How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration

Transcription

1 How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration RIANNE DEKKER * AND GODFRIED ENGBERSEN Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands * (corresponding author) r.dekker@fsw.eur.nl engbersen@fsw.eur.nl Abstract We argue that social media are not only new communication channels in migration networks, but also that they actively transform the nature of these networks and thereby facilitate migration. Despite some limitations, which stem from the digital divide and the lower trustworthiness of virtual ties, qualitative data reveal four relevant ways in which social media facilitate international migration. First, they enhance the possibilities of maintaining strong ties with family and friends. Second, they address weak ties that are relevant to organizing the process of migration and integration. Third, they establish a new infrastructure consisting of latent ties. Fourth, they offer a rich source of insider knowledge on migration that is discrete and unofficial. This makes potential migrants streetwise when undertaking migration. Based on these empirical findings we conclude that social media are transforming migration networks and thereby lowering the threshold for migration. Keywords MIGRATION NETWORKS, MIGRANT NETWORKS, SOCIAL TIES, SOCIAL CAPITAL, THE INTERNET, SOCIAL MEDIA For many years, international migration involved a radical detachment from a person s community of origin (Faist 2000). Scholars characterized migrants as uprooted because they severed their everyday social ties. New means of long-distance communication have inherently changed this situation. Early migrants kept in touch with family and friends in their place of origin by sending letters and packages by mail (Thomas and Znaniecki ). More recently, scholars have described how the boom in cheap international telephone calls served as social glue connecting migrants and non-migrants all over the world (Horst 2006; Vertovec 2004). In today s network society, the speed and intensity of information and communication flows have increased considerably and are shaping our everyday lives more and more (Castells 1996; Wellman 2001). In recent years, the internet has developed into a social medium that enables users to be not only mere consumers but also active producers of media content. In addition to serving as personal communication tools, Global Networks 14, 4 (2014) ISSN The Author(s) Global Networks 2013 Global Networks Partnership & John Wiley & Sons Ltd 401

2 Rianne Dekker and Godfried Engbersen social media have become important information distribution channels. This new generation of ICTs is of particular significance for migrants and non-migrants who live geographically dispersed but often remain connected through transnational networks (Kissau 2012; Mahler 2001). The death of distance (Cairncross 1997) is lowering the costs and lessening the risks of migration. Literature is emerging in migration studies to address the possible consequences of online communication for migration processes (Adams Parham 2004; Diminescu 2008; Hiller and Franz 2004; Kissau 2012; Komito 2011; Madianou 2012; Ros 2010; van den Bos and Nell 2006). Most research so far has focused on the internet as a provider of traditional one-to-one communication tools used to maintain social ties. However, social media today have much more to offer. Not only has the medium changed, but so too has the network structure in which communication takes place and the amount and type of information that is accessible. In this article, we ask how the use of online social media by migrants and non-migrants facilitates international migration, as well as how social media affect the functioning of migrant networks. Qualitative data on social media use by migrants and on how this affects their migration strategies reveal four relevant functions of social media in migration networks. We also encountered some limitations to these functions, stemming from digital divides and the lower trustworthiness of virtual ties and information. Overall, we argue that social media are not only new communication channels in migration networks but also that they actively transform the nature of these networks and thereby facilitate migration. Migrant networks, social ties and social media Analysis of migrant networks is crucial to our understanding of the dynamics of contemporary migration (Brettell and Hollifield 2008; Massey et al. 1998; Tilly 1990; Vertovec 2008). Tilly (1990: 84) states that the effective units of migration were (and are) neither individuals nor households but sets of people linked by acquaintance, kinship, and work experience. The sociological literature asserts that these globespanning networks serve to stimulate and perpetuate migration (Massey et al. 1998). Migrants are not mere objects of the macro-processes that steer migration, but subjects who selectively move between different countries (Brettell and Hollifield 2008). Typically, pioneer migrants, driven by factors independent of networks, establish the linkages between sending and receiving contexts. Once the early connections are established, other migrants follow, travelling the beaten paths. Social capital within migrant networks helps to lower the costs and risks that migration entails. Migrants therefore prefer to migrate to places where they already have contacts. Eventually, migrant networks might become the sole reason why people continue to migrate even though other determinants have lost their significance. Once started, migratory movements become self-sustaining. Massey et al. (1998) describe this tendency as cumulative causation, claiming that migration alters the social and economic contexts in which subsequent decisions to migrate are made. A fundamental assumption of the migration network approach is that a multi The Author(s)

