1. Languages over the Web
E-governance and Multilingualism
in Tunisia
Memoir in fulfillment of the Requirements
for the License in “Business English”
Authors: Amel Cherif
Mohamed Bouagina
Supervisor: Dr.Sayah Chniti

2. Acknowledgement
We would like to express our deepest gratitude and appreciation to our
Professor, Dr.Sayeh Chniti for her supervision, advices, and guidance
from the very early stage of this research and for sharing her valuable
time and motivation throughout the work.
Amel Cherif and Mohamed Bouagina

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Table of Contents
GENERAL INTRODUCTION................................................................................................. 2
I. THE STATE OF LANGUAGES IN TUNISIA. ................................................................. 4
1. Tunisian Dialect.............................................................................................. 4
2. A Special Status for French ............................................................................ 5
3. The Trend Towards Arabization...................................................................... 6
II. EGOVERNANCE IN TUNISIA........................................................................................ 9
1. Assessing E-Governance: .............................................................................10
2. E-Governance Phases...................................................................................10
III. TUNISIAN MINISTRIES OVER THE WEB ................................................................16
1. Main sections in official websites: ..................................................................16
2. Monolingual, Bilingual or Multilingual ? ................................................................. 17
2.1. Religion is Monolingual.........................................................................20
2.2. Foreign Affairs Foreign Tourists and Foreign Languages .....................21
IV. E-GOVERNANCE IN SOCIAL MEDIA ......................................................................25
1. Ministries on Facebook..................................................................................25
2. Language(s) Used .........................................................................................29
CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................31
BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................34

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION
"Language has always been the perfect instrument of empire." Says Antonio de
Nebrija, Granidtica Castellana. Until the eighteenth century Arabic was the
prevailing language in North African Arabic countries but as soon as the first world
war was declared not only were Arab countries colonized but also the Arabic
Language was facing danger.
In 1881 France made Tunisia a protectorate and started to introduce French as
an official language of social and economic affairs . Even after its independence in
1956 the process started by France continued to have its effects on the status of
Arabic as it remained the official language for Tunisians. Some of its effects are still
visible in the Tunisian dialect which has so many borrowed words and expressions
adapted from the French language. This change was not the last change that the
Arabic language witnessed in Tunisia. In the begging of 1990s, the internet became
the ultimate tool for communication , people were communicating via the Internet
not only in its established language English, but also in a many other languages
,leading the world towards globalization and multilingualism. Even under the
former regime, the Tunisian government showed determination to deal with such a
change on the level of language and communication with its citizens. This evolution
raises a large number of questions. What is the state of languages in Tunisian official
spheres after all those changes? How did the Tunisian government cope with the
revolution of internet and globalization? Did ICT with its corollary E-Governance
contribute to enhance the trend towards Arabization started in the 70’s and

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confirmed by successive reforms, or did it open the way for the emergence of new
dominant languages?
This paper will explore these questions through a survey of official websites and
focus on the languages used and the examination of the content that these websites
are providing with the communication channels. To address these multiple issues,
this research is divided into four main sections.
The depict state of languages in Tunisia with a particular focus on the Tunisian
dialect, the status of the French language and the result of Arabization politics in
Tunisia.
The second section is dedicated to the phenomena of E-Governance in Tunisia by
introducing E-governance as a concept and its phases.
The information provided in the first two sections will pave the way to the third
section that will be dealing with the Tunisian Ministries over the web by describing
their main sections, categorizing them and providing some case study.
Eventually both section two and three will lead to section four that is devoted to E-
Governance in social media calling attention of Tunisian ministries on Facebook
which may open the way to major changes not only in the approach to E-
Governance but also in the language(s) used.

