I told them that a refugee is simply someone who is trying to make a home.

(JJ Bola, 2018, 2:26) ^[20]

In his poem, JJ Bola pictures refugees as simple and human as in that quote, contrary to how refugees are often represented in on- and offline mainstream media. As mentioned in my previous posts (Self-representation of refugees – How does ICT connect to it? and Self-representation of refugees – How does it exist in today’s digital media world?), refugees are often represented in a negative light with negative associations such as violence, criminality, illegality, conflict, economic burden, victimhood, neediness or vulnerability ^{[1], [2], [3], [4]} which creates feelings of anxiety, fear, menace and suspicion among the public leading to antipathy and a lack of sympathy towards refugees ^{[3], [4], [5], [6]}. The refugee him-/herself is in these stereotypical representations rarely the narrator of the story ^{[1], [5], [7]}.

These representations cannot be described as authentic, as they do not represent the refugee-gaze but the “Western”-gaze as described by many scholars ^{[1], [4], [8]}. News media from the Global North decide what content to broadcast ^{[4], [9]}, thus as Chouliaraki ^[8] adds “the visibility of migrants is regulated in Western media” (p.84). Hence, the “self” of the refugee is missing in these representations. Background information and stories as well as context, to understand the very comprehensive correlations of the individual refugee stories, is often missing ^{[1], [4], [5], [8]}. The refugee him-/herself thus has no or just limited agency and voice of their own when it comes to representing themselves and shaping public opinions about themselves ^[9].

The question is, can refugees counteract these stereotypical representations of themselves and shape public opinions for the better? The keyword in this context is self-representation.

1. Refugee-related selfie vs. Refugee-selfie

What can be seen more and more in the media are pictures of refugees taking selfies. But does a selfie automatically mean that a refugee has represented him-/herself which thus equals having agency and a voice? The answer is no. There are many more elements that play a role in this case, like who is the photographer, who broadcasts the photo or the aim of taking and publishing the photo. Chouliaraki ^[8] for example describes two kinds of selfies in regard to refugees. One is the refugee/migrant-related selfie, and the other one the refugee-selfie. The former is a picture of a refugee taking a selfie, whereas the latter is the actual selfie taken by the refugee him-/herself. The refugee-selfie – the actual selfie taken by the refugee – is however rarely seen in (news) media as it is displaced by the refugee-related selfie ^{[4], [8]}.

As Risam ^[4] points out, the refugee-related selfie has little to do with self-representation, since the refugee still lacks agency in these kind of representations. She even goes so far as to say that this selfie “also actively participates in depriving the migrant of agency in representation” (p.65). The main differences between those two selfies are their audience, their distribution channels as well as the aforementioned agency of the refugee or lack thereof. Firstly, the audience of refugee-selfies is most often private and personal ^{[2], [4]}, thus it is produced for the self, whereas the audience of the refugee-related selfie is the (global) media, the public, thus in this case it is “produced for the gaze of the Global North” (p.68) ^[4]. Secondly, refugee-selfies usually are to be found outside of news media channels, whereas refugee-related selfies are distributed on these news media channels ^[4].

This leads to another topic in regard to self-representation of refugees, namely information and communication technologies (ICTs).

2. Self-representation and social media

As mentioned above, refugee-selfies, the selfies that can actually give voice and agency to refugees, are mostly communicated outside news media channels but on social media channels. Thus, these channels seem to be a platform where refugees are able to represent themselves. But does this in turn challenge their often stereotypical representations in (news) media? The potential is there.

As O’Donnell and Sweetman ^[10] put forward, online platforms can give voice to unheard people and those who would not have had the change to find a platform to express themselves. On these online platforms, they have the chance to represent themselves. It is important to notice that O’Donnell and Sweetman also point out that these online spaces inherit risks for the people representing themselves since violence in online spaces is anything but absent. Yet, they also acknowledge that at the same time they provide the means to fight these new forms of violence, as I will describe in more detail under Benefits of social media in the following chapter 2.1.

Let’s dive deeper into exploring the benefits and risks of ICTs or in this case online platforms such as social media in regard to self-representations of refugees.

