Abstract

This paper looks at migrant communities all over the world and the way they utilise the affordances of social media platforms to stay connected with family back home, build community and retain culture. Drawing upon two ethnographic studies from migrants seeking asylum in Germany and the Netherlands, the paper analyses to what extent social media platforms have helped migrants bridge geographic and spatial boundaries. The discussion concludes that social media has mitigated the physical and geographic separation of people through digital proximity. Affordances such as pervasive awareness and persistent contact create modalities of communication for migrants that transcend borders and create a digital togetherness, where diasporic experiences are shared and negotiated.

 

Introduction

The globalised society we live in today is built upon flows of migration which creates more fluid communities both on local and international levels. These diasporas may live for extended periods away from family and their original source communities. Marshall McLuhan foresaw the emergence of a society that would not be restricted by spatiality (McLuhan, 2017). The development of networked technologies has resulted in a much smaller world, collapsing time and space. The full potential of which is constrained now largely by political and religious power and controlled borders of statehood. The devices and platforms that exist within this eco system provide opportunities for staying engaged with home community as well as commitment to new and existing social and community groups like never before (Hampton, 2015).

A networked tool that has become pervasive and influential in constructing the virtual spaces where interaction and community building takes place are social media platforms. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have created environments for the exchange of information and relationship building, whilst transcending both temporal and spatial boundaries (Ponzanesi, 2020). Furthermore, they have been an important tool for the maintenance and development of these communities, creating networked relationships which allows them to retain a level of connection despite geographic boundaries. Networked relationships refer to the connections that are formed and maintained in online spaces, through the use of networked technologies (Wellman, 2012). In this essay, I argue that social media platforms have become an essential tool for global migrant communities to stay connected and support each other. Whilst political narratives – legitimate and illegitimate, have also invaded these platforms and led to public calls for controls and censorship to be increased, the duality of good and bad must be balanced. This paper focuses on the positive contribution of these platforms for connecting an empowering individuals who have left their physical communities and spaces, needing to connect others with shared experiences and integrate into communities with different cultural beliefs and politics.

 

Background

It has been argued that traditionally, communities have assisted to form and maintain themselves utilising what has been described as a ‘third place’ (Butler et al, 2017). This includes physical locations or place-based spaces such as cafe’s, bars and other culturally significant meeting locations. The third place is a concept proposed by Ray Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1999). The term refers to neutral social landmarks between home and office where people go to meet each other and form social connections. In his study, Oldenburg revealed a set of characteristics that define what makes up a third place. Those are: neutral ground, leveler, conversation, accessibility and accommodation, regulars, low profile, playful mood, and home away from home (Oldenburg, 1999). These characteristics were identified by Oldenberg as the most important foundational features of place based meeting spaces that were also third spaces. In today’s cosmopolitan societies, communities have now expanded far beyond the localised neighbourhood and become an amalgamation of virtual diasporas and friendships across many different borders (Wellman et al., 2006). Since the Second World War, transnational migration and international mobility has been a major feature afforded by the liberal national order that has dominated the west over the last two decades (Money, 2021). This mobility has freed people from the close-knit bonds of traditional community and allowed them to find work, support and opportunities in larger, more distributed networks (Hampton, 2015). With this trend comes increased isolation and less support for individuals and families.

 

Networked technologies, pervasive contact and awareness

Virtual spaces play an increasingly important role in maintaining the bonds formed across these sparse and geographically distributed networks, helping individuals overcome the large distances that separate their communities (Hampton and Wellman, 2003). In order to fully appreciate how and why social media has been successful in supporting these distributed global communities, it is useful to examine their design affordances. Affordances are a way of understanding the social dynamic between the user and the architecture of a given platform. This perspective helps understand how new media platforms can govern the way users communicate (Boyd, 2011). Two key affordances used by social media platforms is what scholars describe as ambient awareness and pervasive contact (Hampton, 2015). Pervasive awareness is the way platforms present the knowledge of interests, location, opinions and activities of one’s social contacts and ties (Hampton, 2015). It’s a simultaneous two way dynamic that involves both broadcasting ones own views and interests via communications and monitoring content created by others that attracts us (Hampton, 2015). Using this strategy, individuals connected to the network can provide a sense of availability to other users in the network. Persistent contact allows users to maintain contact over time and space, signalling their commitment to a given social, cultural group (Hampton, 2015). This persistence and ambient pervasive awareness has the potential to link lives across borders and facilitate contact that “mirrors” normal family functions. In a physical family setting the individual is engaged differently in what is going across time within the family group but the shared physical space creates that sense of others being ‘available’ if needed. Social media creates the sense of not being alone if other group members are active or posting around the clock – there is always somebody home! For many people, including migrant diaspora communities, they use virtual spaces just like third places (Markiewicz, 2019). This is in response to the ruptured family ties and displacement faced by individuals all over the globe that have been removed from their culture and community as a result of globalisation. In these cases, virtual spaces have the capacity to act as virtual third space that is accessible, contactable and somewhere for them to be vulnerable and authentic.

