EVOLUTION OF NEWS SERVICES IN THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC)

This study explores the evolution of electronic news services on the Internet in Gulf Cooperation Council States (GCC). This research contains surveys from a number of media professions and a number of users from GCC countries, in addition to the perception of the providers and users of the news services. Attention was focused on the rapid evolution of Internet technology. The study also discusses to what extent GCC media organisations have exploited Internet. It is found that GCC news services have exploited the Internet technology and increased over a short period of time. Despite this, it seems that the GCC suffers from difficulties, such as Internet infrastructure weakness, Arabic font and acute shortage of personnel specialising.