Ilhem Allagui

Internet in the Middle East: an asymmetrical model of development

ABSTRACT The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine Internet history in the Middle East and fill a gap in the subfield of regional Internet histories studies. It is a narrative of Internet development in a complex area and era. It draws on influential key events to question the role of Internet development in current debates about regulation and change and to highlight its asymmetry throughout the region. The paper uses a critical analysis as well as a historical analysis of policies and usages to map Arab countries’ Internet development and suggests a political and cultural framework to help understand the tensions and contentions around this development.

The world summit awards benchmarking arabic websites: A case study of governance

The first Arab country connected to the Internet was Tunisia in 1991. Internet usage in other Arab countries did not take off until the mid-1990s, and in general the development of the Internet in the Arab region was slow and timid. The major impediments to Internet adoption among Arab countries have been the lack of infrastructure—primarily because of poverty, high illiteracy rates, the use of non-Latin script leading to the poor quality of Arabic content on the Internet, and the political and religious threats posed by the Internet. Among the strategies and initiatives to promote the development of e-content, the organizing body of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) suggested identifying success stories, stimulating competition and rewarding the best content to be set as benchmarks for the industry. This was done under the framework of the World Summit Awards (WSA),1 a global competition that aims to identify the best e-content practices and strategies considered as a benchmark for the region. Although it is based on the concept of “governance,” this case study reviews the rewarded Arabic websites and questions the outcome of the governance practice in this context.