Page 92 - Cyberculture and New Media

Mahmoud Eid 83
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language. All proposals for change are carefully scrutinized to ensure
compatibility with the phonological, syntactic, and morphological structure
of Arabic. The majority of Arabic planners show considerable reluctance to
tamper with the fundamental linguistic and grammatical principles of the
language. Although the Arab countries have strong practical and economic
reasons to collaborate on scientific and technological issues, including
terminology and standardization, the lack of inter-Arab cooperation has
stunted this potential route for development. Arab researchers have designed
a computerized model for which Arabic is the governing language rather than
English. This model can be readily adapted to work with English. This
potentially powerful tool for modernizing the functions of language use from
the Arabic perspective should motivate Arab institutions and governments to
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sponsor more innovative language solutions of this nature.
Egypt has been the best example of provoking the awareness and
usage of the Arabic Internet as well as Arabizing its content. The Internet was
introduced to Egypt in October 1993 by the Cabinet Information and
Decision Support Center. In January 2002, the Egyptian government started a
plan to increase Internet connectivity. Access to the network became free for
all, through any of the sixty-eight Internet service providers then serving the
Egyptian market. Users only had to pay the small price of a telephone call
while connected to the Internet. Egypt’s online government portal is a well-
developed site that has recently started to offer several e-government
services. These include automobile license renewals, traffic ticket payments,
phone bill payments, electric bill payments, filing for taxes, and university
applications. E-commerce has started to emerge in Egyptian society, albeit at
a slow pace. Efforts in this regard include establishing Web sites for major
Egyptian financial institutions, including the Central Bank of Egypt and the
National Bank of Egypt. Banks have started aggressive marketing campaigns
to spread the adoption and use of credit cards in the cash-oriented Egyptian
society. Other Egyptian sites have also tried to find creative ways to answer
customer demands and overcome e-commerce obstacles. For example,
Otlob.com allows users to place online orders for a variety of foods,
pharmaceuticals, flowers, and video rentals, which they would receive in
thirty minutes to an hour. The site offers access to over three hundred
restaurants and had over four thousand registered users, averaging 25,000 hits
per day. Egypt’s biggest portal, Masrawy (http://www.masrawy.com), offers
a database of contact information to more than 12,000 businesses in Egypt.
The site also offers real-time information on the Egyptian and international
stock markets. Other portals, such as Yallabina (http://www.yallabina.com),
offer information from an Egyptian cultural perspective. The Internet has also
allowed for media convergence, the medium itself being used as a news
provider (online newspapers and magazines) as well as an online radio and
television broadcaster. Throughout the years, Egypt has led the Arab world in