Information Technology, Trust, and Social Change in the Arab World

Author(s): Mamoun Fandy

Source: Middle East Journal, Vol. 54, No. 3, The Information Revolution (Summer, 2000), pp.
378-394
Published by: Middle East Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4329507 .
Accessed: 22/06/2014 14:58

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Middle East Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Middle East
Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 INFORMATIONTECHNOLOGY,TRUST,
AND SOCIALCHANGEIN THE ARAB
WORLD

Mamoun Fandy

Western assessments often suggest that the emergence of satellite television

broadcasting, the Internetand other new media in the Middle East will profoundly
change the political and social realities of the region. Such predictions may
underestimatethe importantrole played by trustin Middle Eastern societies, where
traditionalstate control of the informationmedia has often meantthat more reliance
is placed on oral and unofficial means of communications,in the mosque, the
coffeehouse,or the marketplace.Just as the validity of the traditionsof the Prophet
Muhammadwere supported by a system of isnad, or the chain of transmission,
similarly oral sources of informationin the Middle East today sometimes enjoy
more credibility than written sources. Withthis in mind, the article examines the
impact of new media in the region.

he comingof the Internetandthe mushrooming

of satellitedisheson Arabrooftops
have been heralded in the West as signs of the retreatingArab state, the rise of civil
society, the emergence of the public sphere, and maybe a dawn of new politics.' Despite

MamounFandy is a Research Professor of Politics at GeorgetownUniversity'sCenterfor ContemporaryArab

Studies. The author would like to thankhis colleagues WalterArmbrustand TarikYouseffor helpful comments.
1. Some of the most recent writings about new media in the Arab and Muslim world include Jon B.
Alterman,New Media: New Politics? (Washington,DC: The WashingtonInstitutefor Near East Policy, 1998);
"The Middle East InformationRevolution" CurrentHistory, January2000. Pp. 21-26; and Dale F. Eickelman
and Jon W. Anderson, ed., New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere (Bloomington:
IndianaUniversity Press, 1999). The collection of essays in the last book are uneven in terms of the linkages
made between the new media and the emergence of new politics.

MIDDLEEASTJOURNAL
* VOLUME54, NO. 3, SUMMER2000

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN THEMIDDLEEAST a 379

this excitement aboutmodem means of communicationand their impact on Arabpolities,

one is astonished by the disjunctionbetween these pronouncementsand the realities of
Arab politics and Arab societies.
This article is a response to an obvious puzzle conceming political communication,
modem media, and their impact in the Arab world. If one looks at the Arab states, one
never fails to notice that most Arab states control almost all means of mass communica-
tion: print,radio, and television. Naturally,as a result, one would expect thatthe language
of those at the helm of the state would dominatethe political language in the Arab world.
Yet, the dominantlanguage in Arab societies, at least in the past two decades, has been
oppositionistand Islamist, or at least dominatedby Islamic symbols. Given that states bar
these groups from the various media, it is puzzling that their discourseis dominant.Thus,
before making the linkage between the diffusion of state controlled, modem means of
communication, and political change in the Arab world one has to contend with the
following questions:
* Why is the Islamist discourse, despite lack of access to these modem means of
communication,still dominant?;
* Why is it that state discourse is not taking hold, despite what is available to the
elites in terms of means of mass communicationand other instrumentsof social control?;
* Why is the hegemony of the Arab state weak?;
* What is the relationshipbetween communicationand trust?
Before I answer these questions, I would like to contest the assumptionsthat link
modem media to socio-political change in the Arab world on both theoretical and
empirical grounds. Macro-sociologists and economic historians have disputed the rela-
tionship between technological change and openness of the political order or economic
growth elsewhere. Contesting the relationshipbetween openness and new technologies
from a sociological standpoint,JamesBeniger arguesthatthe informationrevolutioncame
as a response to the crisis of controlthatresultedfrom the great flows of materialand data
that accompaniedthe industrialrevolution.2This pressingproblemof movementof goods,
information, and their processing requirednew means of control. This is why we had
innovations such as the telegraph,telephone, assembly lines, and scientific management,
he argues. The conclusions of Beniger's argumentrun against the assumption of both
medium theory and modemizationtheory alike. Anotherargumentchallenging the direct
correlationbetween technology and economic growth comes from a giant in the field of
US economic history. In his book Railroads and American Economic Growth, Robert
Fogel wrote, "despite its dramaticallyrapid and massive growth over a period of half a
century. . . the railroadsdid not make an overwhelming contributionto the production
potentialof the economy".3Fogel's ideas were very importantand generateda great deal
of debate amongsthis peers and beyond. Fogel's challenge is of particularinterestbecause
of the link development theorists make, and still make, between economic growth and

2. James R. Beniger, The Control Revolution (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1986).

3. RobertW. Fogel, Railroads and AmericanEconomic Growth(Baltimore:The Johns Hopkins Press,
1964) p. 235.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
380 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

political change. More recent data and analyses from China make a similar point. Daniel
Lynch suggests that close scrutinyof the Chinese case shows that the opening of public
space is a result of a combination of administrativefragmentationand propertyrights
reform,while the role of informationtechnology is very limited.4More to the point of this
article,he arguesfor a differentiationbetween the public spherein an authoritariansetting,
and that in liberal democracies. In an authoritariancontext, the public sphere is not an
open place of contestation,as liberals would have it. The public sphere is structuredand
the rules of the game can be changed by an intrusive state at any time.