2.1 Benefits of social media

Social media is a helpful tool to raise awareness ^{[1], [5], [7]} since there is the potential to reach a huge audience ^[11]. This is made possible by the fact that people with the same interests are able to get together much easier for example through suggestions of connections or through bridge ties as Tufekci ^[12] calls them. Bridge ties are connections of yourself, you however do not have a strong tie with, who share posts of their connections and in that way make it possible for you to see these posts. Social media platforms make it thus possible to reach people and resources one might not have reached otherwise ^[13]. They therefore help to create and extend (social) networks ^[10]. However, social media platforms are not limited to social purposes and audiences anymore. More and more companies have a presence on social media platforms, thus further expanding the potential audience reach ^[14]. Another tool that extends the audience reach are algorithms influencing people’s search results, their social media feeds and the advertisement visible to the individual user ^[15]. Above all, it is important to mention in this case that the amount of people worldwide with access to the internet is increasing significantly ^[10].

Moreover, it is easier to participate on social media than in mainstream media as on social media no media outlet is governing what goes online ^[11] – except of course the social media platform’s policies in regard to topics such as privacy, violence, mobbing and many more.

Tufekci ^[12] claims that “important topics were brought to the forefront through social media” (p.xxvii). The examples I gave in my second post reflect this claim such as the #OnceIWasARefugee campaign on Facebook and Twitter, which attracted such a huge audience that it was eventually even broadcasted on national news on television and thus expanding the audience reach even more. JJ Bola is also convinced of the positive impact of social media on raising awareness. Therefore, he made use of social media himself to raise awareness with his poem Refuge , as already mentioned in my previous post ^[1].

2.2 Risks of self-representation on social media

However, there are also risks involved in self-representation on social media as the example of Anas Modamani in my last post shows. A journalist took a photo of him taking a consensual selfie with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This migrant-related (!) selfie went viral falsely incriminating him as being one of the people who carried out a terrorist attack in Belgium in 2016. ^[4].

Scholars have for example put forward that social media platforms bear new forms of violence ^[10] such as hate, racism, criticism and harassment. Especially marginalized people, such as refugees, are affected by this kind of online violence. Being present on social media has the potential to make people visible to the public due to reasons mentioned above. There is of course the possibility to stay private on social media, however in that case the potential to raise awareness of a certain topic and counteract stereotypical representations of mainstream media is decreasing drastically. Therefore, refugees who aim to counteract these stereotypical representations are exposed to certain risks which understandably discourage many from self-representation online ^[16].

Due to these risks, (affected) people use self-policing or self-censorship to counteract becoming the target of online violence. They for instance refrain from posting certain content as they anticipate the violent reactions of some people. This, however, has significant implications as people do not dare to speak the truth anymore and to represent themselves authentically ^[16] limiting refugee content to mainstream media representations.

3. Self-archiving

Some refugees however post content online as already mentioned before with the examples of self-representation on social media. Another example, reported by the BBC, are influencers with a migrant background, who document their journey in videos on YouTube for everyone to see ^[17].

Said Bouyazri, one of the migrant-vloggers, says that at the beginning he did the recordings just for himself. After he got arrested and his family was not able to contact him and was thus worried and afraid that something had happened to him, he came up with the idea of a YouTube channel to document his journey for his family to show them that the route he takes is easy. He did not realize that this encourages others to take that journey, a journey that is contrary to what his videos showed anything but easy ^[17].

Anwar Lhafidi, also a migrant-vlogger trying to follow the same route as Said, sees this differently as he is showing all the difficulties, dangers and hardships his journey entails ^[17].

Conclusion

As we have seen, there are indeed ways for ICTs to challenge stereotypical representations of refugees in mainstream media, be it the awareness and reach on social media platforms or simply pictures and recordings of refugees’ mobile phones to eventually reach a big audience with authentic content to help shape public opinions for the better.

However, posting content online, especially personal content, also bears risks which cannot be overlooked. In this case, one can also speak of a vicious circle, since online violence for instance is performed, among others, by people who maybe do not have the full picture and are missing information, background context and real stories, which they could get from self-representations of refugees, who however might not dare to share this kind of personal content with the public for fear of online violence as described above.

