Online First

To capture the lived experience from the point of view of those who lived it to and to achieve the study aims, two methods were applied:

• a) Unstructured interviews: The researchers held formal interviews with staff members from the Press and Publications Department to assess their experiences and perceptions of the reality of the legal deposit law. The researchers also conducted informal interviews with 24 printing houses in this study that act as publishers.
• Interviews were conducted face-to-face. The researchers met with each staff member four times. They also had permission to contact the 24 printing houses by telephone and to text them via Whats App, any time, in case some of the answers were not clear and needed more elaboration.
• b) Content Analysis (CA): The second method applied in this study was content analysis. Using this tool, the researchers analysed the Law of Printing and Publishing to discover how the law defines the term "publication". The researchers also visited the website of the Ministry of Information and analysed the information related to publications.

The study was conducted in the beginning of 2015. The study involved two kinds of samples: a purposive sample, which was the staff of the Press and Publications Department, and stratified random samplings. The total number of printing houses was 120, according to the list that the researchers collected from the Press and Publications Department in the Ministry of Information and from this number the researchers chose 24 printing houses, which was 20% of the total. The sample of the printing and distribution houses was selected according to their governorate to be a representative sample. In fact, the administrative division of the Sultanate of Oman contains eleven governorates. However, the sample number of the printing and distribution houses from Al Wusta, Ash Sharqiyah North and South, Al Wusta and Musandam governorates were less than Muscat and Dhofar because Muscat and Dhofar are the biggest governances in terms of population and cultural and civic life. To gain access to the printing houses, the Press and Publications Department provided the researchers with a list of printing houses in the Sultanate of Oman. (1) Table 1shows the printing houses samples.

Table 1 shows the names of the printing and distribution houses and their governorates. For ethical reasons, the real names of the printing and distribution houses have been changed to preserve their privacy. The study sample was randomly selected. Table (1) shows the stratified random samplings and the geographical distribution of the printing houses in the Sultanate of Oman. The table shows the number of printing houses: (6= 1.2%) that were from Muscat and Dhofar governorates, while (4= 0.8%) were from Al Burymi governorate, and the least number of the samples were from Al Wusta and Musandam (1=0.2%). Modern Muscat represents the Muscat governorate, while Creative represents the Dhofar governorate, Public represents the Ash Sharqiyah North, and Blue Vision represents the Al Burymi governorate. Modern Muscat was the first printing houses from the sample to gain approval from the Press and Publications Department to begin publishing in 1999, and Blue Vision, Al Sunaynah, Jalan Bani Bu Ali, Ras Madrika, Khasab distribution houses were the last to gain approval in 2014.

This study aimed to explore the role of the Law of Printing and Publishing in building Oman’s culture of democracy. This study explored the reality of legal deposit in Oman and determined if the printing houses comply with the law. To explore this, the study began by exploring the existences of the law. The study found that, the Sultanate of Oman issued the first law of printing and publications in 1975 and it was called the law of Publications." Then in 1984, the Omani government revised it and made critical changes to the law of 1975; the 1984 law superseded the law of 1975. It was called the law of "Printing and Publishing". The researchers believe that the Sultanate issued the law of "Printing and Publishing" in 1984 as a response to the change in political, social and economic life. The first law of printing and publications was called the law of "publications" which was issued in 1975 five years after His Majesty took the reins of the government. It seems that his Majesty, from the first day of taking the reins of the government, had a vision about the Sultanate of Oman as a state in which oil revenues drove development and ended Oman’s political isolation, a characteristic that had been a hallmark for decades (Banham, 2014). For this, his majesty focused on the cultural heritage. In fact, in five years of his reign of government, His Majesty made critical changes in the country, while according to Halliday (1975) before his verdict mentioned, Oman was the country of prohibitions. It was prohibited to build houses of cob, to wear sunglasses, to smoke tobacco, to own books, for women to travel abroad, etc.; all these actions were deemed to be offences and were punishable by ‘the laws’. So the law of "publications" that was issued in 1975 came to organize the profession of press, printing and publishing (Sultan of Oman, 1975). However, after 9 years from issuing the law of "Publications" it was normal to review the law and update it to make it appropriate to the current requirements. Truly, there are some differences between both of the laws. For example the law of "1975" had "55" provisions while the law of "1984" had "71" provisions (Al Kindi, 2004). Both the law of "Publications" and the law of "Printing and Publications" were to organize the profession of press, printing and publishing because the press is the tongue of the government. William (2004) described Arab countries as generally ones that fit into the authoritarian media system model. These media systems are set up by the government and licensed under laws that exhaustively regulate the actions of journalists, creating a press that tends to support state policies rather than act as a watchdog. Additionally, Marthoz (2012) thinks the media was key a factor in the Arab revolutions. If the Sultanate organized and reformed this profession, it could follow that it can organize the other matters in the Sultanate.

