Migration information campaigns: How to analyse their impact?
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| Author | Omar N. Cham,Florian Trauner |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13142 |
Int Migr. 2023;61:47–57. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig 47
Brussels School of Governance & BIRMM,
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Correspondence
Omar N. Cham, Brussels School of
Governance & BIRMM, Vrije Universiteit
Brussel, Pleinlaan 5, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
Email: omar.n.cham@vub.be
Funding information
The financial support of the
Erasmus+ Programme is
gratefully acknowledged (Project
621045-EPP-1-2020-1-BE-EPPJMO-Chair)
Abstract
Information campaigns aim at discouraging potential
migrants from leaving their countries irregularly. This arti-
cle discusses how to analyse the impact of such campaigns
by identifying different research lines in the literature. The
impact of migration information campaigns may be explored
by, firstly, focusing on transnational migratory data and
inter-state relations (the macro-level); secondly, by inves-
tigating their impact on narratives within societies (the
meso-level); and, finally, by investigating the micro-level of
their influence on migratory decision-making. At each level,
scholars face considerable methodological challenges to
filter out the impact of campaigns. This article suggests that
a promising research avenue is to analyse more widely the
narratives and information sources upon which (potential)
migrants rely. Opening up the research focus may avoid
the risk of over-emphasising the impact of information
campaigns by only looking at them. It allows to better under-
stand which sources of information actually influence migra-
tory behaviour.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Migration information campaigns: How to analyse
their impact?
Omar N. Cham | Florian Trauner
DOI: 10.1111/imig.13142
Received: 4 July 2022 Revised: 27 March 2023 Accepted: 28 March 2023
INTRODUCTION
Policy-makers tend to consider information campaigns as a viable policy tool to deter irregular migration (Brekke &
Thorbjørnsrud, 2018; Browne, 2015). Information campaigns are deliberate communication strategies to discour-
age potential migrants from leaving their countries irregularly (Oeppen, 2016). Potential migrants are seen to lack
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits
use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or
adaptations are made.
© 2023 The Authors. International Migration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Organization for Migration.
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