Page 88 - Cyberculture and New Media

Mahmoud Eid 79
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rates (i.e., the percentage of those who use the Internet in proportion to the
total population in these countries). Arab countries that have the highest
penetration rates are the United Arab Emirates (35.8%), Kuwait (22.8%),
Bahrain (21.1%), and Qatar (20.7%). In sum, there is no one country in the
Arab world that has a high percentage of Internet access and, at the same
time, high penetration rates, albeit Morocco (0.342%; 11.6%) and Saudi
Arabia (0.248%; 10.8%) are doing well on both levels of global usage and
penetration, respectively. In sum, people in the Arab region do not, in
general, have sufficient access to media and information technologies
compared to global rates, other countries in the region, or in proportion to the
population of the Arab world. Statistics show that access to the Internet in the
Arab world is restricted to the elite, who have the skills and financial power
necessary to take advantage of this medium. The current picture of the Arab
telecommunications sector, media and information production, and cultural
industries demonstrates that, while the Arab world may appear to have the
technological qualifications, there are still many deficiencies that stop it from
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playing any significant role in the era of globalization.

5. Digitization: New Media and the Arab Publics
Digitally based communication technologies have catapulted
modern Arab societies into globalization, placing further pressures on them
to cope with the imperatives of the new information age. The digital
communications revolution sweeping through the Arab world has stimulated
intellectual and political debates, spawning numerous views on the social,
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economic, and cultural implications of new media. The Internet makes
possible certain forms of communication that go beyond the unidirectional
pattern characteristic of the traditional media. E-mail, for example, offers
direct communication similar to letter writing plus a medium for discussion
via mailing lists. The discussion forums (newsgroups) offered by the Usenet,
similar to mailing lists, provide for joint and simultaneous discussion
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between numerous participants.
Much has been said recently about the possibility of the Internet
enhancing democracy. Many claims have been based upon actual online
practices. As well, there has been rapid growth in online political projects and
Internet democracy experiments being carried out by governments, corporate
interests, and citizen groups. Within these rhetorics and practices, three
dominant “camps” have emerged – communitarian, liberal individualist, and
deliberative. The communitarian camp stresses the possibility of the Internet
enhancing community spirit and values. The liberal individualist camp sees
the Internet as assisting the expression of individual interests. The
deliberative camp promotes the Internet as the means for an expansion of the
public sphere of rational-critical citizen discourse that is autonomous from
state and corporate power and through which public opinion may be formed