Who is Mohamed Soufan?

About

Mohamed Soufan is a computational social science researcher and software engineer focused on Arabic-language social media and online engagement.

His work examines how online discourse shapes public conversation, particularly in Lebanon and Arabic-speaking communities. Using large-scale data, he analyzes how information spreads, how users interact, and how engagement patterns emerge across social media platforms.

Alongside his research, Soufan designs and builds software systems, data pipelines, and scraping infrastructure for collecting and analyzing large-scale digital datasets. His work integrates programming, statistical analysis, and natural language processing (NLP) to transform raw online data into structured insights.

Research Focus

His research sits at the intersection of computational methods and social science. His work uses large-scale digital datasets to analyze patterns in online communication and public discourse.

Research Areas:

  • Computational Social Science
  • Arabic Natural Language Processing (NLP)
  • Social Media Analytics
  • Digital Engagement and Online Discourse
  • Media and Political Communication in Lebanon

Through these areas, his research aims to produce data-driven insights into how online narratives form, how discussions evolve, and how social platforms structure public debate.

Publications

He publishes open-access research examining digital discourse and social media dynamics.

His recent work analyzes linguistic uncertainty in Arabic-language posts on X (formerly Twitter) and its relationship to user engagement. The study identifies what he terms the uncertainty–reply asymmetry — the tendency for posts expressing uncertainty to generate disproportionately higher reply engagement.

Publications are available on arXiv, with research indexed through Google Scholar. Summaries and explanations are published on the Papers page.

In addition to academic papers, he publishes data-driven commentary and interpretations of his findings in the Analysis section.

Collaboration & Media

Soufan’s research is designed to be accessible beyond academia and relevant to journalists, analysts, and researchers interested in digital communication and social media.

He is open to:

  • Academic collaboration
  • Media commentary and interviews
  • Data-driven research partnerships
  • Analysis of digital discourse and online engagement trends

For collaboration inquiries or media requests, please contact Mohamed Soufan via email or the Contact page.