Even though no chairs can be thrown in online dialogue, discussions can get heated quite quickly and options to deescalate tensions are rather limited. In this article, I reflect on how emotions play out in online dialogues related to conflict contexts.
The use of digital tools for peace mediation and dialogue, which saw a significant upward shift during COVID-19, introduced new dynamics in interpersonal relationships and had an impact on how dialogues are shaped and implemented. One aspect brought about by this shift is the emotional dimension for stakeholders in such settings, especially considering the impersonal nature of digital conversations.
While digital tools helped boost inclusion in some dialogue processes, they left participants talking through and to a screen – often one that doesn’t show any faces with bandwidth limitations prevailing in contexts with poor infrastructure. The lack of visible body language not only limits trust-building but also restricts building a ‘sense’ of the participants sitting on the other side of the “digital table” resulting in minimized communication of feedback on how a discussion is going in real-time which in turn may lead to emotions such as frustrations, disconnect, or angst. This is accompanied by the inability to read the room and getting a feeling for the sentiments that fill it. Without these and the possibility for side-chats, building relationships remained quite challenging. Online dialogue settings are usually also quite choreographed, which lessens chances for spontaneous confrontations in which healthy emotions are expressed and which allow reaching a necessary tipping point to get from discussing positions to centering interests. Interestingly, the (public) chat function was often used for parallel conversations where emotions such as appreciation of, (dis)agreement with statements or empathy towards shared experiences would be expressed and where participants found ways to jokingly comment, sometimes helping to diffuse rising tensions.
New dynamics in virtual settings further emerged out of the inclusion of traditionally more marginalized groups not only in numbers but also in the substance of their engagement: e.g., youth who are usually more digitally literate than their older peers or women, who expressed satisfaction in being able to participate actively and voice their inputs in meetings with high-level officials present, since online meetings took away the challenge of finding time to travel to meeting sites. At the same time, participants reported fatigue with prolonged hours of “Zoom” calls exacerbated with connectivity issues leaving them feeling disconnected from the process. This has a direct impact on how open participants can be towards engaging in discussions, listening to others, and reaching common ground.
The increasing digitalization has impacted facilitation, style of engagement, and dynamics of dialogue spaces, including the emotional dynamic among participants. The restricted in-person interactions affect the emotional intelligence of participants, diminishing emotional feedback and decreasing options for the building of personal relationships among interlocutors. This being said, peacebuilders should leverage the potential of digital tools to foster positive emotions in dialogue process through, for example, exposing participants to new interlocutors and by extension experiences, and perspectives.
