Report: Live-Tweeting of “ Hake Rjeil”

1- The event, why we chose covering it, and if it’s suitable for live tweeting:

For our live tweeting project, we chose to cover the premiere of “Haki Rjel”, a black comedy production, which was directed and written by an LAU alumnus, Lina Khoury. Being newsworthy for its contribution to the LGBTQ community in Lebanon, the premiere raised money for a topic that is still considered to be taboo within the Arab world. By donating the profits of the play to create an emergency transgender fund, the event has attracted special attention for its unusual call to action. Throughout the course of the play, Khoury covers the topics of: men, what they think about, and what problems they face in the modern society. In the past, Khoury had produced “Hake Niswan”, with a similar objective, however discussing the problems women tend to face. Thus, a new perspective on men’s thoughts was not only refreshing, but an interesting follow up. “Hake Rjeil” breaks several social norms by bringing up topics of love, lust and one’s sexuality. Both the play and our tweets highlight these controversial topics, using them to spark the audience’s interest and curiosity. Being able to attend the productions premiere was the perfect live tweeting opportunity for several reasons. First of all, the premier took place on Friday, March 2nd; however, the official press showing wasn’t until Sunday, March 4th. Therefore, we were given the opportunity to be the first to comment on the production. Secondly, the premiere conveniently allowed us to meet and interview the actors, writers and directors, after the play was over. In other words, we had the inside and first available “scoop,” which helped us engage our audience and increase the interactivity of our tweets.

2- Splitting roles:

As a group of three, we decided to split our roles equally in order to maximize our live coverage of the event. We all tweeted background information, interviews, and images; however, with different ideas in mind. Jena was responsible for the information regarding: transgenders, their history in Lebanon and their relation to the event. Noura, on the other hand, provided information regarding the writers, directors and actors, their background, as well as their live action taking place during the event. Finally, Rasha covered a general background on the play and what to expect, the topics discussed during the production, as well as an overall review of its final outcome. In accordance to our chosen topics, we choose our interviewees based on their roles in the play. Thus, Jena was responsible for interviewing Joseph Zeytouni (who raises questions about sexuality in the production); whereas Noura was responsible for interviewing Lina Khoury (writer and only female actor in the play) and Tarek Tameem (actor).

3-Background Information:

Prior the event, the three of us collected separate information regarding our topics. Jena was in charge of finding information about the transgender situation in Lebanon. Using two official transgender NGO analysis’s, she was able to find information regarding laws, stories and stigmas that have taken place in the Lebanese LGBTQ communities. With the help of Myra Abdullah, communication manager of the NGO “Proud Lebanon”, she was happy to provide information regarding what had inspired the fundraising event and why it is important to have this emergency transgender fund. Noura, on the other hand, had found her background information about the play, through promotional interviews Lina Khoury had taken part in prior to the event. The interviews were found on both, news stations (LBCI) and online newspapers (Al Akhbar). Finally, Rasha’s information was mainly found through news reports and reviews of Khoury’s first production “Hake Niswan.” Lina Khoury’s twitter page was also an important source of background information, as she was the only person tweeting the inside scoop about the play, before opening night.

4-Scheduled Tweets, Live Tweets, and the 5Ws and H:

Scheduling our tweets helped in creating consistency, however was not completely reliable for live tweeting at the event. Although it allowed us to keep a clear outline on what was to be posted and what ideas to have in mind at the event, not everything followed the plan. For example, it was Rasha’s job to interview the actor, Fouad Yammine, but was unable to as he left abruptly after the ending of the play. We were not always able to follow the structure of a typical news report. This had to do with the fact that we started tweeting about the event, before the most important event had actually taken place. However, we were able to answer the questions regarding who, what, where, when, why and how, through all three of our twitter “moments” about the event. Thus, our scheduled tweets were mainly those that contained the background information we had previously gathered and divided among us. Jena’s tweets included the background information and fun facts based on the Lebanese transgender community. In the case of Noura’s tweets, she was able to schedule her tweets that answered questions regarding when (March 2nd), where (Al Madina Theatre) and what kind of event was set to take place that day (a play about stereotypical men and the problems they face in the Lebanese society). Rasha’s information regarding the writer and what to expect was also scheduled to be tweeted before the event. Our live tweets, however, consisted of the interviews, updates regarding the plays audience count, reactions and overall review of the play.

5- Hashtags and Mentions:

During the process of gathering the background information, we also decided on what hashtags to use. We chose حكي_رجال# which is the name of the play in Arabic, to follow Lina Khoury’s thread of tweets that had been promoting the play for quite some time. This was the main hashtag that promoted our live coverage of the event. It also helped us attract an already predisposed audience, that had been brought together through the producer’s promotional tweets. In the case of Jena’s profile, the hashtag #LGBT or #Transgender were both important in bringing in the right crowd for the right fundraising event. With a topic as sensitive to the public as questioning one’s sexuality, it is important to direct the conversation to the right audience. When it comes to the mentions we had agreed to use, Lina Khoury as well as the other actors (Fouad Yammine and Toni Maalouf) were frequently used when discussing the play. Additionally, since the director and writer is an LAU alumnus, we mentioned @LAUComm to engage the department and LAU students in our story. We also mentioned the theater @AlMadinaTheatre, to answer “where” the event was taking place. It was also important to mention the host (@AFEMENA) of the play as well as some other transgender supportive NGO’s when it came to the transgender tweets.

6-Audience Analytics:

The live-tweeting of this event drew attention to our profiles as well as our tweets. Following the live coverage, we woke up the next day to likes on all of our tweets from the actors of the play as well as other Lebanese actors (such as Pierette Katrib), and retweets as well that drew. Furthermore, due to the hashtags we used, especially the ones related to the transgender topic on Jena’s profile, some Lebanese Transgender NGOs followed her profile manage to like and retweet some of the tweets, in addition actor Toni Maalouf from the play followed Noura since she mentioned him in one of her tweets, Rasha also had many likes and retweets from all of the actors of this play.