Computer-Mediated Communication Discussion Environment: Electronic Dialogue in a Conflict Situation
Abdisalam M. Issa‐Salwe, Muhammad Nomani Kabir, M. Daud Ahmed · 2012
This paper uses as case study a discussion mailing list created in January 2000 by a group of the Somali Diaspora. The mailing list, known as Somali Open Forum, was formed to give its members an interactive online discussion that provoked and stimulated online discussion and sharing of viewpoints ─ an underpinning of classic conflict transformation. The intention of communication was to enable an atmosphere of understanding where members could communicating and come up with ways of solving their homeland conflict, a belief based on the principle “Let us talk means let us reconcile”. More tangible, the group not only aimed at accomplishing join aims,, sharing and exchanging information, but also to share emotional support by communicating the suffering and emotional symptoms at the national level. The paper illustrates how web sites enable members of one Diaspora community to keep in touch with a political situation at home that is exceptional, and to involve themselves in its controversies, should they wish to do so. It also shows how the web site has brought a new dimension to traditional methods of feuding.