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New media, social capital and transnational migration: Slovaks in the UK

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Human Affairs

Abstract

This paper investigates Slovak migrants’ use of new media to build social capital. It draws on data from a pilot study with 36 Slovaks living in the UK, and on content analysis of the main Facebook page for Czechs and Slovaks in the UK. The data suggest that Facebook is used for sharing emotions rather than to build a community and share practical information. While Facebook and Skype are used to maintain preexisting strong ties in the country of origin, face-to-face contact and mobile phones are used to maintain ties within the UK. However, social media do not seem to facilitate the formation of weak ties prior to migration, with face-to-face contact being dominant upon arrival. Transnational migration experience forms a separate dimension within the participants’ identity, independent from social capital. The data are discussed in relation to findings from previous studies about Slovak migrants in the Republic of Ireland.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Research in Social Communication, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dubravska cesta 9, 841 04, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Barbara Lášticová

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  1. Barbara Lášticová
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Correspondence to Barbara Lášticová.

Additional information

This paper was prepared as part of VEGA project no 2/0144/12 “New media as an instrument of democracy fostering? Mapping current state and potential of civic participation online.”

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Lášticová, B. New media, social capital and transnational migration: Slovaks in the UK. Humaff 24, 406–422 (2014). https://doi.org/10.2478/s13374-014-0237-6

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