With regard to identifying the meaning of the term "publications", according to the law of "Printing and Publishing", Table 2 shows that the law of "Printing and Publications" has two articles related to the deposit of materials and it is like the road map that guides the main role players who have to deposit as to when to deposit, what to deposit and in case of the violation of the law what the punishment stated is in these articles (10) and (15). Table 2 shows that article (10) of the law informs us that the law of "Printing and Publishing" is a compulsory law that forces the printing or the distribution houses to deposit five copies of the same to the Ministry of Information before publishing any publication, and he/she shall be given a receipt to this effect. The Omani law of "Printing and Publications" is a compulsory law because it protects the national cultural heritage. If the law were voluntary, the printing houses would not submit the copies if they do not realize the importance of the law (Besser & Malssen, 2010). In addition, the British library believes legal deposit supports a cycle of knowledge, whereby deposited works provide inspiration and source material for new books that will eventually achieve publication, in addition to creating a national collection". Furthermore, his Majesty planned to make the law compulsory to show the Omani nation that they are equal and live in a democratic state.

Article (10) from the law of "Printing and Publications" answered the questions about when to deposit (time to deposit), who has to deposit, and the number of requested copies. In terms of when, article (10) of the law defined that before publishing, and Besser & Malssen (2010) think it is easier to collect works when they are first issued (rather than much later in their lives), for if the law left the deposit of the publications to be after publishing, there is a possibility that the printing houses would not collaborate easily, especially if the printing houses did not have awareness about the importance of the law. This was the same as the findings of Foo, Wu, Lim et al. (2005) who found that the majority of publishers in Singapore only became aware of legal deposit when they needed to apply for ISBN/ISSN. The researchers reviewed the laws of Printing and Publishing in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to find out if the GCC have a similar law. A recent government report (Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council for the Arab States, 2005) explained that in terms of when to deposit, the GCC was divided on the time to deposit the publication. In four GCC countries, the printing house shave to deposit certain copies after publishing the publications -- the State of Kuwait, the State of Qatar, United Arab Emiratis and the State of Bahrain --, while The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia follows the same system as the Sultanate of Oman. The researchers believe the reason behind requesting five copies to be submitted before publishing is that the first law of printing issued in 1975 and the law of 1984 were made during the time the country was in the beginning of its establishment, and the law needed to be established well in terms of building the national collection and transforming the knowledge to the new generation. Because of these, they had to request the copies before publishing, and this agreed with Al-Wahaiby (2004).

In addition, Larivihre (2000) agreed on the variety of time of deposit however, all the examples he/she mentioned in the guidelines requested the deposit of the materials after publishing, not before, Different countries selected a certain time for deposit. They are collected twice a year in Denmark at one extreme, and to the day of availability to the public at the latest in France at the other extreme. South Africa has a 14-day dispatch rule (i.e. the item must have been mailed or sent by another means within that period), and Canada has a seven-day deposit requirement. Finland requires that deposit be completed within two months and Indonesia, three months. The researchers think the legislature requested the time of deposit to be before publishing to guarantee the submission of the materials; however, as the law aims to be a guideline for nations and for printing houses to follow to insure the equality and the participation from them in building the culture of democracy, the law had to identify exactly when to submit the publications. Olanusi (2015) thinks "there are laws and law enforcement systems and sanctions put in place to guide persons and bodies in the overall interests of society in general". This may cause a problem between the author of the material and the printing houses in case the printing houses are not motived to print the submitted materials. For example, in the study in Singapore, Foo et al. (2005) showed that small publishers, who through ignorance or lack of motivation, do not sometimes approach NLB for the ISBN (book) or ISSN (serial) numbers, thereby making it more difficult for NLB to track such publications. This situation may have arisen because it is not mandatory for publications to carry an ISBN or ISSN number.

