International Migration Institute

Rianne Dekker presents her paper 'Online feedback in migration systems', co-authored by Godfried Engbersen in Parallel session I(B) of the conference Examining Migration Dynamics: Networks and Beyond, 24-26 Sept 2013 Online media allow for transnational communication in migration systems that does not only directly affect non-migrants who are embedded in migration networks, but also possibly affects a broader community as a channel of indirect feedback. This paper studies the effect of transnational exchange of information via online media on migration processes. We take a migration systems approach and consider both the information sending-perspective of migrants in destination countries as well as the information consuming-perspective of non-migrants in popular origin localities of migration in Western Europe. Our results show that online media have become rather important channels of communication. Online feedback sending and -receiving behavior can be explained by personal characteristics as well as migra