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Qatar Initiative to Increase Arabic Content on Internet
In a major initiative at increasing the Arabic content on the Internet, Qatar intends to develop digital archives of significant Arabic texts for online distribution by 2015, ictQATAR secretary general Hessa al-Jaber has said.
“In addition, we will be offering a grant program to individuals and organisations that develop digital media in Arabic,” she said in her opening remarks at the Digital Communications Literacy Forum at the Sharq Village yesterday.
The region cannot be fully successful in increasing digital literacy unless it increases the amount of Arabic content on the Internet, Hessa said.
Arabic is the fifth most spoken language worldwide, yet only about 1% of all content online is in Arabic. Arabic ranks 27th in Wikipedia and less than 1% of total pages. And only 3% of Internet users worldwide speak Arabic. Also, Arabic is not among the top 10 languages used in blogs on “Blogger & World Press”.
“With Doha being the 2010 capital of Arab Culture, now is the perfect time to make sure we better share and preserve our culture digitally,” she said.
Technology has created a global, interactive community where scholars, researchers, business leaders and governments can share ideas and work together for our collective future, she pointed out.
Qatar and the Arab world are certainly beginning to embrace this web-focused definition of community. The region realises its essential role in today’s economic, social, and political structures, but still lag behind much of the world in usage.
The region’s Internet penetration rate at the end of 2009 was 28.3%, which is higher than the current penetration rate in Asia. This means that more than a quarter of the people in the Middle East are taking advantage of digital technology.
Media literacy has parallels with traditional literacy — the ability to read and write text. Yet media literacy is the ability to “read” and “write” audiovisual information rather than just text. Media literacy is the ability to use a range of media and be able to understand the information received.
But the ability to understand the information received is not enough – being able to process this information critically – questioning, analyzing and evaluating that information is also essential.
“To me, media literacy holds the most promise and potential for empowering young people,” Hessa said.
“Today’s youth are true digital natives. They were born into a digital world and can’t even imagine a world without computers, mobile phones or the Internet. Communities must embrace the potential of these digital natives and find a way to empower them to take ownership of the digital world they live in and the digital world that they are helping to shape.
“We need to better understand their digital world and must equip our youth with the knowledge of what it means to have constant connectivity, a public profile, of sharing everything, of constant availability and of being global citizens.”
Hessa said the Arab world should understand how the culture of digital natives impacts and continues to impact our world.
“We should also conduct serious studies on the attitudes of Arab youth towards technology. So far we have seen studies only driven by human rights or freedom of speech principles such as the ‘Initiative for An Open Arab Internet’ with a heavy focus on censorship and Internet filtering. I believe it is important to understand how our youth are truly shaped and influenced by technology,” Hessa said.