Mining Arabic Twitter conversations on health care: a new approach to analysing Arabic language on social media

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to equip professionals and researchers in the fields of advertising, branding, public relations, marketing communications, social media analytics and marketing with a simple, effective and dynamic means of evaluating consumer behavioural sentiments and engagement through Arabic language and script, in vivo. Design/methodology/approach Using quantitative and qualitative situational linguistic analyses of Classical Arabic, found in Quranic and religious texts scripts; Modern Standard Arabic, which is commonly used in formal Arabic channels; and dialectical Arabic, which varies hugely from one Arabic country to another: this study analyses rich marketing and consumer messages (tweets) – as a basis for developing an Arabic language social media methodological tool. Findings Despite the popularity of Arabic language communication on social media platforms across geographies, currently, comprehensive language processing toolkits for analysing Arabic social media conversations have limitations and require further development. Furthermore, due to its unique morphology, developing text understanding capabilities specific to the Arabic language poses challenges. Practical implications This study demonstrates the application and effectiveness of the proposed methodology on a random sample of Twitter data from Arabic-speaking regions. Furthermore, as Arabic is the language of Islam, the study is of particular importance to Islamic and Muslim geographies, markets and marketing. Social implications The findings suggest that the proposed methodology has a wider potential beyond the data set and health-care sector analysed, and therefore, can be applied to further markets, social media platforms and consumer segments. Originality/value To remedy these gaps, this study presents a new methodology and analytical approach to investigating Arabic language social media conversations, which brings together a multidisciplinary knowledge of technology, data science and marketing communications.