CONTESTINGTHE THEORETICAL
BASIS OF THIS CURRENTDEBATE

Regardless of the variations in conclusions, the current debate on globalization,

Internetgrowth, new media, and their implications for Arab polities seems to embrace
uncriticallythe old cliches of the modernizationand developmentliterature.In this regard,
some scholars seem to abandonanalyticalprecision in favor of this new hype, claiming
a correlationbetween the new media and the emergence of the public sphere and civil
society in the Arab world.5 The underlying assumption of these studies, with few
exceptions, is that the spreadof new means of communications,such as the fax machine,
the cellular phone, the satellite dish, and finally the Internetwill crack open the Arab
authoritarianorder.The intellectualgenealogy of these argumentsat least in termnsof the
communicationaspect can be traced to MarshalMcLuhan's medium theory that argues
that changes in the means of communicationhave an impact on the trajectoryof social
evolution and social change.6 The intellectual fathers of these arguments in political
science in general, and Middle East studies in particular,are Samuel Huntington and
Daniel Lernerrespectively.7
The fact that the study of new media and its impact on the Arab World is in vogue
should not dissuade us from seeking greateranalytical rigor and a degree of interdisci-
plinaryperspective. Technological determinismis always seductive, in the sense that the
history of Man is the historyof technology. However, this can only take us so far. The fact
that some scholars have already started quantifying the communications technology
revolution statisticallyis not enough, nor is focusing on the expansion of communication
structures,such as the rate of growth of the Internetor the increasednumberof satellite
TV stations available in the Arab World. This may be helpful at the level of data
gathering.However, it should not be confused with the whole story. Data needs context

4. Daniel C. Lynch, After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics and "ThoughtWork"in Reformed
China (Stanford,CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 1999). P. 22.
5. Examples of these include Dale F. Eickelmanand Jon W. Anderson,ed., New Media in the Muslim
World.
6. See Marshal McLuhan and Quintin Fiore, The Medium is the Message (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1967).
7. Argumentsthat linked media and political change date back to the 1950s, with the work of Daniel
Lerner.It has continued in the 1990s in the work of Samuel Huntington.For this argument,see Daniel Lerner
ThePassing of TraditionalSociety (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1958); Also see, Samuel Huntington,The Third
Wave:Demnocratiztion In Late TwentiethCentury(Norman, Okla: University of OklahomaPress, 1991).

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 IN THEMIDDLEEAST * 381
TECHNOLOGY
INFORMATION

both for gatheringand interpretation,unless we assume thatpeople of the region and their
cultures do not matter.Identifying these rapid transformations,some scholars have gone
on to conclude that the communicationsrevolution signifies the expansion of political
space. Two assumptions run through their arguments. First, they assume that the
persistence of authoritarianismis the result of an uninformedcitizenry, and that access to
informationwill serve to enlighten the oppressed Arab people. Second, these types of
analysis focus exclusively on communication'sstructuresand do little to explain content,
or relate this content to the larger social, economic and cultural context. Although the
Arab world has witnessed an explosion of new media, this transformationhas takenplace
within a specific context with a capacity to absorband adaptto these new developments.
We have yet to compare social change in Arab countries that went through rapid
modemization and technological infusions (the Gulf States) and those with less techno-
logical infusion (Sudan and Yemen).
These questions can be partly answered only if we analyze institutionsof political
communication,both new and old. Centralto my argumentis that the failure of modem
and post-modem means of acquiringrootednessin the Arab world is linked to the larger
issues of communicationand trust.Here I would like to argue that new structures,means
and processes of modemity, particularlythose of the media, are usually absorbedinto the
local context. Some technologies may remainsimply graftedonto the society, and may not
take root, in at least certainsegments of these societies more than others.There are places
where the radio might be the main means of communication,while in other parts of a
society television may be dominant,and yet in still otherpartsnon-modemmeans may be
the most efficient means of communication.This is not a problem thus far. The main
problem arises when we mistake the means and the processes for mirror images of
Westem structuresaccompaniedby specific expected functions: in other words, seeing
only what is familiar and selecting data on the basis of this familiarity.The main reason
that other forms fail to take root is because of their foreign bias as modem means of
communication.For example, those forms that privilege the domain of the written over
that of the oral, or standardArabic over the vemacular,fail to take root in an Arab world
that largely remains within the realm of illiteracy, orality, and vemacular speech.
When studying communication and technology in the Arab world, most scholars
have focused on the technology and ignored the Arab world, their histories, cultures,and
societies, and their human dimensions. Few studies have tried to address the impact or
habits of those who are participating,or their interactionwith new forms of media. Yet
thereis a lot to be said aboutthe way in which individualsin the Arabworld have engaged
these new media forms. For example, when radio was first introducedin the Arab world,
whetherprivately owned or state owned, many people listened to it in local cafes. Caf6s
were also the venue where Arabs were introduced to television, video and satellite
television. Now many who study the new informationtechnologies in the Arabworld, talk
about Intemet cafes, but focus on the access to technology. Although there is a great deal
to be said about access to these new means of communication,very few have addressed
the underlyingsocial structurethat make cafes the site of mass communication.What is

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
382 * MIDDLEEASTJOURNAL

so importantabout collective viewing in the Arab world, and how does this relate to the
Internetand other new communicationtechnologies?
It would be missing the point of my argumentaltogether,if one were to classify my
critique of the nascent literaturethat connects new informationtechnologies with the
empowerment of civil society and the emergence of public space, as part of the
anti-globalizationdiscourse. Rather,I argue for a differentiatednotion of globalization.
Globalizationis a consequenceof modernity.Placing it in this context would facilitateour
understandingof both new and old informationtechnologies and their implications for
Arab societies. One of the majorconsequences of modernityis the distantiationof space
and time8 (as modernity accelerates time, space shrinks), limiting our face-to-face
interactionin favor of a faceless interactionand lifting many social relations out of their
local context and re-embeddingthem in a new global context. As we see an event unfold
on television, we think we are witnessing it unfold in front of our eyes, and we interpret
the event according to our own frame of reference or the frame supplied to us by the
camerasand the reporters.We trustthat what we are watching is real. But the concept of
trust associated with modernityis a differentconcept from trustin a pre-modernsociety.
Since the crux of my argumentconcernsmedia and trustin the Arab context, I have to be
concernedaboutthe implicationsof the assumptionsof modernizationtheory and medium
theory for the notion of trust.

