  The Syria conflict has been described as the most socially mediated in
history, with online social media playing a particularly important role. At the
same time, the ever-changing landscape of the conflict leads to difficulties in
applying analytical approaches taken by other studies of online political
activism. Therefore, in this paper, we use an approach that does not require
strong prior assumptions or the proposal of an advance hypothesis to analyze
Twitter and YouTube activity of a range of protagonists to the conflict, in an
attempt to reveal additional insights into the relationships between them. By
means of a network representation that combines multiple data views, we uncover
communities of accounts falling into four categories that broadly reflect the
situation on the ground in Syria. A detailed analysis of selected communities
within the anti-regime categories is provided, focusing on their central
actors, preferred online platforms, and activity surrounding "real world"
events. Our findings indicate that social media activity in Syria is
considerably more convoluted than reported in many other studies of online
political activism, suggesting that alternative analytical approaches can play
an important role in this type of scenario.

Social and Information Networks;Computers and Society;Physics and Society