Abeer Al-Najjar states on her blog for the University of South California’s Center on Public Diplomacy (CPD Blog), "Twitter has had a phenomenological influence on the international news media in the post-Iranian elections period in June 2009 onwards.”

"After years of state monopoly and censorship twitter and other social media sites and applications are making governments more concerned over news. Social media is placing more power in the hands of citizens in this region,” Al-Najjar continues. She believes that regional governments in the Middle East need to be more pro-active in their approach to conducting public diplomacy campaigns and efforts.

Social media is blooming amidst the backdrop of the opening of one of the world’s most technologically advanced and promising institutions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA): the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), according to Ulf Laessing and Asma Al-Sharif for Reuters. The creation of the university is part of a realization of a long overdue initiative to overhaul the court system, educational system, and to create jobs for the young population.

A perfect example of intermixing public diplomacy and social media studies, Al-Najjar writes that KAUST is meant to be a leading research university and has been received very well in the foreign media. This, however, does not mean that King Abdullah has received favorable reactions at home.

The most salient difference in the structure of the university is that it is neither controlled nor influenced directly by the conservative Wahabbi clerics, who control and influence other public aspects of the Kingdom, such as the judiciary, the police, and most of the education system

The unprecedented move to keep the university out of the conservative clerics' sphere of influence is creating quite a stir and may have much to do with the success of this new institution, remark Laessing and Al-Sharif for Reuters.

"Unlike all other educational institutes…. the university is not administered by the Ministry of Education and is dealt with as an independent entity in order to circumvent the ministry’s rules,” writes Al-Najjar.

Heated battle regarding the role of KAUST social media outlets is playing a significant role in transforming societal norms, according to Reuters. Both the supporters of King Abdullah and the conservative opponents have been utilizing social media tools to muster support for their stance on this issue. The debate surrounding the University has brought social media forums to the center stage.

This use of the social media to network and muster support has also been seen in the recent creation of a Saudi-based Facebook group, called, "The Facebook Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,” according to Al-Arabiya.

The group, says Al Arabiya, is named after the kingdom's Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, also known as the religious police. The Facebook group administrators have maintained that as long as there is no foul language or slandering of officials, tolerant postings will be allowed. Each member will have up to three warnings before being deleted from the group.

Volunteers respond to allegations about the committee and provide advice and promote Islamic principles. The official religious police, however, have said they have no ties with the Facebook group, according to Al-Arabiyya. The committee’s media spokesman Abdul-Mohsen Al-Qafari told Al-Arabiya, that officials have yet to contribute to the Facebook postings, and are not responsible for its content.