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I. THE STATE OF LANGUAGES IN TUNISIA.
The recent controversy about the language(s) used in the discussions of the
Tunisian constituent assembly, reflects the various backgrounds and hence the
variations in languages between Tunisians. The majority of the Constituent assembly
used naturally standard Arabic during the discussions, while others would sometimes
use the Tunisian dialect. A member of the Constituent Assembly however had to
face challenges when she used French words to inquire about a matter during official
debates. Many members objected the use of French arguing that it is opposed to the
“Arab and Muslim identity” of Tunisians (Samti).
1. Tunisian Dialect
According to Dawn Marley, the distinction between “ classical Arabic “ and
“ dialectic Arabic “ is important. He defines the classical Arabic as “ the written,
standardized form “ as it is used for “religion, education, and all official written
functions “ for instance in books, in governmental papers such as the official gazette
of the republic of Tunisia, the constitution …. It is also the main language of culture
and media (1488). He considers the dialectic Arabic as “the non-standardized form “
as it is used for informal and spoken contexts. Something else should be taken into
account is the specificity of the spontaneous speech and the spoken dialect .The
Tunisian dialect is characterized by short utterances, there’s a well calculated
number of words. Another characteristic of dialect is the use of foreign words.
Marwa Graja states that in Tunisian Dialect “the most important keywords are
borrowings from French language “ (24-25).

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The Arabic language in Tunisia which would rather be called the Tunisia Language is
a combination of a number of languages with Arabic as base. In the Tunisian dialect
a lot of French, English, Italian, and German words may be heard. Concerning
foreign languages present in Tunisia, several linguists documented the existence of
French, Italian, and Spanish, which date back to the colonial period (Payne) .
Such a mixture is due to different reasons that are geographical, historical… etc.
Tore Kjeilen affirms that “In terms of languages, Tunisia has the most uniform culture
of all North African countries. Close to each and every one speak Tunisian Arabic , a
great majority have good to excellent conduct of French, which remain an important
culture language, and all across the country, the young learn English too’’ (Kjeilen).
He explains the uniformity that took place over the years through geography. Another
important reason for the language mixture is the absence of geographical boundaries
as in mountains and in desert so the language mixture between cultures and
people living there is high. Another major reason is a historical one.
2. A Special Status for French
For a long time, as being a colony for several civilizations and centuries the
Tunisian culture was opened to a variety of cultural and linguistic influences. “ During
the creation of the French protectorate in 1881, language was a powerful weapon in
the colonial arsenal and a method of oppression as effective and physical force “says
Krista Moore (Moore).What is clear is that Tunisian people are greatly influenced by
the French colonizer more than the Ottomans or the Turkish one. John Battenburg
claims in an article that “after independence in the 1950s and early 1960s, countries

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of the Maghreb especially Tunisia continued to use French as a tool for
modernization and development’’(Battenburg).As we can see from the time of the
French protectorate French was used only by the elite of the society and as a
prestigious communication means for the social upper class. Some researches affirm
that from the second form on, Tunisian children learn the French language
compulsory, so each Tunisian will, at least in theory, speak French, and almost all
official documents, signs, etc., are written in French, in addition to Arabic as well.
According to John Battenburg, “French remains a spoken language among both
expatriates and some of the indigenous elite”. “About half of Tunisia's newspapers
are in French; the French have higher quality content, the Arabic newspapers fall
more into the category of sport and gossip news’’. Although French has been
preserved as a second language, it is in a number of domains such as commerce,
science and technology, media, education and administration. French now is seen
as seen in morocco for instance the language of social and professional success .
3. The Trend Towards Arabization
In the past, preserving the Arabic language was affirmed and declared by “ the
leaders of Arab independence movements “ in order to take back their “ people’s
Arab Islamic cultural identity and to preserve their national unity as a community
speaking one language “ which is Arabic rather than French or English (Daoud10-
11). The political leaders who shared this view encouraged classical Arabic to spread
"out of the mosques and schools into the street" (Maamouri, 57), which increased its
use and enhanced its social function. An absence of Arabic infrastructure, especially