3 How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration directional flow of information and resources forms the basis of every migratory process, for example information about what to expect on arrival and on how to organize the journey. Migrants obtain this information through accessing the social capital that the networks provide. Bourdieu (1985: 248) defines social capital as the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition. Most migration scholars understand these networks as consisting of a set of strong ties (Granovetter 1973) based on kinship, friendship, or a shared community of origin that connects migrants and non-migrants (Massey et al. 1998). The international migration literature shows that traditional networks are still important to our understanding of the nature and direction of specific migration flows (Faist 1997). However, many people do not belong to traditional, closely-knit, tightly bounded communities, but instead move in and out of loose, frequently changing networks (Wellman 1999: 96); ties within such networks are generally weak. For gathering new information and resources an important task for potential migrants weak ties are often more valuable than strong ones (Granovetter 1973: 1364). Weak ties link social groups that possess different pools of information. In many situations, these ties are more useful than strong ties because in the latter case, the two individual networks will largely overlap and contain no new information or resources. Granovetter s hypothesis of the strength of weak ties is adopted in the distinction between bonding and bridging social capital (Putnam 2000). While bonding social capital refers to the value of networks for homogeneous groups, bridging social capital serves to increase the society-wide spread of information and innovative ideas. In this research, we consider the effects of social media on the maintenance of strong and weak ties in migrant networks and go beyond the (social) media that facilitate transnational family relations, which has been researched extensively (Madianou 2012; Nedelcu 2009; Parreñas 2005; Wilding 2006). Social media have created a deterritorialized social space that facilitates communication among geographically dispersed people in migrant networks. Through internet applications, the users of the social media primarily generate their content. The concept of social media thus refers not only to social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook, but also to forums, weblogs, YouTube, Twitter, and so on. In fact, to a certain extent many online applications have become social media because they allow user contributions and are useful for networking purposes. In this research, we conceptualize social media as online applications containing user-generated content, which are part of an open (or semi-open) network infrastructure enabling social networking. Whereas social network sites primarily revolve around people, other social media applications focus on communities of interest (Boyd and Ellison 2008: 219; Haythornthwaite 2005: 140; Wellman 2001). Every medium comes with certain social affordances. For many years, communication in migrant networks depended on mail. This communication was asynchronous because the sender dispatched the message days or even weeks before the recipient got it. An affordance of letters is that they not only serve as communication bearers, but also can be kept and cherished as symbols of long-distance solidarity (Madianou 2013 The Author(s) 403

4 Rianne Dekker and Godfried Engbersen and Miller 2012; Thomas and Znaniecki ). Because people can tape over and reuse audio cassettes repeatedly, they are both more useful than letters for illiterate people and carry the emotional immediacy of the spoken voice (Madianou and Miller 2012). Communication via telephone is synchronous and offers interactivity and simultaneity (de Sola Pool 1977). Texting is less direct and elaborate than calling. The internet initially provided the possibilities of , VoIP calls and instant messaging. These forms of communication digitalized earlier ones, making them more synchronous, less expensive, media richer and more frequent. As the internet evolved as a social medium, it allowed communications to become more widespread and less one to one. Social media make it possible to access a wider range of individuals with whom we have weak, or even no, ties (Haythornthwaite 2002; Miyata et al. 2005). Social network sites organized through acquaintance and social media organized around communities of interest converge and overlap. Therefore, in contrast to traditional mass media and communication media, social media can serve to bridge activities: the telephone might be a more intimate way of interacting with old friends but it is not nearly as effective in developing new relationships as the computer (Hiller and Franz 2004: 743). Via social media, people can look up people with whom they have lost contact and reconnect with them (Ellison et al. 2007; Hiller and Franz 2004). Furthermore, social media create an infrastructure of latent ties (ones that exist technically but have not yet been activated) and allow weak ties to develop and strengthen (Haythornthwaite 2002: 385). In other words, they lay the groundwork for formerly unacquainted individuals to connect. Through the open structure offered by social media, users can selectively create communities of choice based on interests rather than prior acquaintance (Boyd and Ellison 2008: 219; Haythornthwaite 2005: 140; Wellman 2001). Some form of social interaction between users activates latent ties, namely it converts them from latent to weak ties. Besides resources accessed via personal contacts, some social media are open to everyone, thus creating a public sphere in which to publish information. This information has the advantage of not originating from any authority and of circulating through low-key channels. In addition, it spreads rapidly and offers the latest news (Held et al. 1999). Social media thus constitute a backstage space of realistic information (Goffman 1959). One can conceive of this backstage structure of information as a form of resistance to dominant structures, such as the increasingly restrictive immigration regimes of advanced societies (Broeders and Engbersen 2007; Scott 1990). In migrant networks, for example, information on imminent legislation, informal jobs, accommodation or illegal ways of crossing borders can spread very quickly, thus affecting migrants migration strategies. We can expect social media not only to strengthen a person s ability to migrate, but also to feed his or her aspiration to migrate. However, social media can also provide users with unrealistic or even false information. They may manipulate migrants by offering them non-existent jobs or partners, or ones that are very different from expected. Finally, we should recognize that a digital divide still exists. There are substantial inequalities among (prospective) migrants in terms of their access to social media and in the quality of use The Author(s)

