Ahmed El Gody Media and Communication Studies Örebro University

 Egyptian Print Media “Authoritarian” for the Past 60 years  160 law article govern the Media  Journalist Community = Gov’t Employees

 More Egyptians are communicating in Cyberspace  Number of Internet users increased seven fold reaching 23.1 million  38% annual increase in high-speed Internet subscribers  Mobile subscribers reached 65.4 million with 84.1% penetration  Personal computers 38 million

 Egyptians started utilizing the technology to debate current events, criticize the government, public officials, political parties, and to share personal experiences to propose solutions to current socio- political problems  Citizens quickly harnessed ICTs creating online news sites, blogs, Vblogs, YouTube, twitters, podcasts, SMS text messages, mobile phone web publishing, and establishing accounts on social networks  facebook (3.2 million users),  Blogs (1,135,000)  Youtube (3 million users)

 Two Spheres (Traditional Sphere/ Online Network Sphere)  Proliferation of Independent Media (40% Market Size in the past 5 years/ circulation increased 59% of market)  Question Role ICTs play in promoting news industry and the social democratisation process in Egypt. Further what are the problems hindering the full adoption and usage of ICT in Egyptian newsrooms?

JOURNALISTS USE OF ICTS INSIDE NEWSROOMS WHILE REPORTING JOURNALISTS USE

Typical Day of Technology usage inside Al Ahram Newsroom Typical Day of Technology usage inside Al Dostor Newsroom

 ICTs as technology is often thought to bring radical and fundamental change at the organizational structural level, where the boundaries between original and new traditions of communicating are becoming less clear and the relationship between different media production are characterized by increasing co-operation and compatibility.  ICTs diffusion proved to be a form of slow evolutionary diffusion rather than revolutionary.  News organizations do segregate between online and traditional production where online journalists are not involved in the newsroom meetings or taking part in the overall plans of organization development.  Online Journalists are seen as assistant journalists whose job is to build news archives or help journalists produce their ‘real work.’  Further, statistical figures witnessed stagnation in Egyptian news organization online presence where most organizations fail to present original online content, update information presented, or interact with their audience.  Reviewing Journalists attitude towards incorporating ICTs in their routine, longitudinal research showed diffusion of ICTs ‘online’ elements in their ‘offline’ routine activities.  Qualitative observation proved that point showing journalists do use material online either without attribution or attributing the work to themselves.  The concept of networking is still in its initial stage  Presence of a gap between the organization and journalists, that is clear in the number of journalists who reported not knowing ICTs diffusion on the organizational level but giving answers on their own individual level, which brings the issue of transparency of information within news organizations.  A decade of studying newsroom convergence, still there are barriers that hinder full adoption of ICTs into news production. Individual barriers, organizational, technological, professional, legal, and governmental barriers we defined as the main problems hindering the evolution of the adoption. Time changed in the dynamics of order of levels of barriers however time also showed an increase in the intensity of the problems.