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in education, stunted Arabization in Tunisia, reflecting the government’s lack of
enthusiasm for the process. The government and elite were nearly all French-
educated and the majority of Tunisians lived close to the most francophone areas of
the country, including the northern coasts and especially the capital of Tunis” added
Krista Moore (Languages and Loyalties). So that Tunisia as any Arab country
especially in the Maghreb, adopted the process of Arabization which means tried to
push back French and to replace it by Arabic. Daoud adds that “The chronological
survey reveals that the decision makers have been rather in consistent in promoting
Arabization in Tunisian schools. While it is true that there was a consistent effort to
implement the Arabization process during the 1970s and up to 1982”. “On June 25,
1958, former President Bourguiba declared in a speech at al-Sadiqiyya High School :
Education in the secondary schools will be oriented toward Arabization and the use
of Arabic so that it can serve to teach all the subjects unless necessity and
circumstances force us ,for a limited period, to use French to take advantage of the
possibilities that are available to us until the teacher-training schools provide us with
the necessary staff who will ensure the teaching of all subjects in Arabic. (l'Action,
June26, 1958; Dawed translation from the French)” (Daoud15).
According to Mohamed Daoud Arabization also requires the massive introduction
of a new vocabulary so that Arabic could replace French as a means of expression in
the modern world. However, creating a modern Arabic lexicon proved to be a difficult
and slow process.” Moving to administration in Tunisia, that has not been very rapidly
arabized. According to Daoud, the Arabization of ministries was a “slow process

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since 1989”.the beginning was difficult and in two years, “only three have been totally
arabized” (Daoud) .
This language landscape shows that there is a clear distinction between the
official language and the dialect as well as French, the second language. With the
advent of ICT and their integration in the communication tools of public services,
French appeared as the dominant language, but gradually and with the trend towards
Arabization of both education and administration, standard Arabic became the norm.
In December 1999, the Government hasted the pace by issuing a circular in line
with a law dating back to 1993 according to which foreign language use is banned in
all correspondences with the citizens and the administration was expected to arabize
all its documents before the end of the century (Kuna).
Quite obviously, this forced Arabization of the administration also concerned their
websites, though fortunately foreign languages were not banned. As for Tunisian
dialect, though it has been better integrated in the last decade especially in consumer
related communication, such as advertising, it is deemed to remain an informal way
of communication, and is still banned from any official publication or other form of
communication.

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II. EGOVERNANCE IN TUNISIA
The Evolution of the Information and communications technologies (ICTs) has
paved the way for the emergence of Globalization .Such a phenomena has
increasingly overspread and became one of world’s growing issues and started to put
pressure over governments that had to be responsive to this social change ,
address public concerns and manage public issue efficiently by reestablishing
their use of ICTs and adopting new technological solutions especially the internet .
Therefore, governments adopted new strategies to enhance the delivery of public
goods, services and information to citizens by using the internet, this policy turned
the administration into electronic governance, E-Governance.
UNESCO defines e-governance as the use of the ICT especially the internet by
the different public sectors in order to “improve the Quality of information,
effectiveness, efficiency and service delivery.” (“E-Governance”) The notion of E-
Governance is also associated with a similar notion which is E-Government. E-
Governance and E-Government are considered as two very close terms but the
difference between them lies in the fact that ‘’ e-Government is actually a narrower
discipline dealing with the development of online services to the citizen, more the e
on any particular government service - such as e-tax, e- transportation or E-health’’.
(Sheridean and Riley). For the purpose of this research, the term “e-Government” will
be used to describe the services and information available on the internet, while “e-
Governance” will cover the wider scope of policies and strategies adopted by
governments to enhance the use of ICT in involving citizens in decision making …

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1. Assessing E-Governance:
To assess the performance of governments in terms of e-governance and the
evolution of the official strategy in the field, several phases were described (Backus
4). An international e-business research consultancy firm has defined a model
according to which e-governance goes through 4 stages all of which can be
summarized in the following types of interaction:
-G2C: Government to Citizens
-G2B: Government to Businesses;
-G2E: Government to Employees;
-G2G: Government to Governments;
-C2G: Citizens to Governments. (Gartner)
2. E-Governance Phases
As governments all over the world have been making commitments to E-
Governance, Jeffrey W. Seifert in his Report to Congress has developed that E-
Governance in deed reflects the stages of evolution made up of 4 main phases
(Seifert 9) :

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-Phase 1: Presence
This first stage of E-Government development is characterized by the existence
of a presence over the web. During this first phase, the Internet sites are rather
static in nature and are only meant to provide general information.
-Phase 2: Interaction
This second stage of E-Government development is defined by Internet sites
that provide search capabilities, host forms to download, and provide links to
other related sites. In most instances, this stage enables the public to access to
critical information online, but requires a visit to a government office in order to
complete the task.
-Phase 3: Transaction
The third stage is based on empowering the public to conduct and complete
entire tasks online. The focus of this stage is to build self-service applications
for the public to access online. This is the stage where Oakland County is
currently.
-Phase 4: Transformation or Integration
The fourth is about redefining the delivery of governmental information and
services. This phase relies on robust customer relationship management (CRM)
tools, wireless access devices and new methods of alternative service delivery
capabilities that reshape relationships between citizens, businesses, employees
and governments.

