No Borders Here

A journalist in Armenia and an activist in Azerbaijan use new media to breach the region’s information barrier. A Transitions Online podcast for http://www.oneworld.am/diversity. By Onnik Krikorian With the conflict in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh still unresolved, blogs and social networks offer new possibilities for dialogue across a cease-fire line in place since 1994. Other online tools offer immediate audio and video communication between the two countries, free from monitoring or interception. If adopted as general practice by journalists and activists, such tools could represent a revolution in cross-border cooperation. [...] Krikorian interviewed Arzu Geybullayeva, an Azerbaijani political and regional analyst, about her work on civil society, women’s, and cross-border issues using new media tools. It was a rare direct conversation between Yerevan and Baku, conducted with the voice-over-Internet Skype.