5 How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration Recent studies have shown that social media establish an effective infrastructure for exchanging social capital in migration networks, which brings new opportunities for individual migrants. Hiller and Franz (2004) look at how migrants establish new, retain old and rediscover lost ties in their transnational networks through different phases of migration. Their participation in virtual networks increases their social capital (Portes 1998). Chen and Choi (2011) found that computer mediated social support has become an efficient and valuable supplement to the migrants offline social support. They observe that an increasing number of Chinese migrants in Singapore go online to solicit or offer social support and to exchange information, advice, encouragement, companionship and even tangible assistance. Ye (2006) found that Chinese students in the USA provide valuable online social support to one another. While these online networks are examples of weak ties, the migrants strong ties with people in their home country also provide useful resources for their settlement abroad. We hypothesize that social media strengthen the bonding and bridging capital of migrants, as well as their information position. This may lower the threshold to migrate and it may strengthen a migrant s ability to cope successfully with the adversities of migration. Social media can also have some limitations, especially for those with restricted access to the internet or for those misled by false information. Furthermore, we posit that the functions of social media lead to a rethinking of the literature on international migration and social networks. Potential migrants may become less dependent on the strong ties of traditional migrant networks for organizing the migration journey and for integrating in the destination country. Data and methods We base this article on 90 in-depth interviews with migrants, conducted under the auspices of THEMIS (Theorizing the Evolution of European Migration Systems), a comparative research project designed to address gaps in contemporary theory on migration processes. THEMIS is interested in discovering under what conditions the initial moves of pioneer migrants help (or hinder) the establishment of migration systems. Although THEMIS looks at a wide range of factors that might play a role in migration strategies, in this article we focus solely on that of the social media. Between January and June 2011, experienced research assistants interviewed Brazilian, Ukrainian and Moroccan migrants in the Dutch cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. We found our respondents through immigrant organizations, churches and our own networks. We used snowball sampling to reach more respondents and to penetrate further into the migrant communities. We also used purposive sampling to find people with different background characteristics who might have different stories to tell. The sample included migrants with different migration motives, educational levels and legal statuses. This resulted in a wide range of stories and opinions. Each interview took place in the respondent s home or in a café and lasted for one to one and a half hours. The interviews took place in the respondent s preferred language and were then translated to English and transcribed verbatim The Author(s) 405

6 Rianne Dekker and Godfried Engbersen Because it risks oversampling certain types of respondents, such as those who are most active in the migrant community, snowball sampling is not fully representative. However, there is no evidence of sample bias in the types of media used, for we did not use online media to contact or interview respondents. Our data on media use seem to fit the characteristics of sample in terms of types of media users. Respondents answered questions on private issues, such as the nature of their social ties, without reservation. Moreover, they shared insider knowledge about their strategic use of social media. In our view, the interviews led to valid results that may have broader implications. In the empirical section of this article, we pay particularly attention to the part of the interview that addresses what the respondents knew about their destination and the channels through which they obtained this information. Besides questions about personal migration networks, the interviewers specifically asked what impersonal resources the migrants used to migrate to the Netherlands. Other sections of the semistructured interview addressed the migrant s means of communicating with family and friends in other parts of the world. We coded and analysed the material using NVivo software. In analysing the data, we used several definitive and sensitizing concepts (Blumer 1969: 148), which provided us with some sense of what to look for and where. On the interview excerpts we collected, we conducted subsequent rounds of coding to answer our research questions. We followed an adaptive theory approach, which implies a constant dialogue between theory and empirical data (Layder 1998). Through several rounds of coding, we confronted the data with our preliminary theoretical concepts on the functions of the social media and the role of social networks, and collaboratively formed the new theoretical insights that emerged from the data. We used the data derived from the three groups of immigrants for within-case analysis for the purpose of process tracing and did not treat them as comparative cases (George and Bennett 2005). However, we can draw some preliminary comparative conclusions, which we show in the conclusion of this article. Below, we present the results of our analysis. Effects of social media on migrant networks Our data reveal four relevant functions of social media in migrant networks. The first three deal with the activation and reactivation of social capital in migrant networks. The fourth concerns the information infrastructure the social media created, which offers opportunities to exchange streetwise knowledge on migration. These four functions of social media are effective in different stages of the migratory process (cf. Hiller and Franz 2004). Some respondents report that they consulted social media for assistance or information concerning migration while still living in their country of origin. Others describe how social media facilitated their life in the destination context just after immigrating and during the process of settling in the country of destination. Social media as means of maintaining strong ties help migrants and nonmigrants for many years after migrating. We outline the four functions below. First, we observe that online media play a crucial role in maintaining ties and The Author(s)