AND TRUST
COMMUNICATION

Key to the Arab state's inability to connect with the larger society, and its inability to
establish hegemony using these modern means of mass communication,is the notion of
communicationand trust.One can point to many examples where the trustbetween Arab
societies and state media was brokenwith no attempton the partof the state media to win
it back. One of the glaring examples was in 1967, when all Arab newspapers,radio and
television, following the lead of Egyptian radio announcerAhmed Sa'id, told the Arab
people that the Arab armies had crushed the Israeli army and that Israeli planes were
falling from the skies like flies. It did not take long for the Arabs to learn the bittertruth
from foreign sources, such as the British BroadcastingCorporation(BBC). Arabs lost
theirtrustin official announcementswhetherthese came throughradio,printor television.
By trust,I mean people's confidence in and reliance on a person or an institutionto
be true to their commitments.But the meaning of trustand the accompanyingsystems of
verificationvary from one society to the next.9Trustin "traditional"societies depends on
face to face interactionand a specific system of verification.'0But as relationshipsbecome
more complicated and people move from one end of the globe to the other, face-to-face
verification systems are replaced by institutions and other mechanisms. The bases of

8. My argumentshere are informedby David Harvey in The Conditionof Postmodernity(Cambridge,

MA: Blackwell, 1989) and the work of Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA:
StanfordUniversity Press, 1990).
9. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity.
10. Giddens, The Consequencesof Modernity.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 INFORMATION IN THEMIDDLEEAST * 383
TECHNOLOGY

modern trust are access points to expert systems, where face-to-face encounters meet
faceless commitment.This expert system-basedtrustis what makes us confidentthat our
cars will not break down as long as we are following the maintenancemanual. It is the
kind of trustthat makes even the enemies of the United Statesbelieve in the US dollarand
the Americangovernment'sinstitutionalcommitmentto guaranteethis token of exchange.
Many modernizationtheorists who believe in clear differences between traditionaland
Western societies would argue that this kind of trustis "modern"and does not work in a
traditionalsetting, such as the Arab world. However, everyday evidence from various
fields show that the Arab world is far more complex than was originally perceived. Arab
systems of trustare selective, differentiated,and complex. Arabs trustthat their television
sets will work, but very rarelytrustthe messages coming from them. In the case of finance.
many Arabstrustfinancialinstitutionsthatexist outside the nationalboundariesmore than
they trustthe local ones. In the West, a writtendocumentenjoys more credibilitythan an
oral source; in the Arab world, the opposite is often true.
Trust, whether one lives in a modern society or a supposedly traditionalone, has
accompaniments,such as a linguistic environment,a knowledge base, and sharedsymbols
and mutuality.Trustedcommunicationin the Arab world is that which follows something
akin to an indigenous model of isnad. This is, of course, the methodologyfor transmitting
sayings of the prophet orally, a means for transmittingauthoritativeutterances that
referencesnot just the information(the Hadith),but also the name of the personor persons
who transmitted it. The reliability of this depends on the existing unbroken and
unimpeachablechain of those who handeddown the Prophet'sutterances.1' Althoughthis
model is dominantin the religious domain, it shapes the cosmology of the larger society
with regards to trust. Trusting informationcoming from distant places or distant times
requires verification. It requires also a special talent that distinguishes true news from
false. Because they have been lied to many times, Arabs seem to be able to select their
informationwith tremendousease. This is what they do on a daily basis with regardsto
informationthey get whether it is print, radio, television or the Internet.

INFORMATIONTECHNOLOGY
AND POLITICALCHANGE:THREECASESFROM
THEARAB WORLD

First,with the exception of a few authorswho did extensive surveysof the Arabpress such
as William Rugh, there is very little analysis of radio and television and their impact on
the Arab world.'2 Douglas Boyed's most recent book on broadcastingin the Arab world
is a very good survey book, but shorton analysis.'3Thus, it is very difficultto assess new
media when the old media and their impact have not yet been fully investigated.
Nonetheless, through a discussion of media examples from three cases from the Arab
world, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,and Egypt. I would like to raise some warnings concerning

11. For more on this, see Brinkley Messick, The CalligraphicState (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993) pp. 24-26.
12. William A. Rugh, The Arab Press (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1989).
13. Douglas A. Boyed, Broadcasting in the Arab World(Ames, IA: Iowa State UniversityPress, 1999).

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
384 U MIDDLEEASTJOURNAL

this emerging consensus on the role of the new media and their ability to transformArab
societies. Again, central to my argument is the relationship between these means of
informationand trust.

SAUDI ARABIA:OPPOSITION,FAX MACHINE,AND THE INTERNET

Nowhere in the Arabworld, has the ability to access the new technology been greaterthan
in the Arabian Gulf region. Chief amongst these countries that invested in the new
technology is Saudi Arabia. Data gatheredon these countries between 1994-1997 point
to a dramaticincrease in the numberof Internethosts. For instance, in 1995 Bahrainhad
zero net hosts. By 1996, the numberof hosts became 142. In 1997, the numberof web
hosts in Bahrainwas 841. Thus the increase from 1996 to 1997 was 492 percent. In the
United Arab Emirates the increase between Internet use in 1995 to 1997 was 393
percent.'4Although many are mainly concernedwith cataloguingthis data,it is important
to put this data in its proper context, if one is to understandwhat it means. To do this,
looking at the case of Saudi Arabia is instructive.It may tell one something about how
these technologies have been used and when they have gained or lost, the trustof the target
audiences.
Since the introductionof the fax machine and the Internetand their use by the Saudi
opposition, predictionsaboutthe impendingcollapse of the Saudi state underthe pressure
of a fax machine and a web site had become widespread in the Western media and in
Western analytical communities. Many speculated that the political order of the desert
kingdom was decaying and only months away from crumblingundera click of the mouse
or a document zapped into the country by a fax machine.15
The Saudioppositionabroad,primarilythe London-basedCommitteefor the Defense
of Legitimate Rights (CDLR), initially made excellent use of new media, faxing its
communiquesto some 600 numbersinside Saudi Arabia,providing a toll-free telephone
link to its London offices, and maintaininga useful web page.'6 But over the past few
years, the opposition-the presumed beneficiary of the subversive potential of new
communications technology-has suffered a tremendous loss of credibility inside the
Kingdom.
There are several reasons for this. In 1996, a split occurredbetween CDLR leader
Muhammadal-Mas'ariand the head of the London office, Sa'd al-Faqih.Al-Faqih broke
with the CDLR and founded a new rival group, the Movement for Islamic Reform in
Arabia (MIRA). This split produced confusion among local supporters back in the

