Raising awareness, changing behavior?

Abstract

Several migrant receiving countries such as Australia, the U.S. and Switzerland have launched migration information campaigns in migrant sending and transit countries about the risks involved in (irregular) migration. With the current high influx of migrants more and more of such campaigns are launched. Such campaigns can target different goals: to help to prevent irregular movements by ensuring that people are sufficiently informed about the potential risks; to manage expectations people might have about the opportunities they will have after migration or to outright prevent migration altogether. This research project will look at several aspects of migration information campaigns: the design, the implementation, the assumptions underlying the campaign and the possible effects of these campaigns. The use of social media will receive separate attention. How and to what extent migration information campaigns are part of social media platforms used by refugees and migrants and whether or not they influence migration decisions remains unclear though. CONTENT: 1. Introduction 2. Migration information campaigns: an overview 3. Do campaigns work? Assumptions and critique 4. Conclusions and discussion