The rationale of this study stemmed from the availability and easy access
to internet sites as a rich source of information coupled with the students’
apparent interest in reading hot issues on-line in daily news. Nowadays
foreign newspapers are available in many countries all over the world and
may become a very valuable tool in the hands of EFL teachers who are
always looking for authentic material. Most of these newspapers have a webbased
version, therefore “all this material is quickly, cheaply and readily
available from the comfort of our desks or homes” (Dudeney, 2000, p. 1).
Hence, this study could be considered one of the rare studies dealing with
reading on-line newspapers with Arabic context.