Silenced voices: social media polarization and women's marginalization in peacebuilding during the Northern Ethiopia War

TL;DR

This study explores how social media influences conflict and women's participation in peacebuilding during the Northern Ethiopia War, highlighting the weaponization of social media and its disproportionate impact on women.

Contribution

It advances understanding of social media's role in conflict, integrating social identity, feminist, and intersectionality theories to analyze gendered impacts in digital peacebuilding.

Findings

Social media weaponization intensifies polarization and violence.

Women face displacement, exclusion, and gender-based violence.

Gaps exist in leveraging digital platforms for sustainable peace.

Abstract

This study examines the complex relationship between social media, polarization, and conflict, with a focus on digital peacebuilding and women's participation, using the Northern Ethiopia War as a case study. Using a qualitative exploratory design through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and document analysis, the research examines how social media platforms influence conflict dynamics. The study applies and advances social identity, liberal feminist, and intersectionality theories to analyze social media's role in shaping conflict, mobilizing ethnic politics, and influencing women's involvement in peacebuilding. Findings reveal that the weaponization of social media intensifies polarization and offline violence. Women are disproportionately impacted through displacement, exclusion from peace negotiations, and heightened risks of gender-based violence, including rape. Contributing factors include hostile online environments, the digital divide, and prevailing socio-cultural norms. The study identifies significant gaps in leveraging digital platforms for sustainable peace, including government-imposed internet shutdowns, unregulated social media environments, and low media literacy. It recommends media literacy initiatives, inclusive peacebuilding frameworks, open and safe digital spaces, and gender-sensitive technological approaches. By centering digital technology, conflict, and gender in the Global South, this research contributes valuable insights to ongoing debates on ICT in conflict, peacebuilding, and women's empowerment.