Arab Society in Revolt: The West's Mediterranean Challenge

4. Mediterranean Islamic Expression and Web 2.0

Just prior to 9/11, I completed writing a piece entitled “Islam Interactive : Mediterranean Islamic Expression on the World Wide Web”for the journal Mediterranean Politics, subsequently published in the book Shaping the Current Islamic Reformation. This was written shortly after my book Virtually Islamic was published.1 The events of 9/11, coupled with the technological developments of the succeeding decade, make that period seem like a different world compared to today—one that was relatively unconnected digitally. The main driving elements of the Internet at that time were FTP (file transfer protocol), e-mail, Usenet groups, and prototype web pages. It was an era with limited online activity in languages other than those using roman script. Internet use back then was characterized by slow connection speeds and limited online multimedia. It may be difficult for today’s“digital natives”to recall an era when there were no blogs, Twitter, or social networking; MySpace and Facebook were on the distant horizon (Facebook co-creator Mark Zuckerberg was still in high school). Hardware for Internet access was primarily desk bound: there were no iPods, BlackBerrys, e-books, smartphones, or iPads. It was an era dominated by Internet Explorer, Mosaic, and Netscape browsers, used on versions of Windows and Apple operating systems that might be seen as antique by contemporary standards. Search engines were limited: Yahoo was a dominant brand crawling the web, and Google had only been running a couple of years. The leaps in technological and Internet development within a relatively short period have transformed communication patterns and methods on a global scale, and the impact has been felt throughout the Mediterranean microcosm. 76 4 Mediterranean Islamic Expression and Web 2.0 gary r. bunt In the 1990s, when I started research in this area, there was a great deal of scepticism from some quarters about the relevance of observing, chronicling, recording, and analyzing Islam on the Internet. My perspective was shaped by an interest in religious authority and—although multidisciplinary in scope— by religious studies frameworks. The reason I found the Internet relevant was because Muslim scholars and activists had begun communicating and networking globally online, and those pulses of digital activity were starting to have an impact at grassroots levels. So in 1996 I established the Islamic Studies Pathways site as a platform to monitor these developments.2 In addition, my undergraduate students were coming to seminars with web materials. This raised questions about the veracity of the online content presented, how or whether it was representative of a specific worldview, and how digital discourse was starting to underpin significant contemporary discussions on Islam and Muslims.3 Observations during the succeeding decade may now provide some answers to these questions. Of course, the answers are contextual, in that they depend on the situation, location, and issue being studied. Issues may be global, national, or local in nature. It is still possible to focus on the Mediterranean sphere with the proviso that the input of globalizing influences is more profound than a decade ago. It would be naive to suggest that the Internet was changing all boundaries of knowledge and authority. One would also have to explore other channels of Internet-driven and -related activities, of which the World Wide Web is but one component. The current digital milieu is characterized by integrated cross-media platforms and dialogues accessed through a variety of devices and methods, an online environment in which even previously sceptical parties are now fully engaged. The Cyber Islamic Environment I continue to utilize the term cyber Islamic environments (CIEs), while recognizing that the conceptual framework has shifted somewhat since I first introduced it in Virtually Islamic in 2000.It encompasses digital online media content developed with an “Islamic” emphasis, however subtle or overt that might be. CIEs refer to a variety of contexts, perspectives, and applications of the media by those who define themselves as Muslims and who represent elements of specific worldviews and notions of exclusivity,combined with regional and cultural understandings of the Internet and its validity. CIEs have demonstrated the ability to transform aspects of religious understanding and expression within Mediterranean Islamic Expression and Web 2.0 77 Muslim contexts. A complex spectrum of access, dialogue, networking, and application of the media has emerged.The term’s original definition as an online Internet space with an Islamic religious orientation has evolved to incorporate elements of so-called Web 2...