ABSTRACT
In the Middle East, as in all regions of the world, the internet and its constituency evolve daily. In spite of this flux, key patterns in regional internet culture are clearly visible, and it is these regional themes that form the foundation for this analysis of the internet and Arab political identity. It is estimated that most of the Arab public’s use of the internet happens in a community access point, yet surprisingly, few scholars if any have analyzed what goes on in internet cafés and community telecenters throughout the region. This article attempts to fill this gap by analyzing recent data collected in internet cafés in Jordan and Egypt to illustrate the subtle changes in the politics of everyday life in the Arab world. The Arab world is a compelling field
site for testing many of the competing
explanations of the internet’s global diffusion and meaning. It is a middle-ranked economic region (Kane, 2007); it is a place with one of the fastest internet diffusion rates on the planet (2000-7), and it is a region with a mostly literate population where computer literacy is often encouraged by state and society. At the same time, the Arab world is a place with distinct security challenges, both for state and individual (Eid, 2004; Bellin, 2005). It is a place where authoritarianism rules and information environments are historically not prone to free flow and openness (Noland, 2005; Kalathil and Boas, 2003). It is also a region with significant gaps between haves and have nots, urban dwellers and rural inhabitants, men and women. These conditions provide a good environment for examining
the relationship between internet diffusion and democratization; the role that IT diffusion plays in economic growth and development; the extent to which internet access enhances individual agency and empowerment (especially in terms of gender and social class, and given authoritarian information environments). Moreover, a study of internet diffusion and identity issues in the Arab world enables us to see the ways in which the technology’s meanings are, in part, socially constructed. Over the past ten years the author has
performed ethnographic studies of the internet’s meanings in Arab contexts including studies of culture in Kuwait (Wheeler, 2006b), Egypt (Wheeler, 2003a, 2003b), Jordan (Wheeler, 2006a), Oman, Tunisia, and Morocco. These indepth case studies were supplemented by short research trips to Syria, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. This chapter synthesizes this research in light of competing explanations to produce a bird’s eye view of the internet and its multicolored meanings in the Arab world. It looks at different levels of analysis, focusing upon the varying responses to the internet by states and societies in the Arab world. It asks the fundamental question of whether or not the internet is transforming identity and politics in the Arab world. The analysis maintains the possibility that the internet, instead of being transformative, is simply a vehicle for relationships that already exist in real life. One thing we know for sure is that the prophecies about the internet undermining authoritarianism and ushering in a period of Athenian-style democracy worldwide have not come true (Gore, 1994). This does not mean, however, that the internet is insignificant. The following pages explore a handful of reasons why. In the end, this chapter makes an argument for why the internet matters in the Arab world.
