How do immigrants express themselves on social media? That’s what Daniela Jaramillo-Dent (Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication) studied in her PhD-thesis. Immigrants use social media to counter existing stereotypes about themselves. Also she found that they are extremely resourceful in adapting their message to the ‘light’ format of social media. Still many immigrants face censorship by social media platforms even risk being banned.
TikTok is known for its playful video formats with dances or where people lip-sync a song. But it’s not all funny and light content. Daniela Jaramillo-Dent studied what is being said about immigration on TikTok and Instagram and how immigrants express themselves on these platforms. For example to counter existing prejudices and stereotypes. “There is a rap song on TikTok that has been used thousands of times by Latinos who moved to Spain. It goes something like: ‘Immigrants don’t come to take your jobs away. They come to take the jobs that you don’t want’. Some songs are used over and over and that’s why I call them the soundtrack of migration.”
Immigrants are not voiceless
She studied Latino immigrants that moved either to Spain or the United States. Jaramillo-Dent is from Ecuador and lived in Spain during her PhD. This background helped relating to the experiences of migrants and at the same understand better the local political context. Her research shows that immigrants are not afraid to create content and counter existing narratives and beliefs about themselves. “I found a high level of literacy on social media. This in itself is interesting. Previous research claimed that immigrants are voiceless and that they are not being heard. But my research shows that they are highly strategic and agentic in their negotiation for visibility and self-representation.”
Being active on social media is not without risk. Some immigrants are undocumented or in an asylum procedure. Both the US and Spain have laws that allow governments to look through people’s social media. In the US, as part of the visa application, you have to share your social media profiles. “If you are expressing critique, you basically go against the country that has to give you asylum. Also, social media is often about sharing your best side. Some immigrants may risk their asylum application by posting certain contents, because their need for asylum may be questioned.”
Disguising political messages
She also found posts that go against the guidelines of platforms. For example, posts provide information on how to enter the country as a tourist. “But even discussing experiences of severe discrimination is not allowed. TikTok wants content to be light and fun. They rather not facilitate heavy topics. I found that immigrants become very resourceful in adapting to the light format. It looks fun, but their post disguises a political message. That’s the only way not to be banned”, she explains.
To gather data, the researcher spent hours on TikTok and Instagram to find relevant content. On TikTok alone, she found 53 immigrant creators. Also, she held in-depth interviews with ‘migrant influencers’ on how they become visible and how they deal with censorship and moderation. She spoke to an influencer with nearly one million followers in the US who promotes rights for Mexican and Latin American immigrants. “He actually confronts people who work at border control and shares how not to be targeted at the border checks. The platform says he is doing illegal activities and he has been banned many times. He’s constantly creating new profiles to be able to share content.”
Censorship and moderation
Jaramillo-Dent sees that immigrants are often seen as a homogenous group. In reality, they are a very diverse group with different ideas and beliefs, also when it comes to the migration debate. For instance, one of her interviewees was a Mexican immigrant influencer who supported Trump and lives in Texas. On social media, she is very critical about migration. Interestingly the research showed all immigrants faced censorship or blocked accounts regardless of their ideological profile. “According to the creators I interviewed It doesn’t seem to matter what you say. Being an immigrant means they have to face this type of negotiation with the platform”, she says.
When she started her research in 2019 there was very little research on how migration is being discussed on visual social media such as TikTok and Instagram. The difficulty with studying social media is that the landscape constantly changes. A platform might come up with a new format and TikTok could even be banned in the future. “That’s the reality of internet studies. Nevertheless, it’s important to study new phenomena. For young people, platforms like TikTok and Instagram are now the most important source of news. Some people even use it as search engines.”
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PhD defense
Daniela Jaramillo Dent defended her PhD dissertation ’Platformed Migrant Narratives: Mediated (self)representations of migration on social media‘ on Thursday 15 December 2022.
