To what extent does the advancement of digital media impact contemporary attempts of conflict resolution?

在过去的二十年里，现代数字媒体形式的不断发展影响了当代对政治和社会的理解。粗略地审视一下最近发生的事件，就会发现数字媒体在政治领域产生的影响之大。阿拉伯之春的示威，外国对2016年美国总统大选的干涉，以及国际新闻组织电话窃听丑闻，这些例子表明，由于其广泛的使用和社会政治后果，数字媒体如何能够有效地成为故事。鉴于数字媒体对我们的互动的无处不在和变革性的影响，可以假设它在冲突解决和建设和平领域的影响已经被挖掘出来。由于加强各方之间的对话，包括国际调解人、国家行为者和公民社会，被认为是实现解决的实际步骤(Wilkinson，2000；Tocci，2011,2013；Bercovitch等人，2016)，探索数字媒体在此类对话中的作用似乎特别相关。然而，在学术文献中，数字媒体和冲突解决之间可能存在的联系基本上是缺失的。尽管包括Nathalie Tocci和JacobBercovitch在内的政治学家明确主张积极沟通是成功的调解策略的关键，但这种互动的方法在很大程度上还没有被探索。人们的注意力主要集中在调解人和国内各方之间积极接触的总体优势和局限性上(Orjuela，2003；Fischer，2011；Nilsson，2012；Paffenholz，2014)。对于数字媒体在这种接触中所扮演的角色，人们知之甚少。

During the past two decades, the continuous development of modern forms of digital media haveaffected the contemporary understanding of politics and society. A cursory examination of recentevents emphasizes the scale of the impact which digital media has had in the political sphere. TheArab Spring demonstrations, foreign interference in the 2016 U.S presidential election, and the NewsInternational phone-hacking scandal are examples which demonstrate how, owing to its wideranginguse and socio-political consequences, digital media can effectively become the story.Given the ubiquity and transformative effect of digital media on our interactions, it could beassumed that its impact within the fields of conflict resolution and peacebuilding has been explored.As the enhancement of dialogue between parties, including international mediators, state actorsand civil society, is cited as a practical step towards engendering resolution (Wilkinson, 2000; Tocci,2011, 2013; Bercovitch et al., 2016), exploration of digital media's role in such dialogue appearsparticularly relevant. However, the possible link between digital media and conflict resolution islargely absent in academic literature. Although political scientists, including Nathalie Tocci and JacobBercovitch, have explicitly advocated active communication as essential for successful mediationstrategies, the methods of such interaction have largely been unexplored. Attention has mostly beendevoted to the overall strengths and limitations of active engagement between mediators anddomestic parties (Orjuela, 2003; Fischer, 2011; Nilsson, 2012; Paffenholz, 2014). There is littleunderstanding of the role of digital media in such engagement.