Digital Gateways to Cultural Soundscapes: Exploring Arabic Music on Reddit

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Arabic music plays a significant role in shaping cultural identity and emotional connection for people from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as for those who are interested in the region&rsquo;s music, language, or cultural expression. This study explores how people engage with and discover Arabic music through public online forums, specifically focusing on Reddit. Using a mixed methods approach, I analyzed 31 Reddit threads to examine the types of Arabic music discussed, the motivations behind user recommendations, and the ways users share and respond to music-related content. My analysis involved thematic coding and quantitative tracking of artist, genre, and region mentions, as well as music sharing behaviors. The findings reveal that Reddit users frequently pair music recommendations with personal or cultural context, express a wide range of preferences, and engage with both popular and niche music across diverse regions. Links to platforms like YouTube and Spotify were commonly used to share music, supporting an interactive, community-centered discovery process. This study highlights how Reddit serves as a space for culturally meaningful music exchange and offers insight into grassroots digital participation in Arabic music discovery.</span>