EVOLUTION OF NEWS SERVICES IN THE GULF

COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC)

Jilowey AlQahtani

and Khurshid Ahmad

King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), P.O. Bo. 6086 Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia

Dean of Computing School, University of Surrey, Surrey U.K.

Keywords: GCC: Gulf Cooperation Council countries; GCC countries are: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia,

Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman; Electronic news services: news services over Internet.

Abstract: This study explores the evolution of electronic news services on the Internet in Gulf Cooperation Council

States (GCC). This research contains surveys from a number of media professions and a number of users

from GCC countries, in addition to the perception of the providers and users of the news services. Attention

was focused on the rapid evolution of Internet technology. The study also discusses to what extent GCC

media organisations have exploited Internet. It is found that GCC news services have exploited the Internet

technology and increased over a short period of time. Despite this, it seems that the GCC suffers from

difficulties, such as Internet infrastructure weakness, Arabic font and acute shortage of personnel

specialising.

1 INTRODUCTION

This century has witnessed more than one innovative

change in communications technology. From the

telephone, which allows people to keep in touch

over any distance, to the omnipresent broadcasts of

television and radio that have turned our world into a

global village, each technology has altered society in

unforeseen ways. However, before the

abovementioned media types, there was newspaper,

which is the oldest source for news.

Experts categorise mass media into two

fundamental types according to the production

method: the print media, including newspapers; and,

magazines; and the broadcasting media including

radio and television. Over the past two centuries,

news coverage was provided by newspapers and

magazines. However, during the past fifty years,

television has become an increasingly powerful

medium.

Recently, the marriage of computer technology

and technology of industrial communications

satellites has led to deluge of news, information,

images, ideas and opinions across and between

continents in an instant: written, heard, and visible.

Schiller stated that the new information

technologies—and here television, cable, and the

communications satellite must be included along

with computers—have enabled the corporate sector

to intrude massively in a nation’s culture and

opinion making, (Schiller, 1992).

Our newest communications revolution is based

on digital technologies … Just ten years ago the

Internet was virtually unknown outside of the

research and higher education communities. It

allowed the exchange of e-mail and the transfer of

files among a relatively small group of scientists

who could collaborate on projects and share

information. Today this same underlying technology

supports a thriving information space with many

millions of participants, (Coyle, 1997).

The Internet has put the world with its science,

art, civilisation, ideas and information within human

reach in an affordable and easy way. Also, because

of the Internet, interactive media has been used for

the first time in the history of the human

communication. This means the recipient is able to

publish and receive at the same time. “The

equipment-free aspect of reality ... has become the

height of artifice; the sight of immediate reality has

become an orchid in the land of technology,

(Lunenfeld, (1999).

450

AlQahtani J. and Ahmad K.

EVOLUTION OF NEWS SERVICES IN THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC).

DOI: 10.5220/0002018504500458

In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST 2009), page

ISBN: 978-989-8111-81-4

Figure 1: Ranking media services (favourite means to follow-up news).

Thus, it can be seen that the Western World today

has received the benefit of the Internet ever since it

was established. It is believed that the Gulf

Cooperation Council countries (GCC) have been

able to benefit from worldwide development in

Internet technology, though there have been many

determining factors of the electronic media, such as

language and Internet infrastructure.

The aim of this research is to study the evolution of

the electronic news services in the Gulf Cooperation

Council countries (GCC) in the Middle East region

via the Internet in an attempt to uncover technology

trends that may help this industry. It also compares

electronic media of the GCC States with that of the

BBC Arabic electronic news services.

2 DISCUSSION

With regard to following-up the news, respondents

were asked to rank the following items; newspaper,

television, radio and Internet in order of importance

(1 – 4), where each item should be ranked

separately. 40% of the respondents rank television as

a first means for receiving the news, while 33% of

the respondents rank newspapers highest. 26 percent

of the respondents rank the Internet highest for

following the news. Radio was not given much

importance by the respondents classified it as either

first choice or second choice for following the news.

86 percent of respondents rank radio as forth method

for receiving the news. This shrinkage of radio

listening in the GCC countries could be attributed to

the shortage of radio channels. It is also believed that

it is because most programs concentrate on religious

lectures, sermons, hymns, and meditation music and

songs. The importance of the Internet is evolving: 40

percent of the respondents rank the Internet third for

news, while 30 percent rank it highest, (Figure 1).

