Digital Communication Practices in Migration Contexts

Digital communication has become integral to the experiences of migrants, refugees and displaced populations worldwide. From smartphones and social media platforms to messaging apps and virtual reality tools, these technologies facilitate information exchange, social support and political mobilisation across borders. In transit, mobile devices enable route planning, access to real-time safety updates and contact with humanitarian services. Upon arrival, digital channels underpin efforts at family reunification, language learning, access to public and health services, and community integration. Simultaneously, states and private actors deploy data-driven surveillance, biometric profiling and automated decision-making to govern mobility, raising ethical questions around privacy and power. Across diverse contexts—from informal camps to urban resettlement—digital practices shape identity formation, diasporic solidarity and socio-economic opportunity, while also exposing migrants to misinformation, exclusion and digital inequality. The global significance of these developments spans humanitarian relief, policy design and transnational activism, illustrating both the promise and pitfalls of digital lifelines in migration contexts.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have unpacked the ways in which online platforms foster virtual diasporas and political activism among exiled communities. Ethnographic work on a Southeast Asian minority in exile demonstrates how social media affordances create spaces of “virtual togetherness,” where collective identities are actively constructed, negotiated and contested. These engagements extend beyond cultural expression to forms of civic e-activism that challenge state narratives and pursue recognition, highlighting the role of digitally mediated networks in sustaining resistance and solidarity across multiple sites of displacement.

Digital Communication Practices in Migration Contexts publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in digital communication practices in migration contexts across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Datafication: The transformation of social actions and human experiences into quantified data for analysis and decision-making.

Digital diaspora: A transnational community that uses digital media to maintain cultural, social and political ties across dispersed locations.

Embodied Conversational Agent: A computer-generated character that uses speech, gesture and facial expressions to interact with users in virtual or augmented environments.

Digital exclusion: The exclusion of individuals or groups from full participation in society due to lack of access to digital technologies or internet connectivity.

References

1. Support of Migrant Reception, Integration, and Social Inclusion by Intelligent Technologies. Information (2024).
2. In search of a Rohingya digital diaspora: virtual togetherness, collective identities and political mobilisation. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2023).
3. Double lockdown: The effects of digital exclusion on undocumented immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. New Media & Society (2022).
4. The opportunities and risks of mobile phones for refugees’ experience: A scoping review. PLOS ONE (2019).