Dr. Amanda Paz Alencar will be presenting at the sharing session on social media during the Directoraat-Generaal Migratie network meeting organized by the Ministry of Justice and Security of the Netherlands on December 6 in The Hague.
The main objective of the Network Meeting is that DG Migration (Ministry of Justice and Security) tells network partners what is going on in various policy issues and also pick up input from these partners. These partners can be co-governments, but also civil society, advocacy and municipalities. Social media play an increasingly important role in our daily lives, including within the migration domain. This sharing session elaborates on how exactly, where we look at where opportunities and pitfalls lie, how to best deal with this and what we can learn from each other. These questions are answered in three presentations from different perspectives: the government, civil society and migrants.
Together with Dr. Koen Leurs and Ghadeer Udwan from Utrecht University, Dr. Amanda Paz Alencar will discuss the digital resilience of Syrians in the Netherlands. Their presentation entitled "Digital resilience of Syrians in the Netherlands: social media and digital networks for information, health, social connections and literacies” aim to discuss and illustrate the role and importance of digital and social media technologies in fostering refugee integration processes in the areas of health and social connections as well as an intervention tool to address Syrians’ information and representation needs.
The afternoon starts with a plenary session in which current affairs are discussed and the new director general (which starts next Monday) is welcomed. This is followed by three sub-sessions, one on the Inspectorate of Justice and Security (supervising the export of policy), one on the Border and Security program (which provides for the implementation of legislation in this area) and one on social media.
Full programme of the ‘Social Media sub-session’
- Koen Leurs (Utrecht University), Amanda Paz Alencar (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Ghadeer Udwan discuss the digital resilience of Syrians in the Netherlands: "Digital resilience of Syrians in the Netherlands: social media and digital networks for information, health, social connections and literacies ".
- Djamila Schans of the Ministry's Research and Documentation Center (WODC) will tell about the history of information campaigns that governments use to reach (potential) migrants. It addresses bottlenecks in this and recent campaigns (including the IOM) that are more effective through the use of social media.
- Mieke Koster of Vluchtelingenwerk Nederland (VWN) will give an explanation of the website that VWN has launched to inform migrants during their stay in the Netherlands.
The event will take place at The Student Hotel in The Hague. The walk-in starts at 15:00 and the plenary program starts at 15:30. The sharing session starts at 16:00 and lasts until 17:30. Afterwards, there is an opportunity to talk afterwards during drinks.