Online Public Relations in the Arab Governmental Websites

This paper examines the patterns of Internet usage by 81 governmental websites in the Arab World to enhance their relationship with the public and media. The study concludes that Arab governmental websites did not draw heavily on using the Internet as a public relations tool, and did not take full advantage of the dialogic capacities of the Internet, despite their emphasis on the promotional features of their organizations. The study also showed that Arab governmental websites have a strong interest in realizing public information and press/agentry models and low interest in the asymmetrical and symmetrical models. Significant shortcomings were detected in: the content provided to media and public; using online tools; and applying the dialogic communication.