7 How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration contacts within geographically dispersed networks of family and friends. Thanks to their synchronous and media-rich nature, online forms of traditional one-to-one communication and social media enable a virtual co-presence. This creates a feeling of intimacy and proximity when communicating with others living thousands of miles away. As Viktor, 21, who came from Ukraine to the Netherlands as a student in 2009, explains: I still have many friends in Ukraine and, regardless of the distance, we can still communicate Skype is amazing. Once there was the birthday of my mate. They were at my friend s apartment drinking beer, so they called me on Skype, put the laptop in the middle of the room and I was drinking beer with them. This technology allows me to spend time with them while I am a couple of thousand kilometres away, so the contact is still very close. Some respondents, such as Beatriz, 45, who migrated from Brazil to the Netherlands to live with her Dutch partner in 2002, claim to maintain closer bonds with people from whom they are geographically separated than they do with some friends who live nearby: My life is very good here, but much of my social life is still in Brazil. Nowadays, 90 per cent of my contacts on the internet, in s or on Facebook are in Brazil. So, in this sense I realize much of my life is still there. I have friends here of course, but it is a different friendship, a more distant relationship. In Brazil, I have closer friendships, people whom I talk with more frequently, via Skype, Facebook or . In short, my friendships from Brazil are closer to me than the ones from the Netherlands, besides my family of course. The ability to afford online media makes it easier for individuals to take the decision to migrate. As Viktor, cited above, put it: If I were to migrate 20 years ago without having this technology, phones and internet, it would probably be far more difficult for me since my bonds with my friends are very close. I have very close friends over there, whom I have known since I was three or four years old. So, it would be difficult for me. I would probably miss them a lot. But, now it is quite easy. I still miss them of course I cannot be close to them and go somewhere together but still we are able to communicate and that is great. Our respondents confirm that new communication technologies have altered the relationships they maintain with geographically separated friends and relatives. One benefit of the social media in migrant networks is their simultaneity; the communication is instantaneous, which is not the case with letters or audio tapes. The content is also more media rich: besides written and spoken communiqués through 2013 The Author(s) 407

8 Rianne Dekker and Godfried Engbersen letters and telephone calls, the communication is often visual as well, as in video chatting or sending pictures and images. These facilities do not completely ameliorate the geographical separation, but long-distance communication has become much more intimate and tangible (for comparable conclusions see Benítez 2012; Madianou and Miller 2012; Parreñas 2005; Wilding 2006). Social media, however, can allow strong ties in the home country to become an intimate part of daily life in the destination country (Brekke 2008; Madianou 2012; Miller 2011). The emotional and social costs of migration are accordingly lessened (Komito 2011), thus lowering the threshold of the decision to migrate. Madianou (2012), in discussing transnational motherhood, likewise concludes that the changing practices of maintaining strong ties transnationally have consequences for the whole experience of migration, thus affecting decisions about settlement and return. Second, social media offer the possibility to revive contact with important weak ties, thereby acquiring bridging social capital. Unlike the traditional one-to-one communication media, this is an inherent feature of social media. As Wellman (1999, 2001) asserts, computerized media are particularly suited to supporting weak ties among loosely bounded, sparsely knit and far-flung networks. For migrants, information on new destinations is more likely to spread through relatively weak connections than through close contacts (Hiller and Franz 2004; King and Wood 2001). Weak ties in destination contexts may function as pioneers to provide new migrants with information or assistance in, for instance, finding housing or employment. For example, social media offer prospects of re-establishing contact with relatives abroad. For example, Ivan, 27, who emigrated from Ukraine in 2009 in search of work, did just that. As he put it: I was not sure which country to go to so I decided that a good first step would be to contact a relative in Belgium a younger cousin of my father, Stepan. I had never met him in person because he migrated years ago but my father told me about him. I searched for him on Vkontakte.ru and found his daughter. They were very happy to hear from me and they sent me an invitation to visit them in Kortrijk [Belgium] so I could apply for a tourist visa. In some cases, these weak ties evolve to become strong ones. As Hamza, 33, who came from Morocco to the Netherlands in 2001 as an irregular migrant, said: I know a lot of young men who use the internet to come to Europe. Sometimes they sit in internet cafés all day long. They use MSN a lot. I never saw them using anything else but times have changed. I think they are also using Facebook and other sites now. There are even popular Arabic songs about this. One song is called Josephine. It is about a young man who meets an older lady on the internet and starts dating her online. After a while, she comes to Morocco on vacation and they eventually marry. I saw this happen when I was still living in Morocco. A friend of mine met a lady on the internet and she came to see him after three months of internet dating. They are still married The Author(s)