Based on the findings of this study, 45 percent of

the respondents believe that electronic news services

would replace the traditional media, while 40

percent of the respondents say that Internet media

maybe replace traditional means. This indicates that

people in GCC countries foresee a replacement

trend. Only 15 percent of the respondents believe

that electronic news services would not replace the

traditional media, (Figure 2).

Brian Cruikshank conducted a global study entitled

Internet Threatens Traditional Media, he stated that

rather, it [the Internet] has become a conduit for

accessing, sending, and receiving content, both

audio and video, that is increasingly replacing

traditional media and the communications

infrastructure" (Cruikshank, (2003).

Respondent were asked (how do you value the

evolution of electronic news services on the Internet

in GCC compared to the world?) As for rating the

evolution of electronic news services globally, the

majority (74%) of the respondents think that there

has been a rapid development of electronic news

services around the world, while five percent of the

sample regards development as slow.

However, when the respondents were asked the

same question but related only to the GCC countries,

about 60% reckon that there has been moderate

speed of evolution in electronic news services in the

GCC countries, in comparison with its evolution in

the rest of world, (Figure 3)

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Figure 2: Electronic News Services would replace the traditional media.

Figure 3: How do you value the evolution of electronic news services on the Internet in GCC compared to the world?

One of my objectives is to discover; whether GCC

media companies have benefited from Internet

technology or not? According to my questionnaire

survey, half the respondents agree that media

companies in GCC countries have exploited Internet

technology in order to present a substantial online

electronic news service. This percentage of the

respondents is supported by 26% who strongly

support this trend, (Figure 4). It is notable that users

agree that GCC media companies have exploited

Internet technology to in order to meet the demands

of their audience, since it is reported that the GCC

region has the highest percentage of users browsing

Internet compared to Arabs world. In a study entitled

‘Arab Online Advertising’, conducted by the Media

Consultancy Group in 2004, it was stated that in the

GCC 39% of Arab countries have the highest

Internet usage. The study also reported that despite

the fact that GCC countries have the smallest

population size, they have the highest levels of

Internet use, which is possibly the reason for the

increased traffic. The relatively high levels of

Internet use in the Gulf could be due to high income,

the presence of educated expatriate workers, and

high standard of literacy.

In terms of the Arabic language, just above half

of the respondents believe that Arabic language does

not represent an obstacle for electronic news

services from a social perspective, while ten percent

of the respondents think Arabic presents an obstacle

from a social perspective. On the other hand, and

from a technological perspective, the greatest

percentage (36%) of the respondents believe that

Arabic represents an obstacle for electronic news

services, while 33% of the users believe that Arabic

does not represent an obstacle from a technical

aspect, (Figure 5).

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Figure 4: GCC have exploited the technology of Internet for presenting a substantial online electronic news services.

Figure 5: Arabic language is an obstacle from a social or technological perspective.

The respondents were asked their opinion on

whether Arabic language has any weak points from a

technical or design aspect. Just under half (48%) of

the respondents believe that Arabic has no weak

point, while others express a variety of opinions,

(Figure 6).

I believe that this shows an increase in the

amount of relevant and localised content published

in Arabic language, which will have a positive

impact on electronic news services in the GCC

countries.

One of the questions related to the most

attractive feature of the news services. Respondents

were requested to rank on a scale from 1 (most

attractive) to 5 (least attractive), (Figure 7). The

findings indicate that the greatest percentage (57%)

ranks speed of updates as the most attractive factor,

while design is considered as the most attractive

factor by 22% of the respondents. Clarity of

information on the web comes in third position

(16%) and content comes in fourth (11%), while the

minority (8%) rank visual and audio materials

highest, which could indicate that users encounter a

real problem with receiving stream data. This could

reflect the weaknesses in most of the GCC Internet

infrastructure. One might conclude that users avoid

running audio or video content because of the slow

connections.

From the figure, it can be seen that ‘speed of

updates’ is attracted users to visit an electronic news

website. However, the other factors believed to be

important for news service providers in order to

maintain their website visitors.

EVOLUTION OF NEWS SERVICES IN THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC)

453

Figure 6: Arabic technical problems.

Figure 7: Most attractive features in Electronic News Services website.

3 CONCLUSION

The respondents prefer to follow-up news by

television, while radio comes last. It was found that

traditional media may expect to see decline in

audience ratings. There has been rabid evolution of

news services in the world, while it has been average

in GCC countries relatively. The study found that

media organisations have employed most internet

technology. The Arabic language was not dilemma

to the Arabic news services, in spite of some

difficulties. I found that audience prefer news

services that update news continuously.

