PopeFrancisUAE: UAE's Historic Events Take Social Media by Storm

The 4th and 5th of February marked two historic events in the UAE. The first was the much-anticipated “Global Conference for Human Fraternity” which saw Pope Francis of the Catholic Church and Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Dr. Ahmad Al Tayeb meet and discuss interfaith relations. The second event was the Papal Mass led by Pope Francis (the first of its kind in the Arabian Peninsula) for an audience of over 130,000 people.

As the global leader in online news and social media monitoring, Meltwater is delighted to have monitored the level of engagement with the events in the social world and to present you with a few insights.

In the span of just one week, we witnessed over 157,360 mentions on social media discussing the meeting, the religious figures and the Papal Mass (Jan 30th – February 5th).

Year of Tolerance

The events kicked off the UAE’s officially proclaimed Year of Tolerance, set to promote the values of acceptance and co-existence in the UAE. It comes as no surprise that the word “tolerance” was one of the most widely used keywords in relation to the events.

Overall global mentions of the term “Year of Tolerance” in both English and Arabic increased by 368% during the week of The Global Conference of Human Fraternity (22,000 vs. 4,700 mentions).

“Faith”, “Peace” and “Hope” were also some of the most used keywords in social conversations discussing the events.