9 How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration after ten years and even have children. So, yes, many people are using the internet but I do not know how many succeed. Third, social media have the potential to go beyond already established weak ties and to activate new ones, which are latently available through the structure of the internet as a social medium (Haythornthwaite 2002). By making contact with settled migrants in the destination country, new migrants wish to obtain information about migration and settlement. Lucas, 34, who migrated from Brazil to the Netherlands in 2009 as an irregular labour migrant, spoke of how: At a certain point, I needed to start looking for a job, since I was running out of money. I was still in The Hague, and I did not have any contact with other Brazilians. So, I came to Amsterdam and started to get in touch with Brazilians. [Interviewer: How did you do this, how did you find them?] I started through Orkut. There it says, Brazil Holland. So then, I started sending others an invitation through Orkut and meeting people, one day with one, then with another. Some of our respondents described how total strangers contacted them in their countries of origin for information about migrating to and living in a particular destination country. Douglas, 23, who migrated from Brazil to the Netherlands with his family in 2003, was one such case: Two guys approached me on Orkut and they asked me about the Netherlands. They wanted information. I also heard this once from a friend of mine; he was also approached by strange people. Some people meet up here through online connections. You see that someone else also lives here so you get in touch with him and arrange a meeting. It is an easy thing to do. Everyone can connect. You can see where people live and connect to the people who live in, say, the Netherlands. Gustavo, 46, who migrated from Brazil to study in the Netherlands in 1986, spoke of how I receive s because I have worked for this magazine. I have a message from a lady who just got married with a Dutchman and she is asking me about legal documents. I try to answer with what I know. Our respondents said that, in some cases, they were happy to help, so altruistic and instrumental motives played a role (Portes 1998). If assistance comes from altruistic motives, weak ties sometimes develop into strong ones. In other cases, our respondents might fail to respond to a request or turn it down by advising the person not to migrate. As Böcker (1994) terms it, they acted as gatekeepers. Finally, the internet as a social medium functions as an open information source. Beer and Burrows (2007) and Keen (2007) claim that it democratizes knowledge, while Kissau (2012) and Nedelcu (2012) mention its importance to migrant networks because it allows people to collect information about the destination country. Social 2013 The Author(s) 409