4 PROVIDERS INTERVIEW

This section contains an analysis of collection of the

data and test study hypothesis. I will analyse the

interview findings of journalists, web designers and

executives, followed by analysis of their

questionnaire.

The questions were designed to serve the

objectives of my study. In terms of interview, a

closed interview was conducted due to the

interviewees’ time constraints, due to the nature of

their work. The media respondents were thereby

enabled to address what they feel is of real

importance to them. The closed interview has an

obvious advantage over the open interview. This

style of interview is common in survey research,

(Berndtsson et al., 2002).

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4.1 Profile of the Interviewees

The interview was conducted with journalists,

executive’s editors and web designers working for

GCC media. Their agencies are located in London

and have offices around Arab world. The

respondents consist of 4 out of 6 interviewees from

different specialist fields. Unfortunately, two of the

initial candidates refused to participate.

Two interviewees are from the Al Hayat

newspaper; the executive editor and a graphic

designer. The other two were from Asharq Alawsat

newspaper, including electronic editor and

journalist.

4.2 Discussion of the Interview

The interviewees were asked whether electronic

news services in GCC have encountered any

obstacles during the process of evolution. The

majority believe that GCC electronic news services

have faced many problems, both technical and

political. Respondents consider that technical

obstacles exist in the lack of Internet technologies

such as an infrastructure. It seems that the GCC

suffers from low bandwidth of transmission which is

vital in electronic news services especially Internet

broadcasting. Moreover, it was mentioned that GCC

has no standard legislation in terms of Internet

connectivity. In addition, Arabic font was

considered a problem, as there is no standard font

used for websites. The majority of the respondents

also think that Arabic language has faced a real

challenge. This challenge is represented in the lack

of the use of Arabic language to express domain

names, HTML tags and HTTP protocol. However,

an attempt was made by Internet Services Unit in

Saudi Arabia (2001), using Arabic in a domain

name. From political aspect, GCC news services

experience from restrictions due to bureaucratic

routine, which can be frustrating.

The candidates were asked whether their

organisations had specific journalists/editors

(technojournalist) with a computer/Internet

background for their web site. Most of the

respondents said that their company had no

specialist journalists for their electronic news

services. The majority emphasised that what is

written in the traditional news is very similar on the

web. There was a feeling that appointing specialist

journalists for web sites is crucial to their electronic

news services, because they believe that “electronic

journalist” can write articles using the Internet

knowledge better than one who is unaware of the

potential of the technology. For this reason “we have

decided to appoint electronic journalist to work only

for our website” said Ahmad Asfahani from the Al

Hayat newspaper.

The interviewees were asked about the role of

Arabic language from a technical perspective,

whether it plays a negative or a positive role in terms

of maintaining their electronic news service. The

answers were varied. First, part of the respondents

believe that there is some difficulties concerning

Unicode, for example, in some cases, when viewing

a web page source file, the Arabic language

characters are displayed in decimal code which

cannot be read. Users may find a page unreadable

until they reset their browser encoding. They also

think that graphics software does not support Arabic.

Second, some think that the Arabic language has

slight problems such as, language direction; the

number of Arabic alphabets (28); and Arabic driver

for some printers are not always available. However,

it is believed that these problems are not a big issue.

Third, some believe that the Arabic language has no

problems at all.

With regard to exploiting Internet technologies in

GCC countries and to what extent GCC States have

exploited Internet technologies, the majority of the

responses were positive. They believed that the GCC

in general has employed the Internet technologies in

its electronic news services. Furthermore, it is

believed that the U. A. E. is pioneer in this respect

followed closely by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

When asked whether they believe Internet news

services would replace traditional media, (3 out of 4)

of the respondents stated that Internet news services

will replace the traditional media in the long run,

because of the Internet generation, and the rapid

increase and availability of computer industry.

However, other people do not believe in this trend.

Some said it is possible but not within the next

couple of years.

When questioned, about the future of the GCC

Internet news services, 3 out of 4 believed that

electronic news services on the Internet will witness

a tremendous development due to the expected

development in Internet technologies. In addition, it

is believed that Internet technology has crushed

media censorship and monopolisation, which will

force GCC governments to change their policies to

keep on track. (1 out of 4) thinks that the GCC will

be obliged to go in the direction of cyberspace

whether they want to or not, due to the accelerated

development in the Internet technologies.