In terms of who has to deposit according to the law of "Printing and Publishing," printing houses are responsible for submitting the requested copies. The legislature gives the responsibility of submitting the copies to the printing houses because in the past, especially in 1975, there were no distribution houses and publishers, so the only role that existed and was related to the professions of press and media was that the printing houses organized the press profession. The studies also showed that there wasn’t agreement on which of the producers of materials should be responsible for the deposit. France, requires that all documents published, produced, printed or distributed, whether commercially or not, be deposited by the publishers, producers, printing houses or distributors (Larivihre, 2000), while in the UK, Ireland, Nigeria (M2 Presswire, 2003, Olanusi, 2015), and Israel, the publisher or producer, the printing houses and the copyright holders are nominated to submit the requested copies (Rabina, 2009). The Turkish legal deposit law agreed with the Omani law in terms of who was to deposit the requested copies and had the printing houses submit the requested copies to the Ministry of Education (Fenerci, 2008).

In terms of the number of requested copies, article (10) of the law of "Printing and Publishing" states that five copies from each publication, before being published, have to be deposited to the Ministry of Information, the researchers believe that five copies are reasonable; however, the law has not explained where this copies should go. As the time of deposit and to whom to deposit is not the same in all the systems around the world, it is the same case for the number of copies that have to be deposited. In GCC the practice differs from one country to another, so for example in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the State of Kuwait and the State of Qatar two copies have to be deposited, while in the United Arab Emiratis 10 copies are requested, and in the State of Bahrain seven copies (Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council for the Arab States, 2005). The summary of article (10) of the law of "Printing and Publishing" is that this article is a guide for the main role player, who is according the law the printing house. This article is a guide for them in terms of when to submit the publications to the Ministry of Information, and how many copies; however, the law does not identify for certain the exact time for submission. The good thing is that the government gives attention to the importance of protecting the national cultural heritage and the transformation of knowledge from one generation to another through asking the printing houses to submit the copies. Although, the law of "Printing and Publishing" focuses most of its article on the provisions of press and journalism, the deposit of the publication is included in it.

In addition to guiding the printing houses to their mission and introducing the law of "Printing and Publishing" to the Omani nations, article (15) of the law specified the penalty in case the printing houses did not obey the law. Table 2 shows that in case of offenders, there will be one of the three penalties: to be imprisoned for not more than a year, to pay a fine of not more than RO. 500, or both of the penaltie. There is also a chance of closing the printing house temporarily or permanently. In fact, R.O 500 is reasonable for a printing house which runs a business, but the researchers think the aim of the penalty is not to chastise the printing houses but to force them to obey the law and make it effective. Indeed, we wish that the printing houses be persuaded of the vital role of the law of "Printing and Publishing," but if they do not realize its importance, then the penalty might help. Penzhorn et al. (2008) believe that to be effective, the legal deposit law has to be enforceable, and to be enforceable it must put pressure on publishers to obey it by means of a penalty if they fail to obey the law. Indeed, the penalty has to apply in case the printing houses in Oman do not follow the law and it has to be clear; otherwise it will not be an effective legislation, and it will be like the Ugandan case where Matovu and Musoke (2012) researched the annoyance of legal deposit penalties, which were difficult to implement due to unnecessary litigation involved.