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However, Conforming to the Presidency of the Government Portal (“L’Administration
Electronique en Tunisie”) was made up of five main phases:
- The Preliminary phase ((1980-1999)
The evolution of e-government in Tunisia has led to the emergence premises
since the early eighties, the first projects for the computerization of
administrative processes, and this through the introduction of IT in
administration public. This automation results in the creation of several
applications, such as the applications for:
*Management of administrative affairs of state personnel (INSAF)
*The Budgetary Process of Decision (ADEB)
*Tracking and order management missions abroad (RACHED).
-The first generation of public websites: The Presence phase (2000-2002)
The government openness on the Internet: the information phase is the first
step of development of e-government. The purpose of this phase is to have an
online presence on the internet to exploit this new channel of communication.
The website is in addition to all other channels of information and dissemination
of official information including brochures, telephone call centers, service
centers and fax machines.

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-The second generation of public websites: The interaction phase (2003-2005)
At this stage the organization offers a more personal line of communication with
citizens by implementing an electronic delivery service that uses e-mail, search
engines, downloading forms and specifications online. This is the beginning of a
two-way electronic communication with citizens. We can say that this phase
lays the foundation for the establishment of one-stop service "virtual"
information more personalized.
-Referral to the online services: the transaction phase (2006-2009)
This phase is the extension of the interaction phase. It adds remote procedures
that allow electronic submission of documents and payment online to complete
a transaction and integrates potential of the communication to the processing
information. We can manage the full cycle of a transaction from data collection
through processing until it is archived. (Online registration, paying bills online,
starting a business online, Madania 2 …)
-The integrated administrative services in 2009 “The integration phase”:
Projects of the integration phase are related to the implementation of an
organizational network structure and the strategic use of information
technology. Service integration is full integration of its electronic services in
various service organizations on a single portal. The citizen may then benefit
from a single point of entry to a service request that requires the collaboration of

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several organizations. (The project of connected government framework, the
single bundle, electronic filing tax ...).
According to the results from the 2010 survey conducted by the United Nations
(UN) (“Tunisie : Leader africain de la e-governance”) Tunisia has been ranked , by
the index of the United Nations on the "E-Government", the first in Africa and 66th
in the world out of 192 countries listed gaining 58 places compared to 2009 where it
ranked 124th
.
Entitled "2010 UN Global E-Government readiness survey" this index assesses
the degree of application of information technology and communication (ICT) by
government in order to improve their services.
The UN index is based on several criteria related primarily to the extent of use of
the Internet, telecommunications infrastructure and human resources. In Africa,
Tunisia is better than South Africa (97th), Mauritius (77th) and Zambia (143 th). In the
Arab and Maghreb, it ahead of several countries such as Oman (82nd), Egypt (86th),
Lebanon (93 th), Libya (114th), Morocco (126 th), the Algeria (131 th) Syria (133 th),
Mauritania (157 th) and Yemen (164th).Another performance on the assets of
Tunisia, the same index shows that Tunisia is ranked better than China (72 th).
The development of e-government services in Tunisia, in the era of the Information
Society, is a strategic issue in that it aims to improve the functioning of public
services and their interactions with citizens.

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Thus Tunisia citizens benefit of many services via internet, according to the
Tunisia government portal (‘’ Services for citizens”) these services are categorized
into:
-Social Services:
Paying Social insurance and loans.
-Employment services:
Looking for Jobs abroad, online registration for employment services.
-Health services:
Paying Public hospitals charges, and health insurance.
-Transport services:
Buying Tickets online.
-Judicial services:
Follow-up of court cases, Follow-up of complaints and Certificates extraction.
Making an on-line declaration of welfare costs.
-Municipal affairs:
To establish the legal status of one’s company.

