The Emerging Cyber Muslim Community
The Internet audience research is not yet available in the Muslim context. Nonetheless, a sizeable Muslim audience both in the Muslim and Western world is already a part of this global cyber community. The cyber community in the Muslim world is an elite audience composed of engineers, academicians, students and officials. This technology requires PC availability, electronic data and telecommunication infrastructure. The PC penetration in most parts of the Muslim world is quite low. The rates of illiteracy, not to mention computer illiteracy, vary from high to moderate. This has adversely affected access to such technology. The cost factor is another variable that makes computers the instruments of the rich. Further, telecommunication technology is not well developed, a fact which hinders the development of both intra and international computer networks.
This elite cyberspace community may grow and set the basis for a much important civil society in the Muslim world. However, neither the Internet users are close to a ‘critical mass’ stage nor is the Internet treated as a valuable market platform in many parts of the Muslim world. While the Internet market is saturated in America and AT & T expects electronic commerce via the Internet to reach $20 billion by the turn of the century in Asia alone, the Muslim region still suffers from inaccessibility.