According to the interview with the staff from the Press and Publications Department, Ministry of Information, the fine depends on the violation of the offenders. For example, if the printing houses printed 10 different books without permission from the Ministry of Information, he/she would be imprisoned. In the researchers view, the aim of having different penalties is to give the chance for the printing houses to think about their involvement and participation in creating the Omani collection through submitting copies of the publication, as well as to send a message to them that the aim of the law of "Printing and Publishing" is not to punish them but to help the country. Also, the penalty depends on their violation, where they have to choose and decide on what they would like to do. This democracy is routed in Islam. Imam Mohammad Al-Shirazi, writes in his book Shura in Islam, "Drawing from this holy verse, shura is of two kinds: the first is the Muslim governor's consultation of the Muslims about affairs concerning them, and the second is the consultation among Muslims about how to administer their affairs. Therefore, it is a duty on both of the governor and the governed." Imam Al-Shirazi recounts democratic values of participation in government and civil society. Democratic governments cannot exist without citizen participation through elections and/or referendums, and each citizen chooses the government, party, or politician that will advance their interests in issues around healthcare, education, economics, labor, national security, liberal rights, etc... Furthermore, advanced democracies value civil society and its merits. According to Imam Al-Shirazi’s (1999) statement, when the printing houses submit the copies or when they break the law and pay the penalty they will be active participants.

The penalty is a part of the law of "Printing and Publishing," so it must be respected, and the law clearly defines the role of printing houses and time to deposit the number of copies and where to deposit them, so printing houses have to take the full responsibility towards the law as it is a national mission. Ewekula (2004) explained the aim of article (15) is that it solves the conflicts that might happen between the printing houses in case the rules did not exist or were not clear, and sets the penalty system for the country to guarantee the positive participation in building the national collection. As a democracy all the offenders from the printing houses would be treated equally in terms of the fine.

With regard to the term "publications" according to the Omani Law of Printing and Publishing, Table 2 shows that article 3/1 of the law defined the term "publications" and it "refers to any script writings, drawings, pictures, photographs or any other means of copying or photocopying whenever the material is copied, photocopied or transcribed by any means and becomes ready for circulation, with the exception of personal publications or publications related to commercial activity provided their content does not constitute any breach of the provisions of this law or any other law."

This definition is quite general. The researchers believe that perhaps the Omani lawmakers make the law general to cover all the materials that exist, and any new kinds of paper or traditional materials that may appear in the future, and it excludes the non-paper or non- traditional materials because this law covers artistic censorship which includes all types of audio-visual materials, videos and movies. This is called the "law of censorship". This law was issued in 1997, 13 years after the law of "Printing and Publishing" was issued. The law of censorship, however, does not mention anything about electronic resources perhaps because the law was issued in1997, and according to the site of Press References (2016), Oman introduced Internet service in 1997 (http://www.pressreference.com/No-Sa/Oman.html). The researchers believe that since 1997 the law of censorship has not been adjusted or updated to accommodate the new form of electronic resources that emerged because of the use of the Internet. The researchers believe that because the law is addressing artistic censorship, the law of "Printing and Publishing" must be clear and specific about the materials that should be included, because the purpose of the law is to organize the political and social life of a society in order to ensure its orderly development (Larivihre, 2000). This view is in agreement with Matovu and Musoke (2012), who found in general, that legal deposit is subject to numerous challenges in almost all countries, in part because of the lack of a clear demarcation of scope of the legal deposit materials. On the other hand, the researchers disagreed with Matovu and Musoke (2012), who determined that the term "publication" in legal deposit is used in the widest sense possible, and includes traditional printed text materials and non-printed materials, including maps and music and a wide range of non-book materials or audio-visual materials, such as sound recordings, videotapes, learning kits, jigsaw puzzles, cassettes, globes, and machine-readable files. The general definition of the term "publications" in the Omani Law of "Printing and Publishing" matches with Chisita (2010), who found that South Africa has had legal deposit legislation since 1842. It was revised in 1997 to extend the legal deposit to audio-visual and broadcast electronic media; this was achieved by avoiding the definition and enumeration of various media through the use of generic terms like "document" and "media."

In terms of the beliefs of the main role players about the Law of Printing and Publishing, the researchers think that the beliefs of the printing houses towards the law are an application of their participation in the Oman’s culture of democracy. This is in agreement with Cincotta (1998), who said that culture refers to "the behaviors, practices, of the people." So through the beliefs of the Omani printing houses, the Law of "Printing and Publishing" will reflect their behavior towards the law through their agreement to take responsibility as Omanis who believe in democracy, as well as to applying the law. The researchers studied the printing houses' views of the legal deposit to explore their beliefs. Table 3 showed that there were two groups of beliefs of the printing houses. According to the findings, the first group constituted from 4 (16.6%) printing houses either do not believe in the role of law of "Printing and Publishing," which was the Public Printing House (1=4.1%), or feel that the role of the law is not clear for them (3=12.5%),which were in Al-Mazyona, Dhalkut, Jalan Bani Bu Ali. They compare with the second group of printing houses who have positive beliefs about the importance of the law, which were 20 (83.3%). In general, the results showed the beliefs of the printing houses were mainly positive.