 

Case Study Analysis

Migrants frequently use social media to create and participate in communities to retain connection with their homeland and also to make new relations in their host countries. This is done through using a suite of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp (Ponzanesi, 2020). In order to illustrate how these social media platforms can bridge communities and mediate a feeling of togetherness, a set of specific users has been identified. Donya Alinejad’s ethnographic analysis of Turkish-Dutch migrants provides and insight into how long social media platforms shape transnational relationships for this particular community (Alinejad, 2019). The research was focused on the social media platforms and the mobile use practices of Turkish-Dutch migrant participants. In family relationships, it was found that communicating with family through social media produces experiences of intimacy. Participants used platforms that allowed for intensive messaging such as WhatsApp and Facebook to communicate with members of their family and friends back home. It was found that they used different platforms for different reasons. WhatsApp was used to transmit communication to family quickly outside the workplace as their busy work schedules left few openings for transnationally “doing family” online. Facebook was used predominantly to stay in touch with friends and acquaintances. Alinejad (2019) defines this as a ‘careful’ mode of communication, which creates a level of mediated co-presence for family members between the Netherlands and Turkey. This project challenges the dynamics of mediation and highlights the importance of social media platforms in providing a channel of constant and immediate communication for diaspora communities.

Beyond maintaining established familial and friendship relationships, migrant communities also use social media platforms to keep up with their native culture and strengthen ethnic ties. This helps to preserve ethnicity under threat and prevent becoming isolated (Ponzanesi, 2020). Examples of this can be seen in a case study conducted by Saskia Witteborn who interviewed African migrants living in Munich, Germany. One of the participants, Aisha, said she used Facebook to find events in Munich for people from African backgrounds (Witteborn, 2015). Facebook connected her and members of the African diaspora to urban life in Germany. Social media enabled her to move beyond the isolation experienced by many migrants and reconnect with her culture through music events. It created a new way of expanding existing networks and for many was the only way of meeting new people due to the isolated nature of shared accommodations and limited financial means. Aisha presented herself as a mother, friend and woman who was open to connection and responsive to engagement online. Relating to others in the African diaspora community via social media became second nature to Aisha and was part of the process that revived her culture abroad and maintain cultural roots (Witteborn, 2015). These connections can then be transferred to the physical space by meeting up at music festivals an connections become more concrete in building actual communities and friendship groups in the new country. These groups also share important information about safety and security and commercial information such as where to get your car serviced of hair cuts by expatriates of ones own country.

It could be argued that the social media platform in these examples also operated as a third-place online akin to Oldenburg’s (1999) concept. For Aisha in the example the virtual space indeed met the following characteristics from Oldenburg’s 199 criteria ‘neutral ground, leveler, conversation, accessibility and regulars, low profile, playful mood, and home away from home’ because it provided a place she could find others with shared life experiences, culture and language.

These examples show how social media allows for the creation of a virtual space that serves as a bridge not only to homeland communities, but also to other diasporic communities within their host country. In this sense, digital media reinforces the diaspora community through practices and connectivity with the homeland that were not possible before (Hegde, 2016). It’s important to note that social media isn’t a perfect replacement for the physical connection non displaced communities experience, migrants and refugees still experience a disjuncture despite their new connectedness. In many cases, diaspora can be seen as the ‘margins of the state’, looking at the practices of different migrant communities online offers us an insight into the ‘ways in which the conceptual boundaries of the state are extended and remade in the image of networked technology.

 

Conclusion

We live in a world of increased voluntary transnational movement (migration) as well as involuntary displacement of people due to war or persecution. This was interrupted in a significant way by the pandemic, but already the world is opening up again to enable economies and commerce to thrive. The essay has argued that social media platforms such as Facebook have become an essential tool for global diaspora communities to mobilise, empower and build capacity. New digital technologies have transformed the speed and level of connectivity that can be achieved between individuals.

The experience of migration and the distance experienced by migrants has been reshaped and mediated in new ways thanks to the speed and connectivity provided by new and emerging digital technologies. It has been shown that geographic distance no longer breaks down the connection between communities like it was once able to. Networked technology and the social media platforms that they host, have the ability to collapse time and space, creating a bridge of digital proximity for users in the network. People located in the global south and global north are able to utilise these affordances to their full extent via social media platforms. In the case studies discussed above, it’s been shown that these technologies and platforms have reshaped the way communities are constructed and sustained across vast geographic distances and also local urban or regional centres. New connections are created across many different networks which allow diaspora communities to maintain ties with their homeland, whilst also forming new relationships in their host country. This challenges the old idea of diaspora facing unrepairable displacement when migrating abroad.