14. Grey E. Bukhart and Seymour Goodman, "The InternetGains Acceptance in the Persian Gulf,"
CommunicationofACM, March 1998, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 19-24.
15. For more on this, see Mamoun Fandy, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1999.) p. 137.
16. The CDLR's website is at http://www.cdlr.net.Note thatthe words translatedas "LegitimateRights"
in English is al-huquqal-shar'iyya in Arabic, that is, "legitimate"underIslamic shari'a. For more on the CDLR
and its leader Muhammadal-Mas'ari, see Fandy, Saudi Arabia, Chapter4.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN THEMIDDLEEAST * 385

Kingdom.'7In addition,nearly all the Saudis I interviewedinside the Kingdom attestedto

the popularityof the CDLR faxes when they were still a novelty in the mid-1990s, but
indicated that subsequently the faxes had lost their charismatic appeal, becoming
routinizedand even degeneratinginto gossip. In short,therewas an acceleratederosion of
trust in the informationcoming from London. The local people's inability to verify some
of the news stories through their own "isnad" mechanism (inquiring of relatives and
trustedfriends who work inside the system about the stories reported)underminedtheir
credibility.
Furthereroding the trust, or marginalizingthe message, of the Saudi opposition in
Londonis its competition,for almostthe same audience,with more trustedand time-tested
media sources, such as the BBC and other Western media outlets. Consumersof Saudi
oppositionmessages are limited. Since the London-basedoppositionuses the writtenword
as its primarymeans of communicatingresistance, its message is limited to those who
read. Informationsent over the Internetor by E-mail reaches those who are computer
literateand English speaking.The technologicallyadeptsegments of Saudi society are the
most unlikely to rebel openly and risk theirprivilegedposition. Moreover,this segment of
Saudi society has never been deprived of information, previously listening to radio
broadcasts of the BBC and VOA inside Saudi Arabia and reading English language
newspapers when they were abroad.Now, with the introductionof satellite dishes, the
English-speaking segment of Saudi society can get news from the BBC and CNN on
television, while logging on to other sources on the web instead of CDLR or MIRA's
newsletters and homepages.
Chief among the problems of the Saudi opposition in London is informationand
trust.On 3 March 1998, The oppositionin London announcedon theirweb sites that King
Fahd had died and that the royal family engaged in covering up the story until it had
managedthe succession.18In additionto the problemof trustthe London-basedopposition
and their messages failed to interfacewith the dominantdomain of orality in the society.
This domain was left to the cassette tape, the local mosques, and face to face
communication.
If one looks at the state response to opposition, one realizes that it took the Internet
and fax seriously, but the state's main effortsto regulateand crackdown on the opposition
have focused on the decidedly old-fashioneddistributionof cassette tapes and sermonsin
mosques. This is because many people listen to tapes more frequentlythan they read a
text. Many people have tape players in their cars, whereas very few have faxes. The use
of fax machines in Saudi Arabia is extremely limited comparedto the use of the phone.
Faxes are used only within the domain of the writtenword, and within formal institutions
of society such as state-relatedinstitutionsand businesses that deal with the state or have
internationallinkages. Thus, the inherent characteristicsof each technology limits its
effectiveness and sometimes limits its ability to gain trust.

17. MIRA's website is at http://miraserve.com.On the split, see Fandy,Saudi Arabia, pp. 140-143, and
on Sa'd al-Faqih and MIRA generally, all of Chapter5.
18. Fandy, p. 137.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
386 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

The failure of the web-site-basedopposition comes from their inability to make use
of the interfaceamong the various media that cut throughthe domains of the writtenand
the oral. Computersnow may do this if the voice function is to be permitted.But many
countries in the Arab world do not permit voice on the computer because the national
telephone company could lose revenues when people use the computerfor long distance
calls. This is a good example of the tension between state and individual interests in
weighing the advantagesand perils of this new technology for both the state and society.

QATAR:THE CASE OF AL-JAZEERASATELLITECHANNEL

The QatariAl-Jazeera channel has become the darling of media analysts looking for an
Arab media story, because it has almost all the identifiable forms that we see in the
Western media. To see a debate similar to the American show Crossfiredoes not mean
that freedomof speech in the Arabworld is fully realized,any more thanto see voting and
ballot boxes means that democracy has taken hold. False cultural cognates could be a
serious problemhere. Thus, it is importantto look at how form and contentinterplay,and
how they connect to the larger socio-culturalterrainof the Arab world. We also need to
assess the relationshipbetween these forms, this new channel and trust.
Launchedin 1996 from Doha, Qatar,Al-Jazeerais an all news channel. The parent
of Al-Jazeerawas an offshorestationbased in London (the Arabic BBC). After the Arabic
BBC was shut down, the staff of the station was hired to work in Doha in a new station
owned by the royal family in Qatar.The chairmanof the board of the station is Shaykh
TamirAl-Thani, a memberof the ruling family. Although physically in an Arab country,
Al-Jazeera continued the traditionof the "offshore"Arab satellite stations.19Most new
Arab satellite stations can be conceptualizedas offshorevis-a-vis other Arab states. Here
the title of Mona Simpson's novel Anywherebut Here could work as a perfect slogan for
Al-Jazeera's relationshipwith Qatarand also all the satellite channels of the other Arab
states. The Saudi-ownedMiddle East BroadcastingCentre(MBC) could be critical of any
countrybut Saudi Arabia;the Egyptiansatellite channels could be critical of any country
but Egypt and so on.
After four years of operation,Al-Jazeeraremains at the mercy of financial support
from the Qatarigovernment,for it has very little commercial advertisementto carry the
station's financialburden.Al-Jazeera'spopularityin the Arabworld can be traceddirectly
to its coverage of OperationDesert Fox in 1998. For the first time, Arabs felt that their
news media was not flatly lying to them as the Voice of the Arabs did in 1967. But this
trust that Al-Jazeera established with its audience is gradually eroding as the station
conforms to certainpolicy parameters.Because of what has been writtenaboutAl-Jazeera
and its history elsewhere, I would like to raise a few points that many seem to have
forgotten in the midst of the excitement about this medium that many predicted would

