It is widely acknowledged that socioeconomic discontent among a majority of the population in the MENA region caused and promoted collective actions of dissent, which in turn led to the uprisings in 2011 and recurrent waves of contention thereafter. Although we can find numerous case studies that include data on the structure, frequencies and actors of protests, there is little systematic comparison of protest data covering the MENA region as a whole, including a broader time frame. In order to study the conditions and the political impact of those protests in a comparative framework, this paper makes use of relevant databases (e.g. ACLED) on contentious actions and compiles first a comprehensive description of frequencies of socioeconomic protests in the MENA region since 2006. It then compares socioeconomic protests with the general development of public contention. Secondly, protests are analyzed along the Goldstein Scale, numbers of fatalities and the quantity of news dealing with a specific event. This will provide a scheme that allows us to estimate the impact of events in their specific contexts. In a third step, the paper discusses ways to avoid potential shortcomings of quantitative analysis due to typical biases that are inherent in a content analysis of news, such as a disproportionate appearance of violence and a general tendency to follow 'mainstream'-media agenda-setting. Finally, the paper discusses the general political developments in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia to correlate protests and political change, thereby making first, tentative assumptions on the larger impact of regional socioeconomic contention.