Asylum Seekers Online

Migration is very much influenced by the digital age. Many asylum seekers find the information they want and need online. How does the age of digitalization affect the way migration works in this 21st century?

On September 15th, 2015, the term “Facebook refugees” was used in an article published on CNN. In it, the authors wrote of how asylum seekers made use of technological devices and applications such as “Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and Viber” as they embarked on their respective journeys to various European countries (Watson, Nagel & Bilginsoy, 2015). For this project, we attempted to research and report on the usage of social media in the contemporary migration crisis.

Considering that the Netherlands has had a long history of immigration with guest workers, asylum seekers, refugees and “post-colonial migrants”, we thought that it would be highly interesting to conduct our research based on the asylum seekers who are presently located in Tilburg and surrounding cities (Hamburg Institute of International Economics, 2007). Through our preliminary research online based on newspaper and scientific articles, we have found that, upon arrival in European nations, asylum seekers continue using new media to maintain contact with families and also, in looking for information on what next to do. Furthermore, we have found that there were certain applications designed especially for asylum seekers such as, Refuchat, Gherbtna, Refugee Buddy and Refugermany. Such locational services found in mobile phones and wifi services provided in refugee camps may work as a double-edged sword in that, on one hand, these may be seen as an informative tool but on another, they can be seen as monitoring tools of asylum seekers.

It is adamant to recognise the complexity of the issue of migration, especially so in this digital age as this is the reality of today’s ever-changing world. As such, through this project, we have looked at it through various perspectives. As such, we have consulted primary and secondary sources namely, various asylum seekers, experts, application developers as well as official statistics.

Bibliography

Hamburg Institute of International Economics. (2007). “Netherlands”. Focus MIGRATION. 11.

Watson, I., Nagel, C. &, Bilginsoy, Z. (2015). “‘Facebook refugees’ chart escape from Syria on cell phones”. CNN.