 

Bibliography

Butler, S. M., & Diaz, C. (2017, August 22). “third places” as community builders. Brookings. Retrieved April 3, 2022, from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/09/14/third-places-as-community-builders/

Hampton, K. N. (2015). Persistent and pervasive community. American Behavioral Scientist, 60(1), 101–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764215601714

Money J. (2021). Globalization, international mobility and the liberal international order. ` International affairs, 97(5), 1559–1577. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiab118

Ponzanesi, S (2020). Digital Diasporas: Postcoloniality, Media and Affect. Interventions. 22. 1-17. 10.1080/1369801X.2020.1718537.

McLuhan, M. (2017). The medium is the message. Communication Theory, 390–402. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315080918-31 Oldenburg, R. (1999). The Great Good Place. The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0353-0636-1/22

Wellman, B., Quan-Haase, A., Boase, J., Chen, W., Hampton, K., Díaz, I., & Miyata, K. (2006). The social affordances of the internet for networked individualism. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2003.tb00216.x

Witteborn, S. (2015). Becoming (IM)perceptible: Forced migrants and virtual practice. Journal of Refugee Studies, 28(3), 350–367. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feu036

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 thoughts on “Social Media: Keeping Global Diaspora Communities Connected

  1. Jennifer Thomas says:

    Hi Michael
    Hope you are recovering well from Covid, I had it a week or so ago, it does hit hard and fast, I thankfully did not have it overly bad.
    Just read your paper, and well written, I could relate to it as I immigrated over from the USA over 40 years ago, when of course there was nothing more than a letter written or a telephone call, social media have opened up those borders to definately keep people up to date with family and cultures that they had and can continue to have if they want.
    I unfortunately lost my mother before social media built the strength and have lost alot of familiar things due to it. My only thought is that most social media is free but it is the devices that have to be found both sides to hold the social media and the cost of it, how do people that migrate or immigrate achieve this easily?
    Jennifer

  2. Andrea Dodo-Balu says:

    Good to see your paper posted Michael. Do you think social media has the potential to connect diasporic communities, now living in different countries, as a global community?
    Andrea

  3. Isaac Walker says:

    Hi Michael,

    This is such an interesting topic with so much that can be said about it. With only 2000 words to write about it, I imagine you weren’t able to explore some areas more. Do you think there are unique challenges that global online diaspora communities face? Jennifer above mentioned the topic of accessibility (the cost of technology and internet), and I wonder also whether linguistics becomes a barrier (especially for example if migrant parents choose to raise their children with English as a first language, then communicating with a grandmother or aunts or cousins back home), and whether social media platform are actually translated into their language? (I know Facebook is one of the leaders, translated into 100+ languages, but that still leaves out many languages. For example it took until 2016 for Facebook to add Maltese and Corsican, both EU languages, ).

  4. Martha Mutsotso says:

    Hie Michael.

    Interesting paper there, and yes I can relate very well to your paper as I just migrated from Africa a few months ago, social media has been helping me to deal with nostalgia, it helps me keep in touch with my family back home as well as connecting with other Africans here. I agree with the idea that social media platforms have bridged the bridge between continents and places and creates proximity. The world has largely become a global village because of digital media and communities are far more than just traditional ones. There are virtual communities in different platforms which are created to help the migrants in diaspora. and yes I would want to agree with Isaac and Jenifer that in as much as it helps in connecting people in different places, there are challenges that comes with it which includes, costs and language barriers. Many migrants find it very difficult to have their kids connected to the other families back home due to language barries. I suppose thats another kind of limitation of virtual communities.
    You can also interact with my paper on https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2022/ioa/956/social-media-pla…smatter-movement/ ‎, I hope you will enjoy it.

  5. Cohen Aitken-Gomes says:

    Hello Michael.

    Really enjoyed this read, as I have family in England, India and Portugal, social media has been an excellent way to experience the nostalgia of being back in those areas. Especially during such a testing time in the world, countries succumbing to the environmental and economical effects COVID-19, halting the ability to travel and see communities face to face.
    I too covered ambient awareness and pervasive contact in my paper, such interesting affordances to acknowledge as a social media user.
    I also really liked the passage surrounding the phrase ‘ there is always somebody home!’. Although you may not be physically next to the individual or group, you can see posts, see active users and communication is a message away. Not even needing to engage, you are subconsciously connected through social media at all times, keeping community vast, alive and well.
    Does social media hold all the cards when it comes to diaspora community communication? Or sometimes I do wonder, with COVID 19 becoming more and more controlled and understood, will some diasporic communities be more inclined to return to their homeland to avoid further restrictions and being separated?

    Kind regards,
    Cohen.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>