Analysis of social media groups on migration decisions and experiences
In this paper, we conduct a text analysis to assess the aspirations, capabilities, intentions, and experiences migrants discuss on Meta (formerly known as Facebook)
Summary
We first work to identify relevant migration groups on said platform and then segment their contents across seven categories of discussions, which we divided further into general migration-related discussions and non-migration-related discussions.
We show that migration aspirations seem to react substantially to the COVID-19 pandemic and spike midway through the health crisis, with regained interest in applying for student visas, looking for job opportunities abroad, and various emigration procedures. In contrast, migration aspirations voiced online do not react nearly as much (or at all) to dynamics that precede the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our findings are based on an analysis of public online groups of migrants on Meta in three different countries of emigration—Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco— and in relation to three different regions of immigration—Europe, North America, and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
