IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 50

Created with NodeXL (http://nodexl.codeplex.com)
T1 (Blue Edges) and T7 (Red Edges)

Created with NodeXL (http://nodexl.codeplex.com)
T1 and T7 (Regular) vs. T10 and T11
(Irregular Circles in Bottom Left Corner)

Figure 5. NodeXL graph of popular topics in Arabic tweets versus unpopular frequent tweets.

journalists, and one special purpose user (see Table 3).
According to the statistical results, it became clear that
the top ten influential users were Arabic-speaking users.

this day, head coverings play a significant role in many
religions. Christian and Jewish women in some traditions wear a headscarf as a religious, or cultural practice, showing a commitment to modesty or piety. Islam
Discussion and Analysis
is known as a religion concerned with community coheHijab is referred to by various names, the most common
sion and moral boundaries, and therefore hijab is a way
of which are: veil and headscarf. Most Muslims who wear
of ensuring that the moral boundaries between unrelat). Islam introduced hijab
the covering call it a hijab (
ed men and women are respected. In this sense, the
to ensure decency and modesty where interactions
term hijab encompasses more than a scarf and more
between members of the opposite sex occur. While
than a dress code. It is a term that denotes modest
hijab is commonly associated with women, Muslim men
dressing and modest behavior.
may also wear a head covering as a show of modesty.
This paper endeavors to provide answers regarding
Critics of the Muslim veiling tradition argue that women
whether Twitter users are tweeting about hijab, who
do not wear the veil by choice, and that they are often
those users are, and the way such users frame their
forced to cover their heads and bodies. In contrast,
tweets. Although we detected the language of all tweets
many Muslims argue that the veil symbolizes devotion
using Language Detection API, the relationships between
and piety and that veiling is their own choice. To them it
spoken language and written language were found to be
is a question of religious identity and self-expression. To
complex. The translation of written words requires significantly different processes compared to
the translation of spoken words. In fact,
automated systems, such as Google TransTable 3. Top ten influencing users in group T1 (Hijab advocates)
lator and other similar translators are unreliand T7 (anti-extremism).
able translators of spoken languages. This
was a significant consideration for choosing
T1
T7
our particular collection of tweets for analyMean
Mean
sis regarding the word "hijab" from Arab
User Type
Frequency Impression Frequency Impression
and Iranian tweeters. Additionally the key" has the same meaning in
word used "
Regular Users
5
7 928 540
5
4 770 645
three languages: Arabic, Persian, and Urdu.
Religious Leaders 2
7 881 121
0
-
Because the number of tweets in Urdu
was considered too small for analysis, they
News Agencies and 3
2 495 764
4
2 028 463
were rejected. This resulted in 5861 tweets
Journalists
for one week, August 28 to September 3,
Special Purpose
0
-
1
7 254 734
2015. Obeying Islamic rules, including hijab

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JUNE 2018

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018