The Voice of Silence: Patterns of Digital Participation Among Palestinian Women in East Jerusalem

Facebook is one of the world’s largest social networks, with more than 2,7 billion active users globally. It also most dominant platforms and commonly used by Arabs. However, connecting via sharing content cannot be taken for granted. While many studies have focused on role played networked in empowering women Arab world general feminist movements Spring, few explored Palestinian women’s use Facebook. During after media was as a tool freedom expression world. Palestinians East Jerusalem using witnessed decrease expression, especially Gaza war 2014. This article focuses usage patterns political participation young adult living contested space Jerusalem. These live under dynamic power struggles they belong to traditionally conservative society, within situation intractable conflict, are state control minority group. Qualitative thematic analysis 13 in-depth interviews reveals three usage, all related monitoring: monitoring, kinship self-monitoring. The conceptualises these online behaviours “participation avoidance,” term describing users’ (non-)communicative practices which mundane choices when, why, how <em>participate </em>also mirror <em>avoid</em>.