Usage of Social Media Tools in the Federal Government Sector in the UAE - Research Paper Example

This study strongly suggests that the Federal government agencies in UAE should make it a habit to use social media as a way to encourage the local citizens to participate in policymaking. Likewise, the Federal government agencies in UAE should also exert more effort to utilize the available social media as a way to promote government transparency. By doing so, the Federal government agencies in this country will be able to effectively restore public trust. The evolution of communication has evolved over the years.

As the earliest form of communication, people were using signs, signals, and paintings or drawings as a way of sending their message to another person (Altassian, 2013). Eventually, the evolution of communication shifted from the age of postal services to the age of printing in 1440, the use of a typewriter in 1867, telephone in 1876). commercial radio in 1920, TV in 1925, IBM punchcard system in 1890, word processor in 1964, e-mail in 1965, the basic text editor in 1976, the Internet in 1969, the markup language in 1978, search engines in 1990, wikis in 1994, instant messaging in 1996, social networking in 2002, micro-blogging in 2006, and online content collaboration in 2011 (Altassian, 2013).

In UAE, the use of technology in the field of communication is rather new. To be able to continuously improve the communications technology in UAE, the amount of money invested in ICT has reached almost US$12 billion in 2008 (Trading Economics, 2013). Back in 2011, an additional US$25 million was invested in the continuous promotion and development of ICT for education (Elmohsen, 2011). Likewise, ICT also plays a significant role in public sectors in the UAE (Al-Khouri, 2012). (See Appendix I – Amount of Money Invested in the Development of UAE’s ICT between 2003 to 2008 on page 37).

Between 2009 to 2010, the UAE was ranked 1st based on the Network Readiness Index in terms of having the most advanced ICT infrastructure as compared to the rest of the Arab countries and North America (ITU News, 2011; TRA, 2010).