The Digital Development Media and Sustainable Development: the UN's Use of Twitter to Disseminate the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

Objectives: The research aimed to reveal the effectiveness of using the United Nations of the digital media platform "Twitter" in educating the Arab public about the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and to identify the most values included in its content. Methods: The study used content analysis to examine (671) United Nations tweets on Arabic Twitter from November and December 2021. Five key categories were analyzed: SDGs, communicative dimensions, communication medium, symbolic attachment, and tweet source. Results: Goal (16) of SDGs, which states "peace, justice and strong institutions" ranked first in the United Nations content on Twitter (39.8%), followed by goal (13) which states on "climate action" (19.2%). The results also showed that the communication dimension "media news" ranked first in the tweets of the United Nations on Twitter (32.3%), followed by the communication dimension "incitement and encouragement" (30.6%). It appeared through the results that the most communication media accompanying the content of the United Nations on Twitter was "text with attachment" (94.5%). The symbol # appeared in (68.4%) of the total content, while the mention @ appeared in (19.8%) of the content. It was also found that most source of tweeting was "original tweet" (64.4%), then "retweet" (35.6%). Conclusions: Social media platforms and networks represent an effective digital communication environment to educate society about SDGs, and urge them to cooperate in order to achieve a safe, stable and sustainable society.