Following the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers on Facebook: A comparative study between Arab and Non-Arab Audiences

Over the past decade, sports teams and federations have prioritized providing content on important digital platforms to circulate relevant news and coverage, particularly on social networking sites. These sites have increasingly become reliable news sources that audiences can follow and then share this content among themselves. With the Middle East taking the global stage for the first time as the host of this event, it is useful to understand the similarities and differences between Arab and non-Arab audiences’ use of social media during the tournament’s qualifying stages. As such, this study compares Arab and non-Arab audiences’ use of Facebook as an information source for the 2022 World Cup qualifying matches. Results indicate that Facebook continues to enjoy a good relationship with its users who are motivated by amusement and entertainment (Ordinary) while seeking to obtain information and communicate with other individuals (Utilitarian). While these findings reflect and refine the five motivations posited by Haugh and Watkins (2016), this study also demonstrates that motives for new media require more depth and nuance than allowed for with the binary ―Ordinary‖ and ―Utilitarian‖ categorizations. This has implications for the Uses and Gratifications Theory as well as the methods used to study it.