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III. TUNISIAN MINISTRIES OVER THE WEB
The number of ministries in Tunisia has been changing rapidly under the newly
elected government. However, the official “Tunisian government portal” still counts 27
Ministries only 23 of which have official websites. (“Ministries”) An overview of the
Ministries official websites shows that they have a nearly common layout.
1. Main sections in official websites:
The surveyed official websites seem to follow some given standard according to
which they all include seven main parts.
a- The Home page:
The home guideline serves as welcome page which tells the user about the latest
news, recent articles about the ministry activities and services .It includes also the
other main guidelines and sub-sections.
b- The office :
It gives the users information about the organization of the ministry, its history, and
how its office is composed and run.
c- Projects and programs:
This section provides information about the projects and the programs such as the
main events organized the trainings offered, recruitment opportunities. The programs
and projects differ from one another according to their activities.

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d- Customized Guidelines:
These guidelines differ from a ministry to another. They might be about international
relations (especially for the ministry of Tourism and the ministry and the ministry of
foreign affairs), legal framework, studies and statistics and forums.
e- Documentation:
Documentations provide users with printed online documents and articles for
download. The documents are usually in relation with the training or the recruitment
applications.
f- Citizens’ Relations Office:
Where the users can find information about the geographical location, email and
work schedule.
g- Useful links:
These are generally the Ministries official pages on social Medias and links to the
other ministries and national offices websites.
Far from the information available and the layouts that are very close between those
official websites, major differences appear in terms of languages used.
2. Monolingual, Bilingual or Multilingual?
The languages generally used in these websites are Arabic, French and English
.However, not all of the websites are available in the three languages.

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The websites could be classified according to the language used into three
categories. The Monolingual websites are the websites available in only one
language. The bilingual websites are available in two languages which are Arabic
and French. The multilingual websites are the websites available in more than 2
languages.
The Following tables show the lists of Ministries’ official websites according to the
languages they are available in.
Table 1
Monolingual websites
The Ministry The Language used
Ministry of Religious Affairs Arabic
Table 2
Bilingual websites
The Ministry The Languages used
Ministry of Justice Arabic, French
Ministry of Transport Arabic, French
Ministry of Finance Arabic, French
Ministry of State
Domains and Land Affairs
Arabic, French
Ministry of Equipment Arabic, French
Ministry of Trade and
Handicrafts
Arabic, French
Ministry of Youth and Sports Arabic, French

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Table 3
Multilingual websites:
The Ministry The Languages used
Prime Ministry Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Defense Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Industry and
Technology
Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Regional
Development and Planning
Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Agriculture Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Environment Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Tourism Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of information and
communication technologies
Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Public Health Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Social Affairs Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Education Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Higher Education Arabic, French and
English
Ministry of Employment and
vocational training
Arabic, French and
English
As seen in Table 3 the majority of the websites are available in at least two
languages, and more than half provide an English version.

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2.1. Religion is Monolingual
Out of the 24 official websites, only one website is monolingual which is the
website of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. This means that the website presents
information exclusively in Standard Arabic. In other words it is addressed exclusively
to those who can read and understand Arabic. Such a site “runs the risk of alienating
those people” (Ishida). Considering the similarities between Tunisia and its North
African neighbors, it would be interesting to compare this exception to the situation in
Algeria and morocco. These countries share a common recent history of colonization,
and therefore of openness to other languages and primarily to French. In comparison
with the Algerian Religious Affairs Ministry, the two websites are similar; they are
both monolingual, although Algeria is a former colony of France and the French
language is part of the everyday speech (Moore). Concerning morocco, its website
provides Arabic and French versions which are absolutely identical. This choice can
have different explanations, ranging from an audience that can be different and
originating from different countries to a less tense attitude towards Arabization, but
this remains to be further explored.
However Algeria is not the only country that is similar to Tunisia in providing a
monolingual version of the website. Oman, Egypt and Syria have made similar
choices. Other examples can provide more insight through this choice. Strangely,
Saudi Arabia for instance has a bilingual website available in French and English
versions, but it does not provide an Arabic version which normally should be
available as Saudi Arabia is land of pilgrimage, Mecca and a symbol of Islam in

