Over the course of 2019, I contemplated and ultimately engaged in planning the multi-volume series Emerging Trends in Conflict Management. Conflict constitutes a ubiquitous phenomenon reflected in human interactions at the interpersonal, intragroup, intergroup, and societal levels. Notwithstanding the omnipresence of conflicts, the approaches, strategies, and tactics for engaging discord manifests in wide variations due to global and local developments and specific contextual adaptations. The

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... petus for embarking on this project stemmed from vivid, vicarious, and lived experiences of mounting diversification of organizations and communities in most parts of the world as a result of globalization and migration trends. These developments have led to an exacerbation of existing or emerging intergroup tensions and social divisions. Diversity and intergroup tensions enhance the scope and depth of societal, organizational, and community conflicts. Adding to these intricate transitions are unprecedented developments in technology and the prevailing use of social media that have turned conflict management at the societal, organizational, and community levels into a highly perplexing endeavor. Hence, I was delighted that Jessica Katz Jameson, an accomplished and highly engaged scholar and practitioner of conflict and communication, accepted my invitation to edit a volume she titled Contemporary Trends in Conflict and Communication: Technology and Social Media. Missy F. Hannah, a specialist in social media marketing, rhetoric, and activism, later joined as co-editor. The first volume of Emerging Trends in Conflict Management addresses the interface of conflict with technology and social media, and engages with the precarious developments of increased polarization, impeding the capacity of diverse parties to maintain constructive conflict communication. The designated culprits exacerbating this intricacy were those using digital technology, especially social media. At the same time, the latter has also advanced platforms that are potentially capable of promoting communication and advance cooperation in a variety of family, organizational, and community contexts. Jameson, Hannah, and the authors who have contributed to Contemporary Trends in Conflict and Communication: Technology and Social Media explore such a duality through their research and practical experiences. As relayed in the introduction, shortly after sending the call for chapters, the book editors along with most of the world faced the outbreak of COVID-19, where we consequently shifted primarily to online communication to engage with disputes, while retaining some of its components "offline." Thus, conflict management has gradually moved to "hybrid" frameworksa mixture of online and physical, face-toface interactions. The book chapters present and discuss the emerging insights and practical lessons with regard to such continuing transformations in conflict resolution training, practice, and future theoretical development. Jameson, Hannah, and the authors also share their online experiences with current events (such as increased social protests around the globe).