19. For more on Al-Jazeera,see Douglas A. Boyed, Broadcasting in the Arab World,pp. 187-88. Also
see, Jon B. Alterman, New Media: New Politics? (Washington,DC: The WashingtonInstitute for Near East
Policy, 1998) pp. 22-24.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 INFORMATION IN THEMIDDLEEAST * 387
TECHNOLOGY

change Arab politics. To begin with, in many respects Al-Jazeerais formattedafter the
Cable News Network (CNN). It has its "Crossfire",which Al-Jazeera calls al-Ittijah
as-Mu'akis (The Opposite Tendency), and its "LarryKings". This feature is not specific
to Al-Jazeera,as most Arab television programsare modeled in one form or anotherafter
some Western stations with literal or near literal translationsof the titles. ABC's, Good
MorningAmerica is all over the Arab world as Sabah al-Khayrya Misr (Good Morning
Egypt), Sabah al-Khayrya Kuwayt(Good MorningKuwait), etc. The Kingdom of Saudi
Arabiawas a little more liberalwith the translation,as the dominantshow in Saudi Arabia
is called Al-MamlakaHadha al-Sabah (The Kingdom This Morning). Other shows are
coming along. In one interview in Egypt, I was told that Egyptian television is going to
launch a new and attractiveshow called Wajihal-Sahafa, which translatesas Meet the
Press. Borrowing ready made molds and filling them with Arabic is a time-honored
traditionin the Arab world. Even radical groups and states resort to translation-When
Arab radicals wanted to uplift the nation they were thinking of an Arab renaissance-
which translatedas al-Ba'th-the Ba'th party dominant in Syria and Iraq. One has to
distinguish between spotting a familiar format on an Arab TV station and the show's
actual impact.
However, at the level of content, Al-Jazeerais modeled after Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir's
Sawt al- 'Arab(Voice of the Arabs)Radio station.20The Arabicversion of "Crossfire"will
be critical of Arab countries except Qatar which owns the station and Syria-the
birthplaceof the host of the show.
It is easy to confuse Al-Jazeera'scall-in shows with theirAmericancounterparts.But
unlike the American call-ins, Al Jazeera's live shows are extremely managed. The
producerof the show usually notifies those whom the stationwants to have participateas
callers. Since the station does not have a toll free number,the producersusually call the
people who will comment. This is because it is very expensive to make an international
call from poor countries,like Egypt and Morocco, and very few will pay thatmuch money
to state their opinions on Al-Jazeera.Since the stationitself managesthe "viewers' calls,"
the rules of the game are thateach guest is also allowed threecallers. But this works more
in theory ratherthan in practice.
If one takes the Arab "Crossfire"(al-Ittijahal-Mu'akis) as an example, the problems
of the stationbecomes obvious. In this show, the dominantconfrontationis between Arab
nationalists and Islamists against "pro-Western or Westernized Arabs." The Arab
nationalist/Islamistsrepresent the view of the station while the other guest usually
represents "the defeatist camp", especially Arabs who have made their peace with the
West and are willing to live in peace with Israel. Usually the host of the show, Mr. Faysal
al-Qasim, is unabashedly on the Arab nationalist side. No attempt is made even for
packaged objectivity a la US television.
In one show, the station invited the representative of the pro-peace process
"CopenhagenGroup",'Abdal-Mun'im Sa'id from Cairo, to face off with Amin Iskandar,

20. For more on Voice of the Arabs, see Ahmed Shalaby, Tarikhal-Idha'a al-Misriyya (History of
Egyptian Broadcasting)(Cairo, Egypt: Al-Hay'a Al-Misriyya al-'Amma li al-Kitab, 1995).

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
388 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

the head of the Committeeof the StruggleAgainst Normalizationwith Israel. The host of
the show told Dr. Sa'id thathe had to let him know the names and phone numbersof three
people who would supportthe objectives of the CopenhagenGroup.His opponentwould
be given the same opportunity.However, in reality those the stationcalled were Islamists,
such as Fahmi Huwaydi, and Ba'thists, such as Mustafa Bakri, and three other Islamists
and nationalists. From the other camp, only one caller supported Sa'id. When Sa'id
inquiredabout this asymmetry,he was told thathis people were not available.2'This was
allegedly why the stationhad to call the Islamists and Ba'thists. This was the show of 17
August 1999.
To comparethe same show over time and see whetheror not the picturehas changed,
let me describe the show of 26 April 2000. In this show, broadcastfrom Cairo, Faysal al
Qasim, again invited the regularpro-SaddamBa'thist Mustafa Bakri to face off with the
"defeatist"Egyptian peace activist Nabil Fuda. In addition to the attacks launched by
Bakri, show host al Qasim weighed in telling Fuda that "Israelis a cancer that should be
surgically removed from the Middle East." Then the calls came in from Rif'at Sayyid
Ahmad, an Egyptian Islamist supportingBakri and denouncing the traitorFuda. Unlike
'Abd al-MunimSa'id, Fudahad no calls of supportthis time. The stationcalled only those
who denouncedIsraeland the peace process. The show ended with a finely choreographed
moment in which al-Qasim asked Bakri to shake hands with his fellow Egyptian, and
Bakri announcedthathe would not shake the dirtyhandthat shook handswith Israelis.Of
course, in the Cairojournalisticcommunity,it is generallyknown that Bakri's newspaper
Al-Usbu'a, is financed by Iraq and it cares more about Iraqi news than about Egyptian
stories. Bakri is also known in Egypt as the one who issues nationalistfatwas urging
Egyptiansto take revenge on people who supportpeace. The last of hisfatwas was against
Dr. Sa'd al-Din Ibrahim,the head of the Ibn KhaldunCenter for Development.
With the exception of the half hour news, any content analysis of Al-Jazeerawould
reveal that it is a channel that representsthe view point of a new alliance in the Middle
East, namely the Ba'thist nationalistsand the Islamists.This is an alliance thatArab states
tactically have used over the years but never grantedany voice. Al-Jazeerais the voice of
this new alliance. One of the dominant figures in Al-Jazeera is Yusuf al-Qaradawi,a
member of the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood.Another Brotherhoodmember is one of
Al-Jazeera's hosts, Ahmed Mansuri. Al-Qasim, Jamil 'Azr and some of their guests
representthe Arab nationalists.I visited Al-Jazeeraheadquartersin Doha in 1998 and met
some of the producers.In my conversationswith them, I identifiedfour ideological camps:
Ba'thists, Arab nationalists,Nasirists, and Islamists.
So to what degree is Al-Jazeeradifferentfrom the Saudi owned MBC or the Egyptian
satellite channels or the Sudanese channels?For one, Al-Jazeeragained more trustby its
coverage from Iraq during Desert Fox, something that the other stations did not do. The
differenceis more like that between the London-basedAl-Hayat newspaperand Egypt's
Al-Ahram,or between the Al-SharqAl-Awast and Al-Riyadh,both Saudi owned but the
first based in London. It is the differencebetween the offshore liberal Arab state and its