10 Rianne Dekker and Godfried Engbersen media not only make information available publicly, but they also offer access to it through discrete, non-institutional sources. Backstage knowledge is available as well as information from official sources. Yevgenia, 30, who moved from Ukraine to the Netherlands in 2005 after meeting and marrying a Dutch partner, describes how she consulted social media as part of the migration process. When I first arrived in the Netherlands, I also went looking on the internet [where] there are some sites from people who migrated here. People have a lot of questions and pose them there. I tried to figure out some things that were new to me here in the Netherlands, so at first I went to those sites a lot. There is a Dutch website made by a Russian lady who has lived in the Netherlands for a long time. Many people visit this site, but also Hyves [a Dutch social network site similar to Facebook]. There are many groups of people who migrated to the Netherlands, so you can sign up for them. Miguel, 36, who migrated from Brazil to the Netherlands in 2009 to work, found in the social networking website Orkut an exchange of information for Brazilians going to the Netherlands (Brasileiros na Holanda) on their rights, the consulate, the language, everything, schools. This information is immensely valuable for all migrants, but especially for (prospective) irregular ones who, because of their illegal status, cannot use the official outlets available to immigrants who want information or assistance in finding a job or a home. Letícia, 46, who migrated from Brazil to the Netherlands in 1989 as a dancer, said I know there is an online group Brasileiros na Holanda. Sometimes people ask there where they can stay or where they can go. They are discrete in a way [in that] they do not ask whether I am legal for example. Ivan, 27, who came from Ukraine to the Netherlands in 2009 as an irregular labour migrant, mentioned how he looked up certain farms looking for seasonal workers on the internet, and went there to check it out. I found a job pretty quickly a few farms rejected me because I did not have a work permit, but one agreed to hire me for a few months. The social media can form underground communication networks in which illegal migrants can share information. Some also exchanged such information on mainstream migrant networks, but this was less common and there was a higher risk attached to the exchange of illegal information. Social media do not seem to operate at the expense of offline networks but they are an extension of them, with migrants making strategic use of available communication systems (cf. Miyata et al. 2005). In sum, the social media have established an infrastructure of strong, weak and latent ties, which provide strategic information. This infrastructure has changed the nature of migrant networks and in various ways has made it easier for aspiring migrants to make the move. Social media provide access to assistance or information that was less readily available in pre-existing social networks. In addition, social media facilitate access to bridging capital either before or after migration, which for example consists of information on the labour market, legal conditions or other practical issues concerning migration to or life in the destination country. As Faist The Author(s)

11 How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration (2000: 4) argues, by helping potential migrants weigh up the costs and benefits of migration, this kind of information plays an important role in migration decisionmaking. The limits of social media in facilitating migration We need to take note of some limits to the functions of social media for migrant networks. First, there is a digital divide, meaning that not all people have equal access to social media resources. The attention to a digital divide in the literature initially focused on the inequality of internet access (Norris 2001). More recently, there is an increasing awareness of inequalities in internet use among people with internet access, for example with respect to the ease, effectiveness and quality of use (DiMaggio et al. 2004: 356). In each case, socio-economic status, level of education, urban/rural residence and age can cause significant differences. Many authors have also pointed to the global digital divide in terms of internet penetration and internet use between countries, which largely correlates with the countries income per capita (Chinn and Fairly 2007). The Netherlands is among the countries with the highest internet penetration. Brazil, Ukraine and Morocco have average but rapidly increasing internet access. The proportion of individuals using the internet in the Netherlands was 91 per cent in For Brazil, Morocco and Ukraine this was, respectively, 41, 49 and 45 per cent in 2010 (International Telecommunication Union 2012). Indeed, the use of social media among our respondents differed according age, class, place of residence and gender. Migrants older than 60 or 70 years tend not to use online communication tools as much as the younger generations do. They did not grow up with it and have difficulty learning and keeping track of recent developments. In addition, less well-educated labour migrants tend to possess fewer internet skills than the better-educated ones. These groups rely instead on traditional forms of communication. Tarik, 33, who came from Morocco to the Netherlands in 2005 as an irregular migrant, spoke of how: In 2005, I did not own a computer, and internet was something that only the rich people in Morocco had, so I did not use that. The only knowledge I had about Holland was the information that people gave me my friends and my family who actually lived in this country and, of course, the knowledge that I had acquired in college about the Western world and its democratic systems. Viktoriya, aged 41, who came from Ukraine to the Netherlands in 2001 as an irregular migrant mentioned how she: accidentally came across Facebook or something. I registered, but you know, I can t even make photographs. Only here in the Netherlands I started to learn how to use the computer. All these keys and such; it goes slowly, so I am still very far from mastering it. People write something to me and I can t even answer it. I need to register again but I am not in the mood. As one of my 2013 The Author(s) 411

