The role of cyber space in transforming conflict paradigm

Abstract

The tidal waves of the world migrant crisis are still crashing onto European shores. Millions of people start from Asian and African continents towards the European states that they perceive as salvation for themselves and their families. Their movement along the pathway is to a considerable extent alleviated by new information technologies, most of all, mobile phones. Thanks to them and especially to the users’ networking, it is possible to provide for an exceptionally fast delivery of information about the state and the challenges awaiting these desperate people on the way ahead. The contemporary migrant flows are constrained by the space-time dimension since it is in this way that the process of movement is managed in a communication-skilled way. The emphasis is on permanent communication among actors (by mobile phones and GPS tracking), financial logistics (by foreign currency transfers through certain banks that keep track of them during the journey) as well as support from the previous migrants who, by pointing to weak points of the corridor that the migrants are passing through, enable successful networks functioning. The social networks that basically represent modified channels for distribution of contents are at the same time means of forming and publishing information organized through nodes and links. The danger from their abuse is quite real. In the paper the author points to safety challenges brought about by the use of new communication technologies as well as the need for their monitoring.