Privileged Mexican migrants in Europe: Distinctions and cosmopolitanism on social networking sites (original) (raw)
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The Identity Construction of Migrants on Facebook
2019
Social network sites, such as Facebook, allow access to a series of resources or discursive forms that constitute a multimodal and dialogical system that transcends barriers of time and space, favouring transnational communication, something particularly important to migrants. In addition, the comments and dialogues that take place in such socialisation spaces allow us to develop a greater knowledge of the identity and positioning of the user with respect to others. With this work we analyse, from a qualitative point of view, 150 posts each containing at least five comments, published between 2017 and 2019, in each of five Facebook groups of Latin American migrants living in Italy: Uruguayans, Argentinians, Colombians, Peruvians and Venezuelans. We determine their role in the migratory process and how the digital environment affects the relationships between migrants. In addition, we investigate how the identities of migrants are negotiated and (re)defined in discursive practice. Results shows that social network sites are "transnational social spaces", in which a community is based on bonds of solidarity that derive from a shared conception of collective identity, and they forge deterritorialised "community of feeling".
This paper focuses on the display of identity on Facebook, and more specifically on how undergraduate students in Cardiff, Wales say they express identity on their profiles. The theoretical context of this study are observed processes of change in the way we play out identity through what have been described as globalisation, deterritorialisation, and the rise of lifestyle consumer society. The paper is based on an analysis of responses from a questionnaire and interviews with 100 students from Media and Communication degrees at the University of Glamorgan. The data collection is designed to indicate what kinds of self categorisation are used. This data is analysed using one tool from Critical Discourse Analysis, by Machin and Van Leeuwen (2008). The paper shows that we find a range of identity categories, some that are based around a biological model of national identity, while others focus on a belonging to a territory, others on national cultural activities, and yet others link to lifestyle identity. What is most notable in this Welsh sample is the high use of nationalist identity categories and biological ethnic classification alongside other lifestyle identities.
Theme(s) and objectives of this lecture: 1) to understand how audiovisual media (here: digital videos) produce and communicate images, representations of the "migrant", "immigrant", "refugee", ... 2) and how this object (the “migrant", ...) becomes a shared topic for smaller and bigger virtual communities(“shared topic” means a “mental” and cultural reference for defining the "migrant", for speaking about and for interacting with the "migrant"…). Our empirical research field isthe You Tube platform with thousands, even millions of videos and video channels producing and communicating visions of migrants, immigrants, refugees … sometimes far away from traditional cultural “elite” visions but apparently influential on the mentalities of that nebulous social category called the “middle classes” as shown by the recent socio-political evolutions in Europe and the USA (populism, rejection of multiculturalism, protectionism, nativism, Brexit, election of D. Trump, …).
The emigrant communities of Latvia: National identity, transnational belonging, and diaspora politics, 2019
This chapter analyses how ethnic transnational identities are manifested and negotiated on the social networking sites used by Latvian migrants. Although migrants as well as other people use various personal media, including Skype, chat apps such as WhatsApp and telephones, social networking sites stand out with the diversity of functions in migrant communication. This includes one-to-one exchanges, group communication and the ability to locate and connect with users who may or may not be familiar offline. We argue that social networking sites and particularly thematic groups on these sites that migrants create and join serve as forums or bulletin boards where they exchange practical information and are able to communicate with other Latvians who live nearby – and that these uses have implications for the communication of identity. The empirical data in the chapter comes from 20 semi-structured interviews with Latvian migrants who live in a variety of countries and were recruited for the study on social networking sites, as well as survey data, all of which were collected within the research project The Emigrant Communities of Latvia: National Identity, Transnational Relations and Diaspora Politics. The results demonstrate that migrant interactions on social networking sites do not necessarily lead to the homogenisation of migrants’ conception of what ‘being a Latvian’ means. The increased ability to maintain associations with diverse online and offline social circles provides a migrant with a variety of identity elements to associate with. As a result, hybrid identities may emerge. A migrant can identify with the host society yet still reject some of its characteristics – and choose Latvian alternatives instead.
