Modern Communications Technology in Ethnic Nationalist Hands: The Case of the Kurds

Abstract

This article examines the effect of modern media and communications technology on ethnic nationalist resurgence, using the Kurds as a case example. Television, satellite communications, the Internet and easy access to publishing technology now facilitate ethnic nationalist challenges to state hegemony and monopoly of information. Additionally, modern media and communications technology can turn a humiliating defeat into a catalyst for a more unified, stronger, ethnic nationalist movement. Globally broadcast images of such a defeat arouse the passions and indignation of even those people who only nominally identify themselves with the ethnic group in question. At the same time, communications technology such as telephones, faxes and e-mail facilitate the channeling of such indignation into immediate group protest and action which, in turn, strengthens the ethnic identification of action participants.