Al Manar's Online Audience

Al Manar’s television programming has either been banned or has simply not been made available in many nations so the website if the primary medium for many in Europe and the Americas. The site offers content in English, French and Arabic.

According to Quantcast, which provides statistics on Americans’ online activity, only about 7,000 Americans access Almanar.com.lb each month. These site visitors are primarily young and male. For more insights into Al Manar’s audience, I reviewed several features on the website which provide for audience engagement.

POLLS


For the past two weeks the poll question on Al Manar has been, “Do you see the Zionist public’ inclination to the right as an expression of fear following the outcome of the Lebanon and Gaza wars?” Of the nearly 10,000 participants in the poll, over 90% responded in the affirmative.





AUDIENCE COMMENTS

Al Manar allows website visitors to comment on news articles, asking that they provide their name and country of origin. Al Manar lists the most read and most commented news. Even for the stories included in the most commented news group, there are only several visitor comments, but the few comments are highly vehement. For example, in response to the article I mentioned in a previous post, “Jesus Abused by Spiteful Isrealis, Hezbollah Condemns,” one reader from Pakistan responded with “I am not surprised at all. Zionists do not have any religion, they do not have any God, they don’t have any prophet. Their God is Money.” This comment is reflective of most comments. The other typical component in audience comments is quotations from religious scripture. Those who post are both from Western nations such as the US, UK and Belgium as well as Middle Eastern and North African nations such as Pakistan and Algeria. A sample audience post is provided below.