Nagorno Karabakh 2.0: How New Media and Track Two Diplomacy Initiatives are Fostering Change

摘要

It is too early to argue that the new media, social networks and other track two diplomacy initiatives have changed the discourse over Nagorno Karabakh or had, if any, substantial impact on the negotiation process. However, it is not too early to point out to certain progress made, both in the world wide web realm and in real time, through various initiatives, workshops and projects, which have in one way or another been playing individual roles and thus generating some impact on the overall reconciliation process by bringing the two communities together torn apart by war 17 years ago. In their vision, for any progress to be made, some things must change and these initiatives are part of this change. Perhaps, small in scale, their mere existence already is a promising start, especially in an environment where there is no or very little contact whatsoever between the parties to the conflict. This paper analyzes the existence of such online initiatives against the backdrop of already widespread hatred and lack of openness towards one another in Azerbaijani and Armenian societies. This is an attempt to offer a glimpse into the world of negotiations, diplomacy and politics through the prism of track two diplomacy initiatives, new media ideas and social network generated interconnectedness.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2012.694663