Between Conflict and Cohesion: Digital Media, Peacebuilding and Social Cohesion in Nepal

Abstract

Digital media has become a central arena in which post-conflict societies negotiate grievance, identity, and collective belonging. Yet scholarship remains divided between accounts that treat social media as an accelerator of polarization and misinformation and accounts that emphasize its capacity for dialogue, voice, and peacebuilding. This article examines that tension in Nepal, a post-conflict democracy where rapid digital uptake has coincided with renewed concern about misinformation, hate speech, and expressive insecurity. Drawing on a cross-sectional survey of Nepali digital media users, the study analyzes 310 cleaned responses and estimates HC3 robust ordinary least squares models for two outcomes: perceived peacebuilding and social cohesion potential, and perceived conflict risk. Results show that respondents simultaneously report high concern about conflict risks and substantial belief in the peacebuilding value of digital media. Conflict-risk perception is positively associated with perceived peacebuilding potential (B = .175, p = .020), while verification efficacy is a consistent positive predictor of both peacebuilding potential (B = .224, p < .001) and conflict-risk perception (B = .301, p < .001). Perceived expressive unsafety is negatively associated with peacebuilding potential (B = -.113, p < .001), whereas avoiding comments because of online attacks predicts higher conflict-risk perception (B = .120, p = .001). Issue-following frequency, daily media time, and age also predict conflict-risk perception. The findings advance a conditional account of digital peacebuilding: online spaces may support social cohesion when users possess verification capacity and experience communicative safety, but their peacebuilding promise is undermined when digital participation becomes hostile, misinformed, or silencing. The article contributes Nepal-based quantitative evidence to debates on digital peacebuilding, social cohesion, and information disorder in fragile democratic settings.