Twitter Response to Vision 2030: A Case Study on Current Perceptions of Normative Disorder within Saudi Social Media

Abstract

There has been a mixed public response on social media toward Saudi Vision 2030, which could threaten public support of its implementation. This research investigated local tensions between social, religious, political, and economic values concerning the Saudi Vision 2030 plan, with a view to understanding the opportunities and challenges of social and cultural change within an evolving Saudi society. In this study, Twitter activity is treated as a societal mirror that reflects some of the perceptions regarding the transformations taking place within Saudi society. Both a case study informed by tweets sampled from Saudi Arabia and Vision 2030 related documentation explored how the current public social media discourse reflects existing social, religious, and cultural tensions concerning the government-proposed Vision 2030. This study drew on theoretical framework informed by Durkheim’s and Ibn Khaldun’s theory of social change, Merton’s strain theory, and Luhmann’s Social System Theory, to explore social, political, economic, and religious tensions found within the interactions of Twitter users around projects and events implemented or inspired by Vision 2030. An application programming interface (API) was used to retrieve Twitter posts, while a thematic analysis was applied to published documents related to Vision 2030 to identify Saudi society’s challenges to the implementation of the Vision. The study found that within Saudi society, Vision 2030 had an impact upon the normative disorder already taking place due to the rapid changes brought about by the Vision. Specifically, the study highlighted the link between ambiguous, clear, or absent norms, and a person’s pre-existing background knowledge. Social and religious group norms were more ambitious than clear, whereas economic group norms tended to be clearer. Finally, the study found that over time, through public debates, norms moved from an ambiguous and absent stage and became increasingly well-defined. The study showed that Saudi society, as a result of Vision 2030, is experiencing a normative disorder.