Journalists covering migration and forced displacement might want to reach migrants and refugees arriving in their country, as well as diasporic communities living in their country. It is thus important to know about the media used by migrants and refugees as well as members of ethnic communities. In recent years, some academic surveys have explored the media use of migrants on the move, refugees, and asylum seekers in the wake of the so-called refugee crisis. These studies have mainly concluded that social media are an important source of information for refugees. In a survey of around 2500 migrants from 37 countries living in refugee camps and other locations for asylum-related migrants, a majority reported that social media makes their asylum-related life easier. Connectivity through mobile phones is considered crucial for many refugees and migrants: according to a study conducted in two Ugandan camps, more than 90 % of refugees had access to a mobile device. A survey of 400 refugees in Germany found that media usage patterns of migrants differed depending on their regional origin, pointing towards a digital divide between different countries of origin. However, with regard to African migrants, research has concluded that it is not mainly media from the countries of origin that migrants use to inform themselves about migration-related issues, but rather interpersonal communication, which takes place, for example, on social media. This is due to a lack of in-depth news coverage of migration in many countries of origin. The dependence on social media and interpersonal communication has, amongst other factors, raised concerns about misinformation and misperceptions regarding news and knowledge about migration-related issues.
In this vein, major media outlets have launched specialized online services tailored to the needs of refugees, asylum seekers and other rather newly arrived migrants in recent years. Examples are WDRforyou by German public service broadcaster WDR, and InfoMigrants, a joint service of the Italian Ansa news agency and the German and French international broadcasters DW and France Médias Monde. These platforms maintain specific social media services. Another example is the now discontinued News That Moves, which sought to address misinformation and rumours spreading across the refugee community in Greece.
Regarding members of diaspora communities – i.e., people who are no longer on the move and including second or subsequent generations of immigrants – a study by Hepp, Bozdag and Suna distinguishes between three different types of migrant media users: (1) origin-oriented migrants frequently use media from their countries or regions of origin. (2) Ethno-oriented migrants, by contrast, foster a dual identity. While retaining communicative relations with their country of origin, they also use media from their new country of residence. Finally, (3) world-oriented migrants move beyond the national level of both their region of origin and their host country, and consume a wide variety of international media, whether connected to their ethnic community or not. Reaching migrants, refugees, and ethnic minority communities through the means of mass media is thus highly context specific.