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general. Kuwait and UAE religious affairs ministries websites are also bilingual. They
have Arabic and an English version. They obviously chose English as a second
language for the website because firstly English is the second official language in
many countries and secondly it is the worldwide understood language.
As far as Tunisia is concerned, the problem that is raised here by such a choice is
the prevention of some minorities from accessing the information provided in the
official website of the religious affairs ministry. First, as far as the official religion is
concerned, that is Islam, there are non-Arabic speakers Muslims, who became
Tunisians by marriage or by birth. Second, there might be a misunderstanding
stemming from the name of the ministry itself. The “Religious Affairs” label seems to
include only Muslims and therefore excludes other minorities that do exist and live in
Tunisia as Tunisian citizens. There are also Tunisian Jewish and Christian minorities.
They are Tunisian and they have the full right of knowing what is happening in each
sector and field in the government especially in what concerns their religion
especially if they can not speak and read Arabic language. Djerba for instance
represents every year a pilgrimage destination for thousands of Tunisian and foreign
Jews. Also as a tourism destination, tourists might be interested in finding out about
religious celebrations and events in the country, but the Religious Affairs Ministry
does not seem to be taken them or the previously mentioned minorities into account.
2.2. Foreign Affairs Foreign Tourists and Foreign Languages
One of the interesting ministries websites in Tunisia is the official website of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is multilingual one, providing information in Arabic,

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French and English. However, this is not the case with its counterparts in Algeria and
Morocco which are the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Algeria and
the official website of the ministry of foreign affairs and cooperation in Morocco. The
major common points between those three websites are the fact that they provide
information about the ministry (office, organization and embassies), the diplomacy of
each country (Agreements and Treaties) and the vision/ goals set by each
government.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Algeria and the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and cooperation offer internet users online documents for download
Besides they focus through their official website on publishing information about
embassies and foreign countries, providing updated news foreign affairs besides
plus giving extensive updated interviews with foreign people (ambassadors ,
investors and tourists ) which explain the approach they are adopting towards
international affairs and building foreign connections . Yet the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in Tunisia, instead of providing documents online, provides external links for
details and further information also detailed information including the ministry‘s
activities along with national affairs.
In terms of the languages used in these websites it is obvious that the Algerian
and Moroccan websites focus on the French language rather than Arabic the reason
might be the fact that these two countries were colonized by the French .Moreover,
the documents provided by these two websites are in French even if the users are on
the Arabic version all the documents they can download are French. The news and
information provided by the two websites whether in the Arabic or French version are

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highly updated. As far as the Tunisian website is concerned the news found in the
Arabic and French versions are daily updated whereas it is not the case with the
English one because the content of this version is updated but with slight daily news
compared to the others.
Another interesting official website that belongs to the group of multilingual
websites is the site of The Ministry of Tourism. In comparison with the Algerian and
the Moroccan ones which are called respectively the Ministry of Tourism And
Handicraft and the Administration of Tourism, all of them provide Arabic, French and
an English version. Concerning the downloadable information, the Tunisian website
does not provide any of it neither in Arabic nor in French. In comparison to its
counterparts the Algerian and the Moroccan website, the first does provide
downloadable forms but in the three versions Arabic, French and English the forms
are in French language .but the second one like the Tunisian does not provide any.
Information about the links provided in the website of the Tunisian Ministry Of
Tourism, are links to “Institutions under supervision, tourism real estate agency,
national office of the Tunisian tourism”. The “Administration of Tourism” in Morocco
provides also to the user links to “Ministries, touristic websites, offices, press”,
whereas the Algerian “Ministry Of Tourism And Handicraft” useful links page is under
construction.

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An important Remarque is that though the three countries Tunisia, Algeria and
morocco were French colonies, they do provide an Arabic language version because
Arabic is the official language of the countries. In what concerns updates the
Tunisian Ministry of Tourism three versions are daily updated especially because the
website is newly created, not like the Moroccan one which was created since 2005
and updates are very rare. The website of the ministry of Tourism And Handicraft in
Tunisia seems to be of poorer quality as there are only icons which are not active and
lead to no information.

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IV. E-GOVERNANCE IN SOCIAL MEDIA
Over the past years Governments around the world, come to realize the power of
Internet in reaching out people and bringing them together. Among the features of
such a process are Social Media, including networking websites such as
Facebook and Google+ ,micro blogging services such as Twitter, blogs, wikis, and
media sharing sites such as YouTube and daily motion . These different Social Media
play the role of facilitating communication between internet users into an interactive
dialogue. As far as Tunisia is concerned, Social Media and especially Facebook have
played a key role throughout the Revolution. The previous government in the months
before the revolution even attempted to cut Facebook down, in vain. Today, the
newly elected government has realized the power and influence of Facebook
nowadays on Tunisian citizens. That is why the Tunisian ministries arrived one at a
time on this social network.
1. Ministries on Facebook
A brief overview to the Facebook pages shows that ministries especially those
which do not have official website have Facebook pages. It has often been said that
Facebook makes the contribution of citizens in the governmental field more important
even by making a simple comment.
The Ministry Of Interior is an example of the ministries which do not have an
official website but does have an official Facebook page. This page has been visible
on the Internet since 10/02/2011 (‘’Tunisie: le ministère del'intérieur’’), and has

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intended to facilitate communication between citizens and media representatives on
the one hand and the services of the Ministry on the other. Several components are
included in this page about the activities of the different structures of the Ministry,
audio-visual, recruitments and provided an interactive section that allows visitors to
ask questions and present topics of debate.
When looking at the page, the number of Likes is 290. This small number of fans
can be explained by the image of this Ministry in the country and its violence during
the demonstration of December 2010 and January 2011. However, the Ministry of
Interior played an important role particularly in the post-revolutionary period when
people were afraid for their safety and in this regard, people who wanted to be
posted regularly with news about security problems would become “Fans”. The
Facebook page of the Ministry of Interior has already passed the symbolic threshold
of 100,000 fans to arrive now 110,195 members.
Very few other Ministries reached this record. For example, the page of the
Ministry of Higher Education, posts no more than 24,000 fans. After the initiative of
the Ministry of Interior which undoubtedly appealed to Tunisians (J Ghaith) , it was
the turn for two new departments to join the squad, namely the Ministry of Defense
and the Ministry of Industry and Technology with 2332 and 5401 fans respectively.
(Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 21:20).
Both ministries joined this social network to show their will of being closer to
people with the ultimate goal of establishing a new form of effective communication
and paving the way for an effective debate and dialogue between national the
government and its citizens. The Facebook pages of both departments are used to

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present press releases, current recruitments and to give official information in order
to avoid or rather counter the rumors that continue to multiply on the Tunisian
blogosphere.
As part of its desire to maintain contact with citizens (B Youssef), the Ministry of
Public Health has created a new page on the Facebook social network, announced
the Communication Services Department. With 20,582 fans this page contains the
official releases and allows the Ministry’s services to keep in contact with the public
and discuss matters of common concerns. The same sources indicated that this
interactive page ensured greater visibility of the department while serving as a space
of expression for the general public.
The Ministry of Transport has created a special page on the social network
"Facebook" (Kamel), dedicated to electronic communication between the government
and its citizens. It includes an interactive discussion forum, enabling them to voice
their concerns, opinions and aspirations. A special section is devoted to recruitment
campaigns and an electronic link with various national companies and transport
services.
The Ministry of Transport is followed by the Ministry of Ministry of Tourism who
created a special page on Facebook (‘’Tunisie : Le Ministère du Commerce et du
Tourisme-Tunisiesur Facebook’’) , dedicated to electronic communication between
the department and citizens. Apart from updating the latest information and news
related to the Tunisian economy, the Facebook page includes, news, interviews and
also a review of national and international press, an interactive discussion forum to
make known to internet users their concerns, opinions and aspirations.

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The aim of having official Facebook pages for the ministries is to control information
about the Ministries on the internet by being the main broadcaster (Lamloum), then it
was the TAP news agency, who undertook this mission. Below is the list of existing
pages of ministries on Facebook:
-Prime Ministry
-Ministry of Interior
-Ministry of Transport
-Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Ministry of Trade and Handicrafts
-Ministry of Tourism
-Ministry of Education
- Ministry of Public Health
-Ministry of Defense
-Ministry of Industry and Technology
Obviously the Ministries’ pages on Facebook were launched few weeks after the
Tunisian revolution took place which explains the policy the Tunisian Government,
that is driving E-governance towards Social Media. This new step is part of the
G2C G2B G2E and C2G phases explained previously, phases where government
agencies ensure mutual interaction between the Government and the internet users
which are the citizens ( employees and businessmen etc. ) through Facebook .

