Online media overview: Syria

ESSENTIAL FACTS

> Freedom of information is one of the first victims of the conflict, but this has promoted the emergence of citizen-journalists who are the only sources capable of covering events inside Syria.

> Information from the field is abundant but it is difficult to evaluate its authenticity.

> Citizen-journalists experience Internet censorship, network outages, surveillance of communications and also cyber attacks implemented by the Syrian Electronic Army and Daesh.

> In Syria, there are a number of independent online media, some of whose websites are hyper-local, and there are several initiatives afoot aimed at bringing them together under a federation.

> Facebook and Twitter are heavily used in Syria, not only as an independent-media incubator but also as Daesh's self-promotion and terror weapon.

> Online advertising revenue opportunities have been reduced to zero by the war, which means that support from international sponsors is essential.

News websites to watch:
ARA News, Radio Rozana, Syria Deeply, Radio Souriali, Syria Untold, New Syrian Voices.

METHODOLOGY

Each country file starts with four indicators to illustrate the environment within which the online media are evolving:

• Internet penetration level, according to the 2013 figures from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
• Online advertising revenue per Internet user per annum, for 2015, according to Arab Media Outlook projections cross-referenced with the ITU statistics
• The 2015 Work Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters without Borders
• The Freedom of the Net 2014 Index, compiled by Freedom House

The above four indicators are represented graphically in the four quarters of a "sonar" screen, in which the coloured area is proportional to the absolute value (in the case of Internet penetration level) or relative value (in the case of word press and Internet freedom scores and for advertising revenue) across the sample for the eight indicator countries.

A table then lists the five principal news websites most visited in that country, in accordance with the Alexa platform ranking.

For each of these news websites we indicate the following:

• The website URL
• The number of Likes on its Facebook page
• The number of its followers on Twitter
• The type of news website: