Publics, Politics and Participation

310 Mediated Publics

reading open-access news reports on the Internet is but one indicator of
ICT’s ability to reconfigure the communicative flow of regional, national
and global information into and out of a localized public sphere. Of those
surveyed, 64 percent of Internauts spend time communicating with
friends and family who live abroad. National statistics on the destination
countries of Moroccan émigrés are mirrored in the numbers of Internauts
who go online to connect with people in Belgium, the Netherlands,
Canada, France and the United States. This is not only a means of staying
in touch with those who have left Morocco but also a way to initiate or
maintain relationships of business, friendship and courtship.
f the virtual realm fosters communication between actors I
located across the globe, it also lends itself well to unprecedented types
of exchanges between social actors living within the same locale. In
Casablanca, cybercafés have become sites in which people socialize in a
variety of ways with other city dwellers. As mentioned above, Internauts
often visit cybercafés with friends in tow. Cybers are also the meeting
point for younger cybergoers in particular (aged 14–25). The city’s upper-
level primary students and college students increasingly use cybercafés as
meeting sites for study groups. Often, in addition to socializing, students
exchange skills during their visits, helping each other with everything
from language translations to software applications.

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Activities

Cybercafé Activities by Frequency

27%

66% 70%

74% 75%

Romantic

Connections Gaming Email

News

Reading