect for the Emir of Qatar and his decisions.