The Media Frames The Discourse: De Facto State Development, Nagorno-Karabakh, And The Vardenis-Martakert Highway

The strategic use of discourse facilitates transboundary connections between states and their diasporas. Discourses are especially important where remittances from diasporas can influence conflicts and unstable geopolitical grey zones, like de facto states. Nagorno-Karabakh is an ethnically Armenian de facto state that has claimed independence from Azerbaijan but is not recognized by the international community. The Vardenis-Martakert infrastructure project is just the second highway connection between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and has economic and military implications in this volatile region. The media reporting about this project is illustrative of how home state-diaspora communication securitizes fear and (re)imagines geographies in the absence of spatial contiguity. Whereas the study of media discourses has predominately focused on western mainstream news outlets and their representations), this study focuses on Armenian ethnic media and their particular narratives and rhetoric used to describe imagined geographies and ontological insecurities for extra-territorial ethnic communities. Based upon this analysis it can be concluded that ethnic media sources reimagine the geopolitical landscape, use post-conflict discursive strategies that highlight economic development as a path towards recognition, and avoid well documented aggressive "othering" strategies.