31. 29 | P a g e
2. Language(s) Used
As far as The Ministry of Interior is concerned, the Arabic language is the language
used in all the publication of this governmental organization. The titles and subtitles
of the Facebook page are also in classical Arabic .Another comment could be added
is that the comments on the news and on the publications are in Tunisian dialect and
people who are commenting belong to different groups of the society .
Because the news and information in the Facebook page of the Ministry of Interior
are up to date, hundreds of comments are posted. Concerning the ministry of
education, the main language used in the page is Arabic. Answers and comments
are in Tunisian dialect and some of them are in classical Arabic for certain people
teachers for instance. As for the Ministry of Public Health, the whole page is in
Arabic language but there are some passages that are written in French.
Comments are written in French, in classical Arabic, and in Tunisian dialect, the
questions and comments are written in dialectic Arabic .there are a lot of people’s
comments especially those who belong to the field of health . The major fact that is
the most important one and that is shown by this social media is that the “Tunisian
Arabic” as it is called , plays a huge role in making people’s contribution more
effective by giving their comments freely and with no pressure .

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As seen in Chapter One, Arabization was an imposed process on both
Administration and citizens. The advent of Facebook, not being yet submitted to
regulations as is the case of the official websites, gave more freedom to Ministries to
address the citizen in either languages that is standard Arabic or French. What is all
the more interesting is that the Tunisian dialect rapidly took profit from this freedom,
to enter the official sphere, even if a non-official language, it is submitted to no
syntactic nor even transcription rules.

33. 31 | P a g e
CONCLUSION
An important feature of the Tunisian population is the frequent use of the modern
communication technologies and especially the internet which has become part of
the daily life. Internet is used is not only used at homes and for business, but it has
also become part of the political life and of political activism. This memoir has sought
to give a picture of government communication strategies over the web, not only in
terms of content but also in terms of the languages used. Such a presence is
manifest in the publication of governmental administration websites on the web which
are the ministries.
The important feature that was examined is the languages used in these websites
when posting the information by the ministry. The conducted research concluded that
though E-Governance is a new phenomenon, most ministries have their official
websites. One other finding is that with the exception of one ministry, the Ministry of
Religious Affairs, all websites publish information in at least two languages: Arabic
and French. The exclusive use of classical Arabic raises not only the problem of the
exclusion of some minorities and namely religious minorities who do not understand
Arabic but also those who can not read classical Arabic.
Apart from this exception it can be conclude that in spite of the Arabization trend
that characterized Tunisian administration, the official Tunisian websites did not give
up using the second non official language that is French sometimes along with a third

34. 32 | P a g e
language: English. In this research, multilingualism was not only considered from a
perspective of official languages, but also from that of dialect.
While language use varies according to social classes and communities, the main
common feature of all Tunisians is their use of the Tunisian dialect. The use of the
latter is banned not only in official documents and other administrative exchanges,
but also from all written media, whether private or public.
The advent of social media and more particularly Facebook surprisingly filled this
language gap. Since January 2011, Ministries, with official websites or not, started
creating Facebook pages to be closer to citizens. Facebook has hence played a
huge role in gathering citizen’s comments about satisfaction or dissatisfaction as
citizens consider Facebook as a wide space for expressing themselves. Ministries
found more freedom in terms of languages and content, as these pages are not yet
submitted to the usual official standards of content and form. Most importantly,
Tunisian internet users in this space were not submitted to the legal obligation of
using classical Arabic. Therefore, users’ contributions would appear sometimes in
French but also in Tunisian dialect transcribed in Latin or Arabic letters.
E-governance in this research was studied not only in terms of communication
channels with citizens, but particularly in terms of languages used. For a
communication to be interactive, the language used has to be the closest to the
targeted users. While this research is not making a pledge for the use of Tunisian
dialect in official communication, it simply revealed that language use is related to
openness to the user, and to some extent to freedom.

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Other aspects remain to be further explored such as language use in the political
sphere as the problem was raised lately about the use of French in the constituent
assembly. From a linguistic perspective, the status of Tunisian dialect deserves
special attention too, as in most Arab countries, where the language spoken in the
street is not the same as the written one, and political decision makers would rarely
address their peoples in this ‘language’ whether in democracies or under despotic
regimes.

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