Using emotions in migration policy communication

Abstract

What makes migration communication effective? How can we communicate on migration in a way that allows us to meet contemporary policy objectives, such as the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration’s eponymous goals (UN, 2018), “de-polarised” debates (OSCE, 2021), or “re-balanced” narratives, the goal of the EUROMED Migration V programme, to which this report contributes. Moreover, how can migration communication help governments uphold legal- and rights-based migration policy frameworks against forces that would undermine them, and so contribute to maximising the potential benefits and minimising the potential costs of migration to both origin and host country populations? Strategic communication can have multiple functions, to inform, persuade, and to affect behaviour. Perhaps the most common advice given on all three types of communication - in migration and otherwise - is the deceptively complex instruction to use emotions, not facts.