12 Rianne Dekker and Godfried Engbersen acquaintances said, you don t have to visit anyone anymore to socialize. Everything goes through internet. Why should we spend money calling on the phone? Some, like 29 year-old Vitali who came to the Netherlands from Ukraine in 2006 to work as an irregular labour migrant, started to improve their computer skills in their country of destination and now benefit from that in maintaining ties with their friends and relatives in the country of origin. As Vitali explained: When I have time, I spend it talking with my friends on Odnoklassniki. I also use Vkontakte but not that often. When I came here, I was completely computer illiterate and was not even able to browse the internet properly. Now I feel that I am able to use it better. Whereas many settled immigrants have internet access via personal computers, smart phones or tablets, people in the countries of origin often do not. Some need to go to an internet café in town for that, and they are generally less skilled in using the computer. Yevgenia calls her family almost every day and I Skype with my sister. Not with my parents because they don t know how to work with a computer. I call them two or three times a week. Some migrants told us that they had bought computers for their relatives or friends who remained in their country of origin. They did this mainly to create an easy way to communicate using (video)chat and VoIP. Leysa, 37, who migrated from Ukraine to the Netherlands in 1997 to live with her Dutch husband, mentioned how five years ago I bought a computer for my sister who moved to the city. Now we can call them [our relatives] via the internet, using Skype and previously via this other programme. The question of a divide in the use of social media mostly pertains to the secondlevel digital divide: instead of distinguishing between internet haves and have-nots, it distinguishes people s ability to use these applications for their purposes (Hargittai 2007). Digital literacy is about the equipment, autonomy, skill, support and range of use among people who are already online. We also see cultural preferences in internet use, especially with respect to social networking sites. Dutch people mostly use Facebook, while in Brazil Orkut is popular and in Ukraine people tend to use vkontakte.ru/vk.com for similar purposes. This might create parallel virtual networks that only rarely overlap. The migrant networks accessed via social media do not necessarily represent social capital: what matters is the individual s ability to utilize the resources they offer (Portes 1998). Moreover, social media can contain a number of pitfalls. First, resources offered through social media cannot always be trusted. For instance, they may paint an unrealistically rosy picture. Luiz, 41, came from Brazil to the Netherlands in 2001 to marry a Dutch partner: what I see a lot is that Brazilians put all their photos on Facebook or Orkut, so there is this image that life in the Netherlands is very pleasurable and nice. It spreads a wrong idea of what it is to be here. There are also instances of outright deceit. Felipe, 43, a Brazilian preacher who arrived in the Netherlands in 1996, told us that: The Author(s)

13 How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration There are people who get totally misled. A friend of mine and I made a song about this called The song of the cyberdude. It is about a guy who introduces himself on the social network sites as an engineer, and then in the song it becomes clear that actually he is nothing but a cleaner. It is a joke. The guy comes to Brazil, gives a woman presents, shows her that he has money. When she gets to the Netherlands and starts to live with him, she sees that he has debts and as she is married to him, she basically has to carry his debt. Giovanna, aged 44, who migrated from Brazil to the Netherlands in 2005 to be with her Dutch partner spoke of how: Brazilian women in the Netherlands back then had a website different from the one of today, Brasileiros na Holanda [Brazilians in the Netherlands]. It was Brasileiras que vivem na Holanda [Brazilian women living in the Netherlands]. It was a self-help website. Some of them wrote there: Ah, that Dutchman gave me 1000 euros today. That idiot doesn t know that I have a Brazilian man back home. I visited this website several times and I commented that I was really outraged about how the Brazilian women would brag about this behaviour if it was at least kept secret, OK! Given the information asymmetry that exists in migration networks, both transnational labour markets and marriage markets are risky areas. People who migrate for the purposes of marriage or work are to some extent taking a leap into the unknown. Promises might or might not materialize, for people can have ulterior motives for posting information on migrant sites, and the infrastructure of social media may contribute to asymmetrical power relations. In the case of social media networks, which are largely composed of weak and latent ties, people s motives to exchange information or assistance are less likely to be altruistic and more likely to be instrumental (Granovetter 1973; Haythornthwaite 2005: 128). Therefore, migrants who rely on social media are even more at risk of falling victim to some form of abuse and serving the personal interests of the information provider. Weak ties may be more information rich, but strong ones are often more trustworthy. Conclusion Migration networks show an evolution in means of communication. The internet has recently become a social medium offering individual users the opportunity to organize themselves into (semi-) open network structures and then publish their own material. For geographically dispersed migrants who rely on long distance means of communication, such networks offer several advantages. In this study, we outlined four ways in which social media facilitated international migration. First, our respondents described how social media altered the ways migrants and non-migrants with strong ties remained in touch. Communication has become cheaper, more frequent and more media rich. Migrants describe how this has made 2013 The Author(s) 413