The first group which do not believe in the law of "Printing and Publishing" were newer printing houses who have not yet started their real business (Public, Al-Mazyona, Dhalkut, Jalan Bani Bu Ali) although they got the approval from the Ministry of Information. The researchers think that because the new printing houses have not started their real businesses yet, they do not have the proper ideas about who has to submit the five copies and when. This agrees with Tibane (2005) who found that publishers who are aware of legal deposit, but do not practice it on a regular basis, seem to take everything for granted, to such an extent that legal deposit libraries have to send more than one request to the publisher for them to respond. Therefore, the Department of Press and Publications has to raise awareness about the legal deposit and the regulation of this deposit and the actual practice of this law. This agrees with Nwagwu et al. (2011), who found that the authors and publishers in Nigeria who have awareness about the legal deposit were the most compliant. Furthermore, the newer printing houses have not realized the aim of the law and its importance in creating Oman’s national bibliography. The new printing houses believe that this law should be voluntary. They would like to deposit the requested copies only if they want to. Although the Public House knows the penalties for non-compliance, and he follows the law, he was assuming that to practice more democracy the law has to be left to the people to show their real behavior. In addition, Al- Mazyona clarified he could not understand the importance of the law; however, he knows he has to follow the regulations. The researchers think that the Public Printing Houses have called for the law to be voluntary because they think they have to do all the work, from receiving the manuscript from the authors to depositing it at the Press and Publications Department. Bell (2000) and Lariviere (2000), however, disagree with the voluntary route for the law; they believe that if a country decides to go with the voluntary route, it will have to impose penalties on printing houses to ensure enforcement of the law. In addition, Chisita (2010) comments that it is quite a challenge to rely on goodwill to ensure the comprehensiveness of deposit collections, which should call for sufficient mechanisms to facilitate enforcement. The practice for countries is diverse in the route of legal deposit. There are two routes of the legal deposit, either compulsory or voluntary. Within the compulsory route the country has to choose to go through a stand-alone legal deposit law such as in Belgium, the Dominican Republic, France, Iran, Latvia and South Africa, or it could be part of another law, such as the national library act (China and Japan) or the copyright act (Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand and the United States). A country can choose to build its legal deposit collection through a voluntary route as they do in the Netherlands. According to the website of the national library Koninklijke Bibliotheek, there is no legal deposit regulation in the Netherlands. Therefore, the KB relies on voluntary deposit arrangements with publishers, as laid down in an agreement with the Netherlands Publishers Association. Publishers are invited to submit one free copy of each publication for inclusion in the Deposit Collection (Lariviere, 2000). The researchers think that, if Omani law of "Printing and Publishing" was voluntary, it is not certain that the printing houses would follow the rules, especially the new printing houses who think the law does not play an important role in creating a national bibliography.

In addition the first group of printers who do not believe in the law of "Printing and Publishing" or feel that the law is not clear for them, is located in remote areas, which are far from civilization where the culture of protecting the national intellectual heritage does not exist. In these areas, the awareness of the importance of the law is not very clear and the Ministry of Information needs to work harder to show its importance. The Ministry of Information has to create awareness, especially for the new printing houses or publishers, through different media such as websites, local Omani T.V. interviews, social networks, etc. If the people understand their role they will not panic or be unhappy about the application of the law of Press and Publications. The ministry published the law of "Printing and Publishing" in a printed copy and recently it uploaded the law in both languages (Arabic and English) to their website; however, who cares? The people and the printing houses do not want to read; they would like to see and hear the practice in an interactive way. This agrees with Matovu and Musoke’s (2012) study which found the awareness among the publishers was limited. Also, a study by Omekwu (2003) on related experience in Nigeria, which aims to display and access documents published in developing countries, found that there is a lack of bibliographic tools in addition to a lack of awareness of the importance of legal deposit.

