Monday, December 04, 2006



Photographer: Ian Britton
freefoto.com

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The new communication technology has played a great role in changing many thoughts and ideas in the Arab region. Yet not all of these aspects were positive, there are many negative sides to this issue.
Positive sides:
1-the new communication technology helped the people who live in Arab countries to raise their awareness about many global issues, which turned the Arab person into not a passive global citizen, so we can see many Arab people how got interested in politics or environmental issues.
2- Things, which happen in others countries, don’t need a very long time to reach the Arabs, so they can be updated with the latest news.
3- It is much easier for people to communicate with in the Arab region or out side the middle east.
4- Arabs, nowadays get the chance to express their ideas, which raised the level of Democracy, and the freedom to express their ideas without any boundaries.
5- People who get the access to these new technology tools, have gotten the chance for a better
• Education (students get the chance to do their home works, and sometime they do a whole course using the internet only)
• Health care ( parents get the chance to read many article about health which would help them to get more information about health care. 20 years ago many people knew how to read and write, but they didn’t get the resource to educate their selves and their families.)
• Political knowledge ( Arabs watch TV, serfe the internet, chat with others, and that have helped them to build a political background.

Negative sides:
1- Many media people use their channels and their power to promote their ideas or their perspective about certain issues, which influences the viewers’ ideas, and in many times this ideas are wrong.
2- In many aspects. This new communication technology has increased the gab. People who have the access to these tools get more involve in these stuff, and day by day, doing these stuff turns to be a lifestyle, or a routine, and people how cant get these, would be in behind, because no one will be interested to use the old methods of communication.
3- Some people use the Internet to promote for wrong ideas. Recently, many people have used the internet to talk about Arabs and Islam in an offensive way, and when a foreigner who have absolutely no idea about Muslims will get this idea, and he will take a side based on a wrong information. That might lead to very serious conflicts, and misunderstanding.
Other negative results:
• The over exposure to some of these tools (TV, computers and laptops, mobile phones can cause many health problems.
• The new communication technology, have turned many people into lazy people, who don’t want to give the effort to do many easy things. For example ( people use to run to answer their telephone calls, but now they don’t have to, because they have their mobile phones. People used to go to get their mails from the mailbox, now, they get everything through their e mail account. I don’t say that these things are bad, but these tools had isolated people, because people don’t get the chance to talk to each other as they used to do.


Eman

Anonymous said...

Nawar AlShamsi
H00056374

The technology these days eased the flow of information internationally. However, many countries due to certain circumstances are unable to reach these information. The Internet is one of the main sources of digital development; there are Arabic Countries who can afford it financially and others can't. Due to this issue the level of flow of information differs in the Arabic region, for example, in the UAE there are a lot of
e-newspaper websites, e-channels and many others that can be updated easily, in addition it can reach to many subscribers easily, read and updated themselves about their country, region and the world in many majors, politics, economy and sports. However in poor countries such as Sudan it is not affordable ,therefore, they rely on newspaper, TV and radio; where the public are not up to date to the new information happening around the world. That is why the public in the Arab region lack unity in this case.

Anonymous said...

Globalization affected our lives in many aspects and made people around the world communicate with each other in a very easy way using the latest mediums of technology, such as Internet, TV, radio, and Telephone.

Those mediums of technology created a whole world full of variety of information and news from different regions, and made people aware of what is happening around them. But does those pieces of information credible? And are those news and information agencies are trustworthy sources in the Arab World?

Many people, especially in the US and Canada, think that the media sources in the Arab region always broadcast many controversial views regarding the governments views only, and not the real one.

Although Technology connects people around the world easily and in a short time, and made people aware of many national and international news and events, Mass Media has some negative side effects. It is more of a double-edged weapon. Those pieces of information that are sent to the Arab World through different mediums of communications are not similar in every country in the Arab world, which makes citizens in the Arab World don’t get the same message or the same news. To state an example; Qatar, for example has very good source of information (Al Jazeera) that gives the people controversial opinions from both sides. On the other hand, People in Gaza, Palestine does not have the access to good Mass Media sources, which isolated them from the world and blocked them from knowing what is happing around them.

Wafa Al Marzouiq
H00057322

Anonymous said...

Technology brought people together nowadays. Millions of people go online daily because it connects people in different social networks rather than fixed groups. Some individuals dedicate their lives to the online community. They chat with their friends and relatives, they check the daily newspapers and work online. It became an important source of information. However, this type of medium does not replace the telephone. People still use the telephone to keep in touch with those people who are close to them.

Yet, with all the new information the new mass media can provide there are still countries that struggles to find any useful information that connects them to the world outside or helps them in life. For instant, poor countries need time to receive the breaking news in what’s happening in Iraq but rich countries gets the update very fast. On the other hand, poor countries can’t afford buying new satellites and modems to access the Internet and be in contact with people from different countries. Here where we can find the advantages of the new technology as it does not isolate people from each other in poor countries.

Amna Essa
H00050583