Migration communication campaigns : the state of the practice and an open database

Abstract

-- Every year governments, international organisations, and civil society associations produce communications campaigns designed to affect numerous facets of migration. -- Despite their increasing ubiquity, resources, and—possibly—impact, as well as their profound scientific relevance, such campaigns remain understudied, and existing practice and research is disjointed across various sectors and disciplines. -- As such, policymakers wishing to design migration communication campaigns (MCCs) have no central pool of experience or expertise to draw upon. -- This report takes three steps to overcoming this shortcoming by proposing and starting a unified, interdisciplinary practitioner and research agenda on migration communication campaigns (MCCs). -- We, first, overview the increased substantive importance and scientific interest of MCCs and outline six themes of research and a typology of MCCs. -- We then present our open-access, collaborative database of 301 migration communication campaigns conducted in Europe between 2012 and 2022. -- The Migration Campaigns Database (MCD) codes each campaign according to the following—theoreticallyjustified—variables: -- I. Demographics (“when, where, by and for whom?”): time, location, platform, subject actor (institution or person) and impact assessment -- II. Objective (“why?”): type, object of change, specific objective, and target audience of the campaign -- III. Substantive content (“what?”): topic and subject of interest -- IV. Message (“how?”): strategies, values, and emotions -- We provide initial analyses of how the above factors vary amongst the MCCs, as well as example observations. Findings include that the values-basis of the appeals are most commonly “universalism” and then “stimulation” while the most common emotional appeal is “sadness” (in both cases, contra the recommendations of Dennison, 2020 and 2023b, respectively). -- Finally, we argue that the MCD provides practical understanding of MCCs to practitioners and an opportunity to begin more systematic research in this field. -- We invite ongoing submission of all types of MCCs globally to create a bridge between communities of academics, policymakers, and communicators by filling a dedicated form online (https://tinyurl.com/4t78hn23). -- The live MCD can be found at: https://migrationpolicycentre.eu/the-migration-campaigns-dataset-4/