How Digital Affordances Shape Dialogue Facilitation: Evidence From the Georgian-Abkhaz Dialogue Process

Abstract

Scholarship on the digitalization of dialogue facilitation often defaults to binary comparisons between virtual and in-person modalities rather than underlying digital affordances. This tendency obscures how digital technologies operate under modalities, limiting theory and masking context-dependent variation. To address this problem, I analyzed how digital technology affordances shaped a Georgian-Abkhaz dialogue initiative that transitioned from in-person to virtual formats during the COVID-19 period. Using a deductive-inductive design, I first applied a framework to map digital affordances across modalities, then traced how shifts in perceived affordances characterized virtual facilitation post-transition. Findings based on 19 semi-structured interviews and project documentation indicated that, while digital affordances shaped both modalities, they enabled new functions such as message testing, emotion regulation, and counter-messaging during virtual facilitation. Correspondingly, digital affordances expanded facilitators’ understanding of dialogue space, introduced new participatory dynamics, and alleviated concerns regarding narrative transformation. However, limitations around social proximity and digital infrastructure remained.