Theme Leaders
The research carried out under theme 6 will mainly address the following topics:
- (Social) media, political instability, and conflict. The proliferation of user-generated content in social media could promote better coordination and help citizens to organise protests, but could also allow a better interaction between citizens and politicians. More research is needed to understand the implication of these evolutions for conflict.
- Media and ethnic conflict. Social media rewards identification and connection within a group, but this can be at the expense of intergroup cohesion, with tangible impact on ethnic conflict.
- Conflict dynamics and social media: recruitment, military technology, and conflict diffusion. The key question here is whether the unprecedented real-time connection between citizens with various common interests across the world facilitates the spread of violent ideas and the recruitment of people for armed groups.
- (Social) media, fear, and the economic cost of conflict. The fear of exposure to violent events often triggers changes in the behaviour of economic agents even before or without any manifestation of violence. This in turn can affect the overall cost of conflict.
- Social media, demobilisation of fighters, and peace. Social media have a role in promoting post-conflict peace and reconciliation and avoiding the spirals of recurrent violence, with the promotion of demobilisation for instance.
- Big data, artificial intelligence and conflict forecasting. The insights and techniques of the economics of the media, have traditionally been pioneering the use of big data, artificial intelligence and natural language processing. This will help for forecasting conflict risks.