„Refugees and the role of social media” - prof. Godfried Engbersen

Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4QOzMisJlc&feature=youtu.be In 2015 and 2016, the public debate was dominated by images of refugees making their way to Europe and by the concerned reactions of European citizens to the asylum issue. In this lecture I will address two topics. Professor Godfried Engbersen analyzed the role of social media in the migration-decisions of refugees. He explored how information from social media was assessed and validated in migration decision-making about migration routes and destination countries. The lecture focused on the issue of integration. Attention is currently focused on the problems relating to the local reception of asylum seekers. At the same time, however, policymakers face a second fundamental challenge, which is the question of how to facilitate the integration of asylum seekers who have been granted a residence permit into European societies. In speaker's analysis he draw upon his Dutch research on migration and social media and on the integration of refugees into Dutch society. About speaker: Godfried Engbersen is Professor of Sociology at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. He is also the Director of the interdisciplinary research group Citizenship, Migration & the City (CIMIC). Before, he worked at the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam and Utrecht, and as visiting professor at the Centre of Western European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley (spring 1996). He is an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW). He also was an elected member of the Dutch Advisory Commission on Alien Affairs (2001-2009) and Dutch correspondent for the continuous Reporting System on Migration (SOPEMI) of OECD (2001-2013). In 2014 he was appointed member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). His current research activities focus on social inequality and social stratification, asylum migration and social media, and labour mobility within the EU. The lecture is a part of the series “The Challenges to the Humanities in the 21st Century”, organized by SWPS University Interdisciplinary Doctoral Studies Program.