The Ministry of Information has to communicate with these people, and the researchers do not want the printing houses to feel there is miscommunication between them and the ministry. They also do not want them to think they have to obey and deposit the five copies blindly; they have to understand why they have to deposit and what it means for the country. The researchers would like them to believe in the law; this agrees with Gordon’s (2005) study, which states that any library, including a legal deposit library/institution, which does not identify the importance of freely following communication, will result in failure in what it has set out to achieve. Penzhorn et al. (2008) says that good communication between all the main parties is therefore, fundamental if legal deposit is to be successfully implemented.

With regard to the behavior of the printing houses towards the law of "Printing and Publishing", Table 4 showed that 24 (20%) of the printing houses know that the Omani law of "Printing and Publishing" exists in Oman and the interview with them showed that all of them submitted the five copies. Although Table 3 showed that there were 4 (16.6%) printing houses which either do not believe in the role of law of "Printing and Publishing" or feel the role of the law is not clear for them; however, as a behavior these printing houses also apply the law and submit the five copies. Conversely, the interview with the sample revealed that they had a problem which was "in the law there was not a specific time for submission, so some of them said they submit after one month and some of them after three months. It is better that the Ministry of Information makes an adjustment to the law and specifies the exact time of submission. Most of the legal deposit laws around the world specify the time of submission, but the timing varies. For example in Egypt five copies have to be submitted by the publishers within six months to the National library. (http://www.library.illinois.edu/ias/iri/arabic), while in Australia, the publishers have to deposit a copy of their publication within a month. (http://www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/legaldeposit_june2012.pdf).

Table 4 demonstrated that 24 (20%) of the printing houses showed that their beliefs match with their behavior towards the law. For example, Modern Muscat, which was founded in 1999, and the Creative, which began operations in 2009, demonstrated good behavior, and their beliefs were positive. The explanation of their behavior was that they understood their role, and, in practice, who had to submit the five copies. The newer printing houses (Public) were approved by the Press and Publications Department to start operating, but due to financial and administrative circumstances, they have not yet practiced the law. Actually, if people understand their role, they will not panic or be unhappy about the application of the law of Printing and Publishing.

In addition, the interview with the staff member from the Press and Publications Department showed that, in terms of printing houses’ behavior, most of the printing houses obeyed the law and submitted the requested copies to the department, whether they submitted the copies themselves or the copies were submitted by the authors. The researchers believe that the printing houses compliance with the law is because there is an awareness about its importance and because they want to participate in the building of Oman’s cultural democracy. Another explanation might be that there was a plan from the Ministry of Information to create the awareness about the legal deposit. Lor (2003) thinks that effective application of depository law is a continuous procedure that can be linked to overt and planned efforts applied by a trained and efficient staff; however it requires an adequate infrastructure support and dedicated administration. Tibane (2005) suggested that most publishers are willing to comply with legal deposit when they realize that the principle is universal and practiced in many countries.

It is important to hear from the printing houses what they understood by the term "culture democracy" as they might be not familiar with the term. Table 5 showed the interpretations of the main printing houses, and as it clear the interpretations focused on behavior and actions. The table showed that there are two groups of interpretations, one that interprets "culture democracy" as behavior and as a positive behavior to respect others and the country’s laws and regulations. Some views expressed were as follows: "behave as a good citizen and respect the law and participate in country development" (Modern Muscat); "the right to choose your candidates in al shura council, the right to do what you would like to do, and say what you want to say without a conflict with the country regulations" (National Printing House); "It is related to your norms, beliefs about something, and sharing this culture with others" (United for Printing). The second group focuses on behavior, but without limitation. Examples of this are: "do what. you want and transfer this culture to others" (Al-Mazyona, Dhalkut, Al Jabriya, Public, Jalan Bani Bu Ali).