Youth 2.0: Social Media and Adolescence, 2016
In this chapter I analyse the digital practices of migrant youth as situated, power-laden, pleasurable and sometimes painful everyday experiences. I develop Walter Benjamin's theorisations of the nineteenth century "arcade" or commercial passageway (Benjamin W (1999) The Arcades project. Harvard University Press, Cambridge), together with Nirmal Puwar's understanding of how non-normative bodies become "space invaders" (Puwar N (2004) Space invaders: race, gender and bodies out of place. Berg, Oxford) upon entering certain domains, in order to conceptualise the digital spatial biases of online platforms and their subversions. The argument builds on survey, interview and ethnographic data gathered as part of the interdisciplinary research project Wired Up. Digital media as innovative socialisation practices for migrant youth run by Utrecht University. I argue fi rstly how offl ine societal power relations related to race and ethnicity, religion and gender relations travel online and create new digital divides that go beyond computer ownership and Internet access. Secondly, I argue how Internet platforms become spaces for the negotiation of power relations, digital belonging and greater cultural understanding in an increasingly multicultural world.
“(Re)loading identity and affective capital online: The case of Diaspora Basques on Facebook
The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration edited by Kevin Smets, Koen Leurs, Myria Georgiou, Saskia Witteborn, and Radhika Gajjala, 2019
Based on original user–based research on Basque diaspora–association groups on Facebook, this chapter analyses the implications that SNSs have on migrants and their descendants’ identity discourses and identity construction. It explores the concept of affective capital online from transnational and diasporic perspectives. By focusing on the Basque diaspora case, I contribute to research on non–state (ethnonational) diasporas in the digital age and on ICTs use among international migrant diasporas. Particularly, the chapter illustrates how technology enables, reinforces and maintains identity and belonging; and how shrinking–temporal and physical distance technologies, especially SNSs, facilitate the construction of common networked–emotional/affective transnational communities across the planet.
Comunicacion Y Sociedad Communication Society, 2015
Do social network sites promote intercultural relationships between young migrants? Does this type of interaction have an influence on the creation of their digital identity? In order to answer these questions, we will analyse part of the results obtained in the fieldwork carried out in the project "The Social Relations of the Young Migrants in Internet from the Intercultural Perspective" (CSO2011-24376). The Habermasian concept of communicative rationality has been used as the most convenient logic for the creation of intercultural communicative interactions. This theory has been applied in our analysis of the SNS interactions observed in 13 focus groups consisting of young migrants and non-migrants in Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao. This analysis is based on the four different social actions described by Habermas (strategic action, normatively regulated action, dramaturgical action and communicative action), and then the dimensions and indicators have been extracted in order to identify the interactions in the online social networks. This paper shows that the youth's online communicative practices tend to be mainly dramaturgical. Through their online practices, they try to create a digital identity and empower their own representation as well as the others'. Thus, they do not respond to a communicative rationality of interaction that encourages intercultural communication.
2010
This thesis seeks to investigate young immigrants and ethnic minorities' (IEM) perceptions of media portrayals of their cultural groups, with a focus on IEM's understandings regarding the construction of cultural identity in their context in Barcelona. Further, it intends to examine the ways in which young IEM, both as consumers and as producers of media texts, use digital media and media literacy to contest stereotyped portrayals of cultural groups and to construct cultural identities in their own terms. The relationship between media, representation and identity is explored through an examination of the theoretical body of work on identity politics, and of previous empirical studies focusing specifically on the portrayal of IEM in the media, at both the transnational and Spanish levels. Additionally, special attention is given to media discourses regarding multiculturalism and the multicultural society, with the aim of examining participants' positions towards cultural...
Unwrapping Identity Online: How Media Influences Transnational Identities
2010
Unwrapping Identity Online investigates media-based imagined communities and individual identities among transnationals. Results show that online platforms such as social networks,blogs, and IM clients organize and delimit collective identities while aiding individuals to express personal and group identities. An online quantitative survey provides a snapshot of media use among transnationals living in the US. A comparative look at six global online social networks approaches identity from a sociological standpoint, examining embedded structures of meaning that shape collective identity expression online. A third ethnographic research component explores specific facets of individual identity construction and expression among members of the International Center of New York.