In any case, for refugees to challenge stereotypical representations with authentic self-representation, they need to go public with their stories, pictures and videos as this does not or just barely happen in mainstream media representations of refugees, where humanness is mostly missing.

In his poem, JJ Bola touches this aspect as well in equalizing refugees with every human on earth, saying rightfully we are all the same:

And know that deep inside the hearts of each and every one of us we are all always reaching for a place that we can call home.

(JJ Bola, 2018, 2:49) ^[20]

Reflections

This module was different from everything I have experienced in the previous modules and actually in all my previous studies. I did not have any blogging experience nor am I really active and engaged in social media, even though I have some social media accounts of my own, like probably most. As I did not have a lot of experience and knowledge about blogging I was a bit sceptical towards this module. However, I eventually found it to be an enriching experience.

Especially the creation of the blog posts with links to external websites as well as videos and pictures embedded in the posts were a lot of fun, yet, a lot of work, too.

I really enjoyed the engagement with others in the comment section. Normally, we are on our own for our individual assignments. This time, we had the chance to engage with others and give and receive helpful feedback and ideas for the next posts. To hear reflections and stories from others related to one’s own posts was very enriching. At the same time, it however also presented a challenge as one possibly had an idea for the posts in terms of which topics to discuss from the very beginning. With the comments of my fellow peers I now got new impulses and ideas what else to cover in my posts – topics or angles I did not have thought of before. This posed both a challenge and an opportunity to learn from. I for instance made use of one thematic thread about migrant influencers which was proposed in the comment section of my first post by one of my fellow peers and group members Joanna.

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References

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[2] Hetz, H. (2021). The Concept of the ‘Good Refugee’ in Cambodian and Hazara Refugee Narratives and Self-Representation. Journal of Refugee Studies, 35 (2), 874-892. doi:10.1093/jrs/feab075

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[9] Georgiou, M. & Leurs, K. (2022). Smartphones as personal digital archives? Recentring migrant authority as curating and storytelling subjects. Journalism, 23 (3), 668–689. DOI: 10.1177/14648849211060629

[10] O’Donnell, A. & Sweetman, C. (2018). Introduction: Gender, development and ICTs. Gender & Development, 26 (2), 217-229. https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2018.1489952

[11] Lehner, A. (Ed.). (2021). Self-Representation in an Expanded Field. From Self-Portraiture to Selfie, Contemporary Art in the Social Media Age. Basel: MDPI, Page Range.

[12] Tufekci, Z. (2017). Twitter and Tear Gas. The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

[13] Brough, M., Literat, I. & Ikin, A. (2021). “Good Social Media?”: Underrepresented Youth Perspectives on the Ethical and Equitable Design of Social Media Platforms. In J. Pooley (Ed.), Social Media & the self – An open reader. https://www.mediastudies.press/sms

[14] Davidson, B. I. & Joinson, A. N. (2021). Shape Shifting Across Social Media. In J. Pooley (Ed.), Social Media & the self – An open reader. https://www.mediastudies.press/sms

[15] Papazoglou, A. (2021). Understanding Facebook’s Algorithm Could Change How You See Yourself. In J. Pooley (Ed.), Social Media & the self – An open reader. https://www.mediastudies.press/sms

[16] Duffy, B. E. & Hund, E.. (2021). Gendered Visibility on Social Media: Navigating Instagram’s Authenticity Bind. In J. Pooley (Ed.), Social Media & the self – An open reader. https://www.mediastudies.press/sms

[17] Arnold, K. (2021, February 20). Are migrant YouTubers influencing others to travel to the EU? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-56132392

[18] #MyEscape (n.d.). About. MyEscapeFilm. Retrieved on October 3, 2022 from http://www.myescapefilm.de/2016/11/07/about/

[19] dbate. (2016, February 17). #myescape – Selfies der Flucht (Web-Doku) [#myescape – Selfies of the escape (Web documentation)] [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDcM4Yj7kBI

[20] JJ Bola. (2018, January 25). Refuge, poem. [Video] YouTube. Retrieved on October 3, 2022 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3dgPtyQ3PI