Digital Diaspora

Most every Western country has diaspora communities, from fragile states and from other Western nations. With increased broadband Internet access around the world (surpassing 2 Billion people as of 2010) and the rapid growth of social technologies such as Facebook, blogs, Twitter and a number of other free services, diaspora’s are increasingly able to connect.

The Impact of Digital Diaspora
In Canada, as an example, the largest Tamil, Tunisian, Armenian and Haitian diaspora communities in the world are very active in social media. From recent immigrants to second and third or fourth generation. Secondary generations can now “connect” digitally with their countries of origin faster and at less cost than ever before possible.

Zero Transaction Cost for Cultural Connectivity
Social technologies such as blogs, microblogs and social networks enable the sharing of video, images and text at no cost. Diaspora communities can and are using these services to share cultural aspects and identity. Increasingly, these tools which also enable organizing, mean that diaspora communities can leverage these tools to aid in awareness of home country issues in their new host nation for lobbying and media attention to potentially influence foreign policy decisions.

Mapping Digital Diaspora
Using our proprietary search engine and artificial intelligence software for analyzing text, MediaBadger is conducting a long-term research project to map digital (online) diaspora communities around the world. The intent of the project is to gain deeper insight into how diaspora communities are using social technologies, to what degree, where and how the use of these tools can carry into the real world to affect change in the home country and host nation.

Purpose and Use of the Research
The research is being specifically conducted for the benefit of these communities. The resulting maps will enable MediaBadger to provide key insights to clients in the humanitarian aid field, peace keeping operations (non-military aspects), crisis communications by governments and aid organizations and for academic use.

Technology & People
Our technology enables identification and automated geomapping of communities. But it’s our team of consultants who validate and provide context behind the mapping exercise. The team is comprised of social anthropologists, post-conflict analysts, sociologists and communications specialists.

Results & Reporting
Some information will be made available to the public for free over time. The primary data and mapping is proprietary to MediaBadger but will be provided at no cost to aid agencies (e.g. Medicins Sans Frontieres, Ushahidi, UNOCHA and so on) and academia (on a case by case basis.) Government and commercial clients will be charged a nominal fee to offset the collection of this data. MediaBadger will use the data in the development of its noetiQ product.

Defining Digital Diaspora & Privacy Protection Guidelines
We define “diaspora” as communities of people from a country of origin living in another country. We include diaspora as meaning new immigrants or up to 4th generation. Beyond 4th generation we do not consider them “Primary Diaspora” but “Tertiary Diaspora” who have become acculturated to a nation. If they are active within the Primary Diaspora community we may consider them for inclusion. We do not at any time identify individuals unless they are highly active and openly visible within the digital diaspora community being mapped. We do not build profiles of individuals. The intent is to understand and map the “community” as an entity only. Key actors that are public figures and related organizations are mapped.

Inquiries:

May be addressed to Giles Crouch at giles_at_mediabadger.com via email or see our Contact Us page for additional details.