14 Rianne Dekker and Godfried Engbersen their life in separation from their families and friends easier. Some respondents suggested that the availability of social media lowered the migration threshold. This finding accords with those of other studies that conclude that the introduction of long distance communication technologies facilitates a virtual co-presence that makes migration more acceptable and more likely to occur (Bacigalupe and Cámara 2012; Madianou 2012; Parreñas 2005; Vertovec 2004; Wilding 2006). Second and third, social media make available new ways of consolidating weak ties or even of activating latent ties that deliver new information. For instance, they provide information on the labour market, legal conditions or other practical issues concerning migration to or life in the destination country. Social media enable migrants to build loosely bound networks from which they can gather resources (Wellman 1999). Fourth, in some cases social media create open, low-key sources of information, which offer several advantages over institutional information: aside from the official information, streetwise knowledge of migration is available through backstage channels (Goffman 1959). One can view this both as the democratization of knowledge for migrants and as a form of silent resistance to restrictive immigration regimes (Scott 1990). Our data suggest that in traditional migrant networks, the exchange of such information carried higher risks and was less accessible. We also encountered some limits to these functions from digital divides and the lower trustworthiness of virtual ties. Internet penetration naturally tends to be lower in some sending regions of migration than others, and we see differentiated use of social media among people with internet access. After all, one requires certain skills to find and assess information using social media. In addition, we found that the motivations underlying a willingness to share information via social media vary and that social media ties can be untrustworthy. False information and deception are more likely to occur in contexts where the motives of the providers of information are generally more instrumental than altruistic. In sum, we argue that social media not only provide new communication channels in migration networks but also that the virtual infrastructure of media rich, synchronous and relatively open contacts actively transforms the nature of these networks and thus facilitates migration. Interpersonal ties in migrant networks are reducing the costs and risks of migration through the exchange of information, resources and assistance. Migration network theory assumes that people go to places where they already have contacts. However, with the internet as a social medium, it is easy to revive or make new contacts, which in turn offers access to an extensive pool of informal information and thus widens the horizons of aspirant migrants. In terms of comparative results, we observed that the Brazilian and Ukrainian immigrants from our sample used social media more often than their Moroccan counterparts did. A possible explanation for this is that unlike Brazilian and Ukrainian migration Moroccan migration to the Netherlands has developed into a large, selfsustaining migration system (Engbersen et al. 2011). In general, Moroccan migrants rely on offline networks of established immigrants for information on and assistance with the migration process. There are no such elaborate offline social support The Author(s)

15 How social media transform migrant networks and facilitate migration networks for Brazilian and Ukrainian migrants to the Netherlands. A split between highly skilled migration and (often-irregular) low-skilled migration characterizes Brazilian migration to the Netherlands (Roggeveen and van Meeteren 2013). There were two distinct and temporary waves of Ukrainian migration to the Netherlands (Kubal and Dekker forthcoming). Divisions among migrants to the Netherlands from both Ukraine and Brazil prevented the formation of social support networks among them. To substantiate the theoretical starting points of the THEMIS project, we hypothesize that migrants who cannot rely on traditional migration networks for social support are more inclined to turn to social media networks (Bakewell et al. 2012). This would be an interesting hypothesis for further research. Our respondents looked upon the knowledge exchanged through online migrant networks as a welcome supplement to the services of migrant organizations. We do not believe that social media make traditional migrant networks or migrant organizations redundant. For many purposes and in many ways, offline social resources are still preferred over online support networks. These offline social contacts are often more trustworthy than online ones. Moreover, migrant organizations maintain their tasks, for example in organizing social events or the political representation of the immigrant group. From our research, however, it seems apparent that online networks and information sources have partly overtaken the role of traditional migrant networks and migrant organizations. Our method of within-case process tracing does not allow statistical generalization of the extent of social media use within migrant networks. We do not know how many migrants use social media to organize and plan their migration. Furthermore, we have insufficient data on what types of media migrants use for what specific purposes and we can only reach preliminary conclusions on the characteristics of the groups of users and non-users. We found that the use of social media differs with age and class. Older migrants tend to use online communication tools less frequently than the younger generation and less educated labour migrants tend not to use social media as much as better-educated ones. Survey research among different migrant populations would contribute to our knowledge on this issue. Moreover, we cannot sustain any causal claims about the extent to which social media facilitate migration. We instead offer insights into the conditions and mechanisms of social media use for migrant networks. Acknowledgements This article draws on the theoretical research and empirical work undertaken within the project Theorizing the evolution of European migration systems (THEMIS). In this research, the department of Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) in the Netherlands is cooperating with the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in Norway; the International Migration Institute at the University of Oxford in the UK; and the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning at the University of Lisbon (IGOT-UL) in Portugal. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the THEMIS project, only those of the joint authors. We thank the editors and anonymous reviewers of Global Networks for their useful comments on earlier versions of this article The Author(s) 415

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