We can call the first group of 19 (79.1%) the positive group of interpretation compared with 5 (20.8%) of the sample. The interpretation of the group which has a positive interpretation about the term "culture of democracy" reflects their understanding of the culture of democracy as a behavior and we are the messengers to transform this positive behavior to others. Their interpretation concentrates on behavior and respecting the law or doing what you would like to do without conflict with others. It is like when we say "your freedom ends when the freedom of others begins." In other words, the positive group has a positive involvement in the society and the positive behavior with the ability to do what you would like to do. According to the positive sample, however, democracy is not a free value but a value with a limitation, where the rules and the laws of the country are limited to this value. Ewekula (2004) expressed this view when he was talking about the law. He said law is a set of rules that exists in human society for regulating human conduct, resolving conflicts and avoiding human confrontation. This view agreed with IDLO (2015) that building democracy and the role of law may be convergent and mutually reinforcing processes whenever the rule of law is defined in broad, ends-based terms, rather than in narrow, formal and exclusively procedural terms. A common feature of both democracy and the role of law is that a purely institutional approach does not say anything about actual outcomes. The nexus is strong whenever the role of law is conceived in its relationship with substantive outcomes, like justice and democratic governance.

The positive group has positive interpretations about the "culture of democracy" and their views are affected by their previous Islamic education. Kashef (1981) said the imāma system is based on implementation of the shūrā principle, which constitutes a continuing and mandatory law. This principle of justice and equality reflects the spirit of political power in Islam; it aims at the unification of the nation and of society through effective participation by the citizens. So, the positive group fully understood the meaning of the term democracy and it is not a free value, but a value that adds positive participation and a positive role in society and individuals know they have rights as well duties.

The positive group maybe be affected and inspired by the views about the culture of democracy by their education especially if they studied in western countries, where the idea of democracy as Akhavi (2016) found is an idea and a set of practices that emerged in ancient Athens millennia ago, vanished around 320 BCE, and only reappeared in Europe around the seventeenth century, principally in the works of writers such as John Locke (1632–1704). Bertin (2009) said that in Europe there are much better democratic regimes than in many other countries. Many community members, who came back to Oman after their studies in the West, were influenced by the culture of democracy and they transformed their experience to Oman. Some of them have worked for a long time in business and have been close to the Ministry of Information and believe in what the ministry is trying to achieve through issuing the law of "Printing and Publishing". For the negative group, they do not have yet enough experiences about the importance of the law and the commitment of this law.

This study aims to find out the view of printing houses about the relationship between the culture of democracy and the law of "Printing and Publishing". Table 6 showed the relationship between the culture of democracy and the law of "Printing and Publishing". According to the table, the relationship between them can be categorized into three groups: the group who knows the relationship, the group who does not know, and the group who is sure there is no relation. The first group for whom the relationship was clear totalled 19 (79.1%) and this group thinks the relationship is between positive behavior of submitted the requested copies and the effect of this behaviour in building and developing the country. On the other hand, the second group of 3 (12.5%) did not know what the relationship was. The last group of 2 (8.3%) was sure there is no relationship (Dhalkut and Public).

Some examples of how the first group felt are as follows: Modern Muscat saw the relationship in "behave positively and submit the 5 copies of the materials before publishing means we have to behave as good citizens towards the country to help in collecting or building the country’s intellectual heritage." Salalah’s view was "when we understood the importance of the law of Printing and Publishing, we as publishers and printing houses respect it and follow it and this democracy helps in building the intellectual heritage of the country." In fact, 19 (79.1%) views were connected between duties for submission and participation in country development or behaving as good citizens. This group understands the value of democracy as it is. According to Changing Society (2007) democracy represents a set of decision-making institutions that embody respect for the equal worth of all citizens. Powerless and non-privileged people can express their preferences through democratic means.

The second group Al-Mazyona, MahdahPress, and AL Jabriya, are located in the area far away from Muscat. Al-Wardi (2009) states that many Arab cities remain centers of tribal concentrations more than veritable urban cities, and the influence of the tribes culture is not only extended to the individuals and groups, but also to political parties and modern movements in the Arab and Islamic world. So, as Al- Wardi said, Bedouins live in locations of Al-Mazyona, Mahdah Press, and Al Jabriya and even though they learn and obtain educational certificates they still will be guided by and be proud of the tribe. Democracy almost does not exist there.