21. Interview with 'Abd al-Mun'im Sa'id, WashingtonDC, 21 March 2000.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN THEMIDDLEEAST * 389

conservative local counterpart.Offshore, Saudi Arabia is represented by the Saudi

publishingcompany owned by PrinceAhmadbin Salmanbin 'Abd al-'Aziz andAl-Hayat
owned by Prince Khalidbin Sultan,which are far more permissive than any locally based
Saudi newspapers.
The new satellite channels may impact Arab political and cultural language.
However, one needs to make two other causal jumps to link that impact, the emergence
of a new public space, the rise of civil society, and political and social change. To make
this linkage, one has to make the case that the general culture of the Arab world is
changing due to these new means of communication,and then make the case that the
change in the political culture will lead to political change. One has to contend with the
absence of mediating institutions between the information-loadedArab citizen and the
state. The aggregation and articulationof interest based on the new informationis al-
most impossible without channelinginstitutions.In addition,the hand of the Arab state is
extremely heavy within its local context. It may not be able to shape the discourse,but
certainlycan set the parametersfor the discourse and can change the rules of the game
any time.

THE EGYPTIANCASE

If one looks at Egypt, where one-thirdof the Arab world lives, one is startledby the data.
To begin with the literacy rate in Egypt is 50 percent. Second, the numberof phone lines
in Egypt in 1999 was six million. The numberof Internetusers was 200, 000. Of course,
we know that probablythis number should be multiplied by 3 or 4 because of multiple
users of one account.Cellularphone usage, accordingto the main distributingcompanies'
figuresis 600,000 users. Thus, the use of the cellularphone is triple the amountof the use
of the Internet.This is telling, because half of Egypt exists in the domainof orality,while
the other half reluctantlyexists in the domain of the written word.22
In Egypt of the late 1970s, many activists opposed to Anwar Sadat (President
1970-1981) felt that if the Egyptian government would allow people the use of
typewritersand carboncopying, the opposition could topple the regime. The assumption
was that Sadat's control of informationand the people's lack of knowledge about this
regime was what kept it standing.Subsequently,the state has allowed not only the use of
typewriters,but fax machines,copying machines, and finally the use of computersand the
Internet.Despite differencesin the scope of political freedomsbetween Sadat's and Husni
Mubarak's Egypt, very few can say that these changes are the result of increased
informationand technology diffusion into Egypt.
In fact, any observerof Egyptianpolitical life can say that the means of information,
namely the newspapersof the opposition parties,are the only indicationsof the existence
of these parties. OrdinaryEgyptians refer to these parties as al- Ahzab al-Waraqiyya,or

22. The numbers cited here are derived from a 1999 interview with an Egyptian telecommunications
executive.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
390 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

paper parties.23Apparentlybecause of their belief in the power of the media, opposition

political parties in Egypt have invested more in their newspapers than in building
grassroots support or a power base. Yet these modem media have somehow failed to
appealto a wider public. With the exceptions of the newspaperand its staffand a few party
cadres, one is hard pressed to find any other influence of Egypt's 13 opposition parties.
Thus McLuhan's famous statement"the medium is the message" can be replacedby the
"mediumis the party"in the case of Egypt's opposition parties.The reasons for this are
numerous.But for our own purposeshere, the opposition newspapershave failed to win
the trust of their audience. In addition, there are problems of communicationstemming
from the disjunction between the language of the newpaper and the language of the
general society.
Centralto the disjunctionbetween the party's newspaperand the larger society may
be the absence of trustand the fact thatthe idiom of the modem oppositionin Egypt is that
of the written word, standardArabic, while the target-constituencyof this opposition
operates in the domains of illiteracy, orality, and the vemacular. In the Arab world,
communicationis conductedprimarilythroughinformalinstitutions,such as interpersonal
communication,the mosque, the suq (market).These are what Giddens calls "facework
institutions"where the validity of the message and the person deliveringthe message and
their trustworthinessare verifiable.
The main problemof political communicationin Egypt, and by extension, in almost
all Arab states, is that the trust in modem state institutions and the expert system is
minimal. This is not because Arabs exist in a pre-modem world. Arabs rely on certain
access points of modernity,regardlessof the distance in space and time. Arabs prefer to
keep their money in dollars ratherthan in local currency, although many of them have
never been to the United States. They trustAmericanmoney because of their experience
with it. Even radicalIslamistskeep theirmoney in dollarswhile chantinganti-US slogans.
Arabs trustthat Japanesecars will not break down. Thus, my argumentis not that Arabs
do not trustthe media because it is foreign but thatArabs,like everyone else, are selective
aboutwhat to trustand what not to trust.Studies on Egyptiantelevision show thatvillagers
preferentertainmentshows and very few of them watch news or public affairsshows. And
those who do, prefer broadcastingcoming from outside the nationalboundaries,namely
the BBC, Radio Monte Carlo, and the Voice of America.24
One can identify some basic elements of the failure of modem means of communi-
cation and some other institutionsto gain trustin the Arab social formation.One of these
relates to realms of symbolic exchange, the rules that govern them, and the languages and
symbols used in this interaction.One of these problems is the absence of an interface
between the realm of orality and that of the written word, between the literate and the
illiterate,between the Modem StandardArabic with its linkages to state authorityand the
dialect of the society and the "powerless."A numberof scholarshave alreadyanalyzedthe

