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The Internet in the Arab
World: Digital Divides and Cultural Connections Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, The Center for Internet Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, USA and Research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford - UK
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Dr. Wheeler will examine the strange relationship between low Internet connectivity figures for the Arab World and ethnographic evidence for society wide vibrant Internet cultures in Arab contexts. Her argument is that methods for measuring connectivity are not culturally sensitive, and thus miss a huge chunk of Internet use in the Arab world, especially that which takes place at Internet Cafes and knowledge stations/telecenters. Dr. Wheeler will begin with the question "Why Should We Care about the Internet?" and then will provide an overview of the Internet's evolution as one of the greatest technological revolutions of the 20th-21st centuries; she will then look more specifically at the development of the Internet in Arab contexts, both in terms of facts and figures-- and in terms of her ethnographic research in Kuwait, Egypt and Jordan. In conclusion, Dr. Wheeler will look more carefully at narratives gathered in Jordan from Internet Cafe users as a window on the importance of the Internet in everyday life. In explaining the title, Dr. Wheeler maintains that the Internet in the Arab world when looked at in terms of user statistics based upon ISP subscriptions, presents an apparent digital divide, whereby the Arab World is among the least significant regions digitally speaking. By adding cultural connections, we see that the Arab World is an important part of the digital revolution, just not in ways that can be seen from afar. She will conclude with an overview of the ways in which the Internet touches all of us, regardless of cultural context, making cultural connections among our lives.
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