In terms of interactivity, most of the subjects

deal with audience’s contributions automatically

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455

using web technology (software) with some human

control of the contents. They also believe that

audience participation is very important to their

electronic news services. For instance, the

respondents pointed out to the Al Jazeera Channel’s

by-line: “the Al Jazeera’s electronic news services

are a forum for who has no forum”.

Furthermore, interviewees were asked if they

have special tools or software that can filter

unwanted contents that come from audience

contribution rather than relying solely on human

control. The media respondents’ answers were

negative. It seems that GCC electronic news services

are still not in a position to have such a tool for

extracting information. The minority believes it

should work that way, whereas the majority think

that human beings should mediate in order to control

the content of audience contributions.

The final question to the subject was how they

predict GCC Internet news services in the future. A

vast majority believes that Internet services will

change in the future. Accordingly, GCC news

services will develop their electronic news

infrastructure to meet the new generation’s demands.

However, a minority believe that GCC news

services cannot develop their infrastructure in most

of GCC countries due to the monopoly of the

Internet by the governments.

4.3 Preliminary Conclusion

The four media professional were asked to give

important information which was not covered in the

interviews. The media professional reported that

most users prefer interactive sites. Moreover, young

people are not interested in reading, especially

hardcopy of newspapers. It appears that next

generation will not build their personal library as

before. Future libraries might consist of DVDs, CDs

or PC. The slowness of the Internet and connection

problems in GCC were reported.

Arabic language support is one of significant

issues that face interviewees. From the study I

conclude that GCC trying to make a good efforts in

developing their internet infrastructure in order to

deploy internet over wider area of their countries.

On the other hand, the respondents were very

attracted by the subject of my study and this

encouraged me to do more work on mobile

interactive mass media.

5 MEDIA PROFESSIONALS’

SURVEY

We have recently analysed the interview findings. In

this section I will study the survey of Media

Professional. It contains some of the survey

questions followed by respondents’ profile, and then

analysis and discussion of the findings. Finally,

preliminary conclusion will be given.

5.1 Questionnaires Questions

for Media Professional

The questionnaire was distributed to executive,

journalists and web designer in GCC media

organisations. The sample of Media Professional

consists of thirteen respondents.

5.2 Profile of Media Professional

The greatest number (69%) of the respondents is

male, and 31% of the respondents are female. The

shortage of female workers in GCC media may be

interpreted by cultural issues in these countries,

where it is believed that media occupation should be

monopolised by men and this idea persists.

The highest percentage (62%) of the

respondents’ ages range between 31 - 45 years. This

indicates that the respondent’s age group has quite

good experience in the field of media. It also

indicates that the respondents have witnessed the

evolution of the Internet since it was formed. 23% of

respondents are aged 20 – 30. No one in the

respondents aged over 60.

The majority (69%) of the respondents have been

awarded undergraduate degree. Only one respondent

has a postgraduate degree.

The greatest percentage (54%) of the respondents

is web designers, while 23% of the respondents are

executives. Journalists were the smallest amongst

the respondents by number. I believe that because

the study relates to the Internet, the questionnaire

was passed on to those with a computer background

such as web designers, and this may explain the

greater percentage of web designers in the sample.

The majority (56%) of the respondents use

Windows XP while 31% of the respondents use Mac

OS. It is noticeable that newspaper companies quite

rely on Mac OS in order to produce substantial

electronic news services, particularly in terms of

graphic design.

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6 CONCLUSIONS

The Internet is accounted the most important

achievement for information networks technology in

our contemporary world, which has facilitated to all

Internet users to access and benefit from all of

services and information without any restrictions

and geographical frontiers or regional.

The study explored the evolution of the news

services in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries

(GCC) via the Internet. I have examined the

technology and services that used in this regards.

This study surveyed the history of the media starting

form printed means to the Internet. It also conducted

field study on news services in the GCC countries.

It is found that the GCC news services have

increased over a short time. Despite the evolution in

online news, mass media has faced many problems,

such as Internet infrastructure weakness, Arabic font

and acute shortage of personnel specialising.

The study stated that GCC states have exploited

Internet technologies over most their news services.

The evolution of GCC electronic news services

cannot be separated from developments in Internet

technology. Editors’ and journalists’ opinions in

GCC countries are similar to their peers around the

world, especially with the evolution of the new

media in the light of advanced technologies.

The research studied three selected electronic

news services in terms of technology used; layout of

the website and services provided and compared

them to the BBC Arabic news service. Finally, the

researcher has built an electronic news service for a

real implementation in order to recognise some of

the difficulties that face GCC media organisations.

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