23. For a serious discussion of the Egyptian political parties, see Wahid 'Abd al-Majid, Al-Azmah
Al-Masriyya (The Egyptian Crisis) (Cairo, Egypt: Dar al-Qar'i Al-'Arabi, 1993).
24. 'Abd al-Wahab Kahil, Ta'thir al-Tilifiziunwa al-vidyu 'ala al-Qariya al-Misriyya (The Impact of
Television and Video on the Egyptian Village) (Nasir City, Egypt: Maktabatal-Madina, 1987).

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 INFORMATION IN THEMIDDLEEAST * 391
TECHNOLOGY

relationshipof authoritativediscourse and media, and the various forms of lineage used.25
This problem is also compounded by the absence of an interface between the various
traditionalmedia institutionson the one hand, and on the other hand, the new grafted-on
modem means of communication.The interface between the oral and the written could
happen only if the written Arabic integrates the 'ammiya(the local dialects) and what
Bourdieu calls "legitimatelanguage",the language of the state and its institutions.26The
state may in fact have betterluck thanoppositiongroupsconnectingwith society, because
it relies on means of communicationthat interface with the realm of orality, though not
fully. These means are radio and television, especially when the messages are commu-
nicated through subtle forms like drama and entertainment,rather than through direct
speech.
For political communicationbased on the writtenword to be effective, the state must
increase levels of literacy. But the issue of literacy is complicatedby the introductionof
audio-visualmeans of communication,such as the radio and television.27These means of
communicationcircumventedthe importanceof the written word as a means of modem
communication.Radio has interfacedbetter with the domain of the vernacularthan the
press, at least at the level of entertainment.However, the social epistemology of the
villages and that of the urban-basedstate remainsfar apart.It is only when the state talks
aboutdefending the honor of the nationor defendingIslam thatpeople listen and shareits
language. Complicationsraised by the co-existence of the writtenword in the press, and
vernacularexpression in audio-visual forms of communication, are very likely to be
carriedover into the Internet,especially when it comes to text-basedmessages. It is also
importantto note that English dominatesthe Internet.The Internetmay allow for greater
use of the vernacularin one-to-one communication,but mass mailing or posting intended
for a mass audience may not be in standardArabic, but ratherin some form of formal
Arabic. The function of this formal Arabic is not the preservationof the language of the
Qur'an, but linking the state and its institutionsto past continuities.

GENERALCONCLUSIONSAND IMPLICATIONS

Trustbetween the various Arab social formationsand their media was broken with Sawt
al-'Arabin 1967 when Ahmed Sa'id, the beloved announceron thatstation,told the Arabs
that they were winning a war thatin actualitythey were losing. Since thattrustwas broken
between the public and these media institutions, Arab states did very little to regain
confidence. Thus, the majority in the Arab world rely on either the expert systems of
modernityoutside the national boundaries,such as the BBC or CNN, or on face-to-face

25. For a more elaboratediscussion of this, see WalterArmbrust,Mass Cultureand Modernismin Egypt
(New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1996). Andrew Shryockdiscusses the interfaceof oral cultureand the
printmedium, see Nationalismand the Genealogical Imagination(Berkley, CA: University of CaliforniaPress,
1997.).
26. PierreBourdieu,Language & SymbolicPower (Cambridge,Mass: HarvardUniversity Press, 1991).
27. See Walter Armbrust,Mass Cultureand Modernismin Egypt.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
392 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

communication,or on a verifiablesource of local informationwhere somethingakin to the

isnad model dominates.
Our inability to conceptualize the flexibility of the Arab public in dealing with
informationtechnologies comes from our uncriticalcommitmentto our theories aboutthe
Arab world. It is faulty to categorize the Arab man or woman as either Westernized,
modem, or a traditionalIslamist. No one exists as "one whole," in the realm of tradition
or in the realm of modernity.Arab individualsengage traditionat times and modernityat
others.This is not the image of the camel, the tent, and the cellularphone. It is much more
complex than that. The complexity of the Arab world comes from both the cultural
specificity, its encounters with modernity and postmodernity, and the notion of trust
associated with each of them. It is not a blind trust;it is a differentiatedtrust.
It is obvious from the above discussion thatargumentsaboutthe connectionbetween
new informationtechnologies and the rise of civil society or the public sphere, let alone
political change, are not warranted. There are many problems associated with our
approachto this issue, and many othersrelatedto the specific relationsbetween these new
modern media and the local setting. At the center of these problems is the issue of
communicationand trust and their correlates.Some of the accompanyingissues to trust
that we should take very seriously in analyzing this are those of language, format, and
methods of verificationand authenticationof data transmitted.In the case of the Internet,
it is obvious that thus far English remains the lingua francaof the Internet.The language
used is as importantas the medium. Muslim chat groups may form as many imagined
communities as possible, but these are English language-basedimagined communities.
The shift in languagehas positive and negative implicationsfor the elaborationof Muslim
discourse. English allows the use of the vernacularas opposed to the standard,as is the
case for Muslims using Arabic for communicatingIslamic ideas. It could bring the world
of daily life and the formal world together.But using English in the formal sphere, such
as state institution and business, while advantageousto a segment of the society, is a
complicating factor for others. For the average Arab, the option of using English adds a
new form of literacy that disadvantageshis/her economic opportunities.When English
became standardin India, Muslims saw it as another impediment to the struggle for
economic and political paritywith the Hindus. The Indiancase may not replicateitself in
the Arab world, but it makes us aware of the complexity of this issue of literacy. One has
to compare this with the situation in North Africa where other languages compete for
centralposition: Arabic, Frenchand the local Berberdialects. At least in the Arab world,
people do not use standardArabic to communicatewith each other.This is to say nothing
of the cost associated with the use of the Internetin the Arab world in terms of hardware
as well as software. Many Internetadvocates understatethe magnitudeof startupcosts.
But even those who assume that software and hardware costs will become less
burdensomeallow that educationalcosts will rise the more the medium is used. This is
particularlysignificant in an era in which there is tremendouspressure (from the US,
World Bank, etc.) to reduce public expenditures.The Arabs are consumers ratherthan
producersof computers.Thus, questions of dependency are also relevanthere.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
IN THEMIDDLEEAST * 393

