How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration

Dekker, Rianne; Engbersen, Godfríed

doi:10.1111/glob.12040

Cited by 444 publications

(307 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…To conclude, our data partially support Dekker and Engbersen's (2012) claim that social media are not only new communication channels, but also transform migrant networks and lower the threshold for migration. However, as Komito (2011) cautiously points out, it is too early to estimate the impact that social media will have on the migration process, since many additional factors have to be taken into account, such as length of stay in the host society and commitment to remaining in the host society or to moving to new areas.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

New media, social capital and transnational migration: Slovaks in the UK

Lášticová

2014

Human Affairs

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This paper investigates Slovak migrants' use of new media to build social capital. It draws on data from a pilot study with 36 Slovaks living in the UK, and on content analysis of the main Facebook page for Czechs and Slovaks in the UK. The data suggest that Facebook is used for sharing emotions rather than to build a community and share practical information. While Facebook and Skype are used to maintain preexisting strong ties in the country of origin, face-to-face contact and mobile phones are used to maintain ties within the UK. However, social media do not seem to facilitate the formation of weak ties prior to migration, with face-to-face contact being dominant upon arrival. Transnational migration experience forms a separate dimension within the participants' identity, independent from social capital. The data are discussed in relation to findings from previous studies about Slovak migrants in the Republic of Ireland.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

New media, social capital and transnational migration: Slovaks in the UK

Lášticová

2014

Human Affairs

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“…The greater ease of communication afforded by cell phones and Skype (Dekker and Engbersen, 2012), not to mention cheap flights (Williams and Baláž, 2009), should also result in a rich web of transnational ties, providing information and social and economic support to the potential migrant (Kalter, 2011). This in turn enables straightforward exchange of remittances for family members strewn across borders, as well as the easier maintenance of transnational family and caring responsibilities, thereby encouraging the cumulative causation central to the new economics of labour migration framework.…”

Section: Ease Of Movement: Diversity Of Migration Motivations and DIVmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migrant Diversity, Migration Motivations and Early Integration: The Case of Poles in Germany, the Netherlands, London and Dublin

2014

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The expansion of the European Union eastwards in 2004, with an ensuing massive increase in East-West migration from the accession countries has been represented as a new migration system of a kind unique in recent migration history, with its specific features of rights of movement and low mobility and information costs accompanying persistent East-West wage differentials. In principle, it provides an ideal context in which to develop understandings of the 'new migration' reflecting complex motivations and migration trajectories as well as chain migration and transnational lives. Despite a rapid expansion of research in this area, new insights into the complexities of mixed migration motivations and migrant heterogeneity have tended to be focused on country-specific qualitative studies.In this paper we utilise a unique, four-country data source covering over 3,500 Poles migrating to Germany, the Netherlands, London and Dublin in 2009-2010, to enable the quantitative characterization of the new migration. Exploiting information on pre-migration experience as well as expressed migration motivations and post-migration structural, subjective and social measures of integration in the receiving country, we conduct a three-stage analysis. First we employ latent class analysis to allocate the migrants to six migrant types. Second, we link these migrant types to pre-migration characteristics and estimate multinomial logit models for class membership. Third, controlling for these pre-migration characteristics we are able to explore how the migrant types are associated with measures of integration.We reveal substantial heterogeneity among migrants and some evolving 'new' migrant types alongside more traditional labour migrants. We show how these types are associated with differences in pre-migration human capital, region of origin and employment experience and with post-migration social and subjective integration in receiving societies.

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“…However, digital technologies can help migrants to circumvent the movements of state and non-state actors. Social media can, for instance, provide crucial opportunities and information in regards to how to cross territorial borders safely, enables connections to people who can help to organize migratory routes, to find loopholes through the often opaque procedures and to re-unite with friends and family or to connect to acquaintances who can provide necessary insider knowledge (Dekker & Engbersen, 2012;Witteborn, 2015). Access to an overload of ever-changing information can, however, also be overwhelming, as it is sometimes difficult to distinguish right from false information (Frouws, Phillips, Hassan, & Twigt, 2016;Gillespie et al, 2016).…”

Section: Situating the Forced Yet Connected Migrants Beyond Journeysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Editorial: Connecting (Forced) Migration and Media Studies

Twigt¹,

Mangalousi

2018

for(e)dialogue

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This Special Issue on (Forced) Migration and Media is the result of two workshops organised at the University of Leicester: a workshop on (Forced) Migration and Media-research that took place on the 13th of June 2016 and a Community Impact event that was organised on the 18th of July, 2016. These workshops were a response to the topical interest for refugees’ access to digital technology and the dehumanizing language used in, especially but not limited to British, media regarding migrants and/or refugees (Berry, Garcia-Blanco, & Moore, 2015). (Forced) was purposefully bracketed as the label ‘refugee’ has its own difficulties. The differentiation between economic and forced migrants for instance negates that reasons behind migration are often multi-causal and multi-layered. It reinforces thinking in dichotomies that homogenizes and tends to negate in-between complexities, as is often appropriated as a governing tool to victimize, exclude and curtail the rights of human beings (Crawley & Skleparis, 2017; Lindley, 2010; Zetter, 2007). In this editorial, we reflect upon the main outcomes of the workshop we and other PhD-colleagues organised on the 13th of June, 2016, and connect them to the articles within this Special Issue.

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How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration

Cited by 444 publications

References 38 publications

New media, social capital and transnational migration: Slovaks in the UK

New media, social capital and transnational migration: Slovaks in the UK

Migrant Diversity, Migration Motivations and Early Integration: The Case of Poles in Germany, the Netherlands, London and Dublin

Editorial: Connecting (Forced) Migration and Media Studies

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