ITC use in the refugees migration processes: national and transnational communication
Keywords:
refugees, ICT, communication, relational factor, social capital.Abstract
In this article we present an ethnographic research about the communication processes that refugees maintain through the use of technologies. Specifically, we focus on three issues: the communication of forced migrants as a support of their travel to Europe, the communications with the country of origin friends and family and, finally, the creation of new contacts networks in the host country. All these issues mediated by ICT. The research instruments have been the semi-structured interviews and the virtual observation of the informants Facebook profiles. The results show that the ICT are essentials in all stages of the migration experience. The ICT do not only serve as instrumental support during the refugees way from their country of origin to the host country, but they also allow shortening the distances with the social network in the country of origin. For this reason, ICT provide an important emotional support and allow refugees to keep participating in the life they have left behind. Finally, ICT allow refugees to extend their bonding social capital. Differently, their bridging social capital seems not to increase even after some years after the arrival to the destination country.
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