For social scientists interestedin gatheringdata based on reading Arab newspapers,

listening to Arab radio, or watching Arab satellite television, it is very importantto take
the issue of socio-linguistics and social epistemology seriously. To understandIslamism,
for instance, one has to see why the discourse of the Egyptiantelevision preacherShaykh
Mutawalli al-Sha'rawi (1911-1998) and the late blind opposition preacherShaykh 'Abd
al-Hamid Kishk (1933-1996)28 are popular, while the discourse of other Islamists and
nationalistsare not. The popularityof these two Shaykhs among mainstreamEgyptians
came from the fact that unlike many other preachers,both of them resortedto the dialect
in explaining the standardArabic of Hadith and Qur'an. The official Islam of the state,
throughthe institutionof Al-Azharhas failed to createthis interfacebetween the standard
and the dialect, the oral and the written,and this is why it has not made any inroadsin the
larger society. It is no accident that the Islamists resorted to cassette tapes ratherthan
writtentractsto propagatetheir message in the popularquartersof Cairo and in the rural
areas.
Looking at the question of language may help social scientists cease being less
amazedwhen they watch Marxistintellectualsmove to the Islamic camp with ease. If one
examines the language of state nationalism and that of "high"or official Islamism, one
would recognize immediatelythat both camps resortto formalArabic as a medium.They
also rely heavily on written Arabic as a means of modernizing the domain of the
vernacular.Both the Islamists and the state see the world of the vernacularand orality as
a sign of backwardness.Because both state nationalismand high Islamism are partof the
regime of modernity,they fail to connect with the largerrealm of orality. If one looks at
the issue this way, one will not be surprisedto see a modernizing Marxist like 'Adil
Husayn (now of the Islamist-controlledLabor Party) becoming an Islamist. It is not
difficultat all, since both Islamists and Marxistsor nationalistsuse the same language. It
is not a surprisethat Marxists, Islamists, and state nationalistsmove to and out of these
ideological camps with great ease.
Because of the intrusivenessof the state and its heavy-handedness,in the Arab world
as in many authoritariansettings,journalistsand creativewritersexchange positions. Fear
of retaliation makes social commentatorsand social historians adopt creative forms of
writing as a way of protecting themselves. In this formula the main job of journalists,
television announcers,and to some degree intellectuals of the regime is to socialize the
citizens into the status quo. Journalists critical of the regime pay dearly. Thus to
understandthe political dynamics of these societies one is well advised to read fiction or
to listen to off-stage discourse. Since the second is not easily accessible, fictionalized
accounts may be the best alternative.Fiction writerscan avoid the intrusivenessof power
by claiming thatthe work is fictionaland any correspondenceto realityis a mere accident.
Even with this alibi, some fiction writers are persecutedin the Arab world.

28. For a discussion of Shaykh Kishk's sermons and his style, see Gilles Kepel, Muslim Extremismin
Egypt (Berkeley; University of CaliforniaPress, 1985). For sermons of preachersin Upper Egypt, see Patrick
D. Gaffney, The Prophet's Pulpit: Islamic Preaching in ContemporaryEgypt (Berkeley, CA: University of
CaliforniaPress, 1994).

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
394 * MIDDLEEASTJOURNAL

Anotherway of getting access to datain the Arab world thatmay accuratelydescribe

the political dynamic of, say, Saddam's Iraq is to wait until that regime collapses. Only
then one may have access to some accurate data concerning what went on during that
political period. Thus, ex post facto and historical data may be the best way to gain
insights into Arab political dynamics.
If one is desperate to write about the contemporarystate of the Arab world, the
principle of "anywherebut here" is a good beginning. Thus if one wants to know about
Egypt, one should watch Al-Jazeera and read the Arab press, except that coming from
Egypt. If one wants to know about Qatar,one should read all the Arab press except that
of Qatar.Only throughthese methods, can one understandArab politics. If one is to read
the Arab press or watch Arab television without observing this rule, ones' enterpriseis
destined for failure.
Thus, the main issue in the Arab world is not the diffusion of new information
technologies. The main questionis one of trust.Stateowned media in the Arabworld have
failed to win the trustof the Arabpopulacethatwas lost in 1967. Even Al-Jazeerachannel
won truston the basis of its coverage of Desert Fox from inside Iraq,but now has begun
squanderingthis trust.The Internetis a differentstory. Amazon.com is not doing well in
the Arab world, but not because of Arab lack of access to the Internet.The reason is that
the thresholdof trust associated with buying and selling on the Internetis higher. While
consuming news from a television channels requires trust in that channel, selling and
buying on the Internetrequirea trustin the whole system. One needs a credit card to buy
from Amazon.com. Thus one needs to establish trust with what is being sold and the
financialinstitutionsissuing the cards.It is not enough to trustthe mediumor the message,
but also the whole social, economic, and political system.

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:58:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions