Introduction
Pathfinders, a non-governmental organization in Hong Kong, devotes itself to help Hong Kong’s pregnant, migrant women (principally current or former foreign domestic workers) and their children. According to its research, there are more than 6000 migrant pregnant women and children, while 51% of them living in Hong Kong as asylum seekers (Pathfinders, 2017). This situation could be importantly concerned on academic sphere of mediated media in two main reasons as below.
Firstly, compared with other migrants, pregnant domestic workers’ mobility situation could be special. As Pathfinders announces, these women may be unlawfully fired once their pregnancy is discovered (Pathfinders, 2017). Besides, misunderstandings towards pregnant domestic workers with their “homeless” risks could make them feel worried and anxious, and this situation may continue even after they give birth to children. Also, their children may face sequent problems such as identity recognition and education opportunity. As mentioned above, the struggling mobility and living conditions of 6000 pregnant domestic workers in Hong Kong have become a special social issue which cannot be neglected.
Secondly, Facebook might, to some extent, influence those pregnant domestic workers’ mobility. Referring to a mixed type of mobility including the mobility of people, material artifacts and data which are all “experienced and articulated through particular historically situated media ecologies” (Keightley & Reading, 2014), “mediated mobility” shows that social media are found to have a hybrid influence on migrant mobility in terms of information dissemination (Mark & Paula, 2018), and construction of “imagined community” (Anderson, 2006). Specifically, as one of the widely used social media platforms in Hong Kong, Facebook will be observed as our target media platform in this research.
This paper will use the theory of “mediate mobility”, and take Hong Kong pregnant domestic workers as research subjects, focusing on how Facebook influences pregnant domestic workers’ mobility on both physical and mental spheres through the ethnographic methods of face-to-face interview offline and observation of our respondents’ Facebook posts online. Finally, we come to the conclusion that Facebook can become an empowerment tool for pregnant domestic workers in terms of acquiring information, building communities and strengthening the bond between family and homeland. However, it also shows the limitations of Facebook that merely relying on this social media platform is far not enough.
Literature Review
As a complex academic paradigm, mobility has been studied and analyzed by scholars from different perspectives.
Mobility and Social Hybrid
The first foundation of mobility in the theoretical field is from Georg Simmel, who describes mobility as an “uniquely will to connection” (Simmel, 1997). He points out that mobility, as a form of “inter-human contacts”, is not only improved by “its social, economic, and infrastructural formations, but also the psychic forms of the urban dweller”, which could also lead to the inextricable chaos of social organism. Based on that, it is necessary to reconstruct punctuality in social interactions (Simmel, 1997). Moreover, research in mobility is then developed by many other scholars, such as Law (2004), Whatmore (2002), Marvin (2001) and Medd (2006), who use “hybrids'' to describe the complexity of social organism, such as moving bodies, letters, sewage systems, car system and so forth (Normark, 2006).
Mobility and Individual Embodiments
Beside macroscopic analysis of mobility above, several scholars have researched about the relationship between mobility and social network from individual and micro perspectives.
As Featherstone pointed out in 2004, “it is experienced through a combination of senses and sensed through multiple registers of motion and emotion” (Featherstone et al, 2004). Scholars also pay close attention to how space shapes and reconstructs individuals’ social identity, as well as how people form and reform space during their mobility (Ahmed, 2004).
Generally, these studies on mobility and individual embodiments include physical mobility and emotional sense as two main categories.
For physical mobility, Gottdiener (2001) suggests that airport space is a place of transmission, in which people and objects are transferred into a global relationship. And in this space of transmission, the transcendence of time and space accelerates the move and flow of people around the world. Also, scholars claim that places like airport allow travelers to encounter more people and places face-to-face (Sheller & Urry, 2006; Gorgia, 2006; Lassen, 2006).
During the process of physical movement, there is also a sense of emotion. A relationship among means, travels and travelers is pointed out, and each means provides different experience, performance, and affordance. As Sheller and Urry (2006) suggest, “the corporeal body as an effective vehicle through which we sense place and movement, and construct emotional geographies”. It is experienced through a combination of senses and sensed through multiple registers of motion and emotion (Featherstone et al, 2004).
Mediated mobility
When it comes to the notion of mobility, it implies fluidity in social relationships to and articulated through media, and more researchers tend to place mobility such as shift positioning of people and material in an increasingly complex and mobile media ecology (Keightley & Reading, 2014). Therefore, what should not be neglected is an important concept named “mediated mobility”, which explicitly illustrates the relationship between mobility and media in contemporary culture and social life. Keightley and Reading (2014) conduct research on mediated mobility including modes of “mobility facilitated by mobility facilitated by media technologies, texts, institutions and audiences” (Keightley & Reading, 2014). In their research, mediated mobility is different from previous ones which stress “mediated mobilization”, emerging from new social movements theory (Hestres, 2013), and it is not limited itself on “the circulation of discourses of identity in new ways through electronic communications” (Chin et al., 2009). Instead, mediated mobility emphasizes a mixed type of mobility referring to the mobility of people, and the mobility of material artifacts and data which are all “experienced and articulated through particular historically situated media ecologies”, during which the convergence of communication technologies especially social media empower and promote new modes of social engagement, and the technologies themselves become more mobilized and convenient leading to the mediation of human experience in new sites and lived space (Keightley & Reading, 2014).
What is more, scholars provide many methods to analyze mediated mobility in which forms, patterns, and experiences of mobility supported or curtailed by media (Keightley & Reading, 2014). For instance, Mirjam Brujim examines mediated mobility in the context of mobile communications within mobile populations in the African context, and John Downey in his article explores how ‘mobility’ might be used as a lens to answer questions about the processes involved in the public sphere (Keightley & Reading, 2014).
This paper will mainly concentrate on migrant mobility including both physical and invisible movements of people, resources, and material that are complicated and facilitated by social media within the theory of mediated mobility.
Importance of mediated mobility
Considering the importance of studying and utilizing mediated mobility, since all types of mobility are based on material, emplaced, stable infrastructures (Keightley & Reading, 2014), one has to put mediated mobility into the social, political, cultural, and economic environment. Besides, the practical significance lying in the processes of mediated mobility has become a part of the physical realm and also based on it, for it is “implicated in a political economy of resources that requires the commodification and use of the earth’s material resources” (Keightley & Reading, 2014). Besides, mobility also has a close relationship with the rights and resources in the physical world. And for migrants, the access to broader physical places can be motivated or regulated in terms of the intertwining media sphere.
Other literature about the Influence of social media on migrant’s mobility
There are also plenty of work illustrates the influence of social media on mobility. Based on the work of Graham which expresses that “the ways in which places, and social practices, become enmeshed into geographically and temporally stretched electronic networks such as the internet is an extraordinarily diverse, contingent process” (Graham, 2004), there are plenty of articles in communication and media area, focusing on the influence of digital media on migrants’ life, pointing out the fact that mobility of migrant is shaped and complicated by new media, including everyday activities, identity formation, emotional bonding and so on (Lim, Bork-Hüffer & Yeoh, 2016). In this process, media, especially digital media, construct and reconstruct the formation of “imagined community” (Anderson, 2006), which could be a new dimension of the mobility of migration and transformation as well (Madianou, 2014).
Besides, scholars point out that social networking sites promote the formation of online migrant communities and enhance both online and offline connection, which helps migrants overcome the difficulties in the real world (Lim, Bork-Hüffer & Yeoh, 2016). As for the access to information, Mark and Paula (2018) noticed that “refugees’ movement within physical space is intrinsically connected with information needs, flows, and access”. During their movement, digital technologies would give them opportunities to cross time and space, allowing for better communication. Madianou begins with one case study around the Filipina overseas workers’ living standard in the United Kingdom (Madianou, 2014) and brings up a positive relationship between those immigrants’ mobility and digital media, which the latter could assist them connecting with their families. And plenty of research emphasizes on the involvement of new media and migrant mobility about the shaping of migrant experience, and “related them socially and emotionally to both their home and destination countries”, suggesting that through the technology migrants could “improve their prospects in practical and instrumental ways” (Lim et al., 2016) .
Counter-arguments
There are some counterarguments to the positive influence of media on mobility as well. In Hegde (2016) and Leurs (2015)’s research, they discuss the idea that original family structure could be threatened and online technologies may lead to “diasporic youth to perform and negotiate identity”. In addition, Dennis Broeders and Huub Dijstelbloem (2016) discuss a similar topic from this perspective of governmental digital surveillance and monitoring to migrants.
Research Question
On the one hand, scholars in “mediated mobility” discuss the relationship between media and mobility, especially both physical and emotional spheres of mobility of migrants. On the other hand, considering that there is a type of “special migrants community” in Hong Kong, represented by pregnant, migrant women (mainly current or former foreign domestic workers), as well as their Hong Kong-born children, following research questions were proposed：
Main research question
How does Facebook influence pregnant domestic workers’ mobility?
Sub research question
1.What does mobility mean for pregnant domestic workers?
2.To what extent can Facebook be seen as an empowerment tool for them?
To better solve these research questions, after having laid out our theoretical frame and/or definitions, we will now turn to parts of methodology and analysis.
Methodology
Shaun Moores argues that a “move away from media-centrism is necessary to theorization of mobility” (Moores, 2012), which is also “a methodological imperative” (Keightley & Reading, 2014）in mediated mobility because it takes more concerns about how media could contribute to new experiences of mobilities, especially in people’s social and cultural life, rather than simply describing the internal logic in media itself. Based on that, Keightley and Reading discuss that “ethnographic methods of participation and observation” is the most effective way to reasonably analyze media (including its agency, technologies, and content), individual and social groups from a structural perspective. According to this principle, we begin our case study in how pregnant domestic workers’ structural mobilities are being acted and influenced by specific media platform—Facebook, by interviews and chasing our research subjects’ digital trace online.
In data collection process, firstly, we contacted 5 pregnant domestic workers in Hong Kong who have commented to PathFinders on Facebook, Tiffany, Hayley, Sarah, Suditi and Sylvia (assumed names for the sake of privacy). Tiffany, Hayley, and Sylvia have delivered the baby while Sarah and Suditi are still pregnant. They have walked different ways of life and have different stories about their babies, families and employers. What is similar among them is that all of them gained help from PathFinders. Besides, we also collect some data about the current living conditions of Hong Kong’s pregnant domestic workers from this organization’s previous research.
Secondly, after getting participates’ consent, in-depth, face to face interviews were conducted from 28th November to 2nd December with the designed questionnaire. The average time for each interview was around 45 minutes.
In the data analysis process, as we adopt qualitative research in the data collection process, firstly, we pay close attention to each interviewee's behavior, conversation content, and their using habits in Facebook, such as a compliment, forwarding, message, friend interaction and so forth. Secondly, we compare their similarities and differences in the interaction among Facebook use, their living environment and mobility condition, combined with their own personal backgrounds.
Analysis
As mediated mobility aims at exploring the way how mobility is embedded into media ecologies (Keightley & Reading, 2014), the methodology of mediated mobility is used into a specific case study, in order to better answer our research question: how does Facebook influence Hong Kong pregnant domestic workers’ mobility?
However, before solving our research question, the specific meaning of “mobility” for the pregnant domestic workers need to be clarified.
Firstly, their mobility refers to the transnational move from their own countries to Hong Kong; and secondly, their changes in living conditions including accommodation problems and situations in the workplace and household, etc. Apart from the physical realm, the invisible and mental sphere of mobility such as social status or emotional feeling and relationship due to the pregnancy is also included.
Besides, during the usage of Facebook, the flow of information, the shaping of communities, and the ties of families and friends are also considered as important parts of mediated mobility. After the process of field investigation and literature exploration, we argue that Facebook has a hybrid influence on Hong Kong pregnant domestic workers with both empowerments and limitations.
On the one hand, Facebook, as a kind of “virtual workspace” (Pruitt & Barrett, 1991), could provide convenience for them by virtualizing their mobility. Scholars argue this “virtualized mobility” could be seen as a “green development” because both costs and pollution produced by physical mobility could be reduced in the digital communication process (Andrejevic, 2013). Besides, As research subjects in our case study are pregnant domestic workers, it has been already inconvenient for their physical movement. Facebook, in this sense, could empower their ability to interact with others a lot even without leaving home.
Based on that, Facebook could promote pregnant domestic workers’ mobility in the following ways.
Firstly, it provides them the channel and space to the connection. As Castells defines the “space of flow” as “the material arrangements that allow for simultaneity of social practices without territorial contiguity” (Castells, 1999, p. 295). Those pregnant domestic workers could use social media platforms to get access to this type of “space of flow”. Among our interviewees, Facebook mainly facilitates the connection to family and to Pathfinders. For connecting with families, they could also stay connected with the origin and present families by Messenger chatting and posting their personal life online (Latonero & Kift, 2018). Besides, all of our interviewees also post their children’s pictures. Tiffany, whose children were sent back by herself to her country to live with their father after delivery for better caring, she says that through making posts of her children’s pictures, all her family members and friends can see their status. Even though she is not with her family and limited on the perspective of mobility, a collective, connective and co-existing virtual space is constructed for them. For connecting with Pathfinders, even though 4 of our interviewees mentioned that they did not join or form any online group with other pregnant domestic workers on Facebook, all of them choose to follow Pathfinders’ Facebook homepage for receiving information, which means, they build tight connections with the organization online, and communication flows from the organization and counter-flows from our interviewees’ likes, comments or sharing to construct this information exchange. On the one hand, information from Pathfinders can encourage and offer help to them. On the other hand, our interviewees’ counter-flow also helps NGO to spread the information and gain more social influential power.
Secondly, Facebook also provides those pregnant domestic workers with the chance of creation. Latonero and Kift, in their literature, argue that, in reality, connection is always not enough, and “family structures could end up damaged and strained” (Latonero & Kift, 2018). More importantly, they pay more attention to how those transnational diasporic workers use Facebook to maintain and create public spheres (Hegde, 2016), construct and reconstruct their sense of community (Leurs, 2015). In our interview, Facebook is a place for them to show their strongness. Tiffany mentioned that her life “sometimes can be very hard”, and every time when she faces challenges, she “just cries, and then think about solutions alone.” When being asked if she had ever made any posts which are negative, she said she never makes that type of posts because she does not want to show the negative side of her. And she thinks other people, especially her family, are all far away from her, so “they cannot really help”. Besides, from the observation of other interviewees’ Facebook posts, there is no negative post related to the challenges of their lives. Their management of Facebook posting can be seen as a way of creating a space for recording their life from a positive perspective, which works as self-encouragement. What is more, Facebook also works as a platform for community creation, which connects Pathfinders and our interviewees. According to Sarah, there are classes and workshops offered for domestic workers about related topics. Besides, item-collection activities are held regularly for them to pick items for delivery and baby-caring for free. The homepage of Pathfinders is easily accessible so that they can receive the same information and take part in the same offline activities, which can be seen as “sharing a sense of place that is situated in a given geographical area or in virtual space” (Ritzer & George, 2007) through the communication platform of Facebook.
On the other hand, although those pregnant domestic workers could receive benefits from Facebook, Facebook is still not capable to be the main empowerment tool to those women. As scholars in “mediated mobility” argue that, it is risky to see media as a neutral or central channel through people’s social life (Keightley & Reading, 2014). In this sense, although Facebook is useful, it could not become “an APP for everything” (Latonero, 2016a).
Firstly, the default of Facebook itself may lead risks to those pregnant domestic workers into the “hate speech” sphere. As Leurs argues, as refugees use digital platforms to communicate both with distant family members and search useful resources, “those same tools are increasingly also used to exploit their vulnerabilities, such as government surveillance and privacy leakage” (Leurs, 2018). This phenomenon could become more serious under Facebook’s algorithm recommendation system.
On 21st August 2018, The New York Times published a report which accused Facebook has led a risky impact on Germany’s spate of anti-refugee violence (Amanda & Max, 2018). In this report, Karsten Müller and Carlo Schwarz at Warwick University scrutinized 3335 anti-refugee attacks in Germany with an astonishing result showing “wherever per-person Facebook use rose to one standard deviation above the national average, attacks on refugees increased by about 50 percents” (Amanda & Max, 2018). Based on this phenomenon, researchers explain that “the links with Facebook to anti-refugee violence would be indirect, but the algorithm that Facebook uses truly determines each user’s newsfeed” (Amanda & Max, 2018). Similar to refugees, from our case study it can be seen that negative posts and comments towards pregnant domestic workers also exist on the platform of Facebook. Although most of our interviewees didn’t see them directly, they have heard about the negative posts from other people or friends who saw negative posts and comments which would make them feel stressed and worried about future. At the same time, Facebook also helps spread the image of “betrayer” of pregnant domestic workers. According to Sarah, one of our interviewees, pregnant domestic workers are usually considered as “betrayers” to their employer families, because once they get pregnant, they are entitled to have legal maternity leave according to the law enacted by Hong Kong government. Another interviewee, Hayley, said that she saw some bad news on pregnant Indonesia workers such as how hard their living situation was, how they were considered by other people. Negative comments and posts on “betrayer” have been found and noticed indirectly by our interviewees on Facebook, which put more pressure on them and make the situation for pregnant domestic workers sensitive and severe by exploiting their vulnerabilities. This would potentially influence their decision on whether and where to deliver the baby and further issues including work and children’s education.
Secondly, pregnant domestic workers’ mobility and life condition could not be fully satisfied only by using Facebook. As one of the concerns of mediated mobility, all modes of mobility themselves rely on infrastructures and resources that are cultural, economic and social. Therefore, “specific mediated mobilities need to be conceived of as embedded in existing social, political and economic processes” (Keightley & Reading, 2014). Similarly, Madianou (2014) argues that “media do not add a new dimension to migration—they interact with those social, cultural, mediate, economic and political elements altogether”. In the process of the interview, it can be seen that most of our interviewees have used Facebook to look for related information on this issue. However, their living conditions, such as medical care and employment security could not be improved only by this social media platform. One of our interviews, Hayley, said that she has been forced for resignation because of her pregnancy. Sarah also mentioned that some of her friends had to return to their homeland, which means, although they could get some assistance through Facebook, their living conditions in Hong Kong still accompany with struggle.
Thirdly, existing digital divide and lack of ability to utilize social resources offered by Facebook may also limit the migration mobility. Digital divide lies between those people who have access to the Internet and those who don’t, which is considered as inequality of Internet access (Norris, 2001). In our interview, we found that some of our interviewees’ demands that are caused by physical mobility cannot be well-satisfied because of the limitation of Internet data. According to Tiffany, though she wants to use Facebook to search for information on the pregnant issue, she has to use phone call during most of the time and seldom uses Facebook because of lack of Internet data. At the same time, the digital divide is also found between those who have access to the Internet in terms of the ease, effectiveness, and quality of use (DiMaggio, 2004). There are different reasons that might attribute to this situation such as education level, interpersonal relations, Internet penetration in different countries (Chinn & Fairly 2007). Similarly, in our interview, we also find differences in the usage of Facebook due to various levels of literacy. Besides, equal access to information does not necessarily represent social capital: what matters is the individual's’ ability to utilize the resources they offer (Portes, 1998). Most of our interviewees have known about Pathfinders. However, utilization of the NGO resources varies from each interviewee. Some of them actively join the offline workshop and classes while others even don’t notice. The difference of utilizing information grasping from Facebook leads to differences in receiving actual help and awareness of legal right for themselves.
Conclusions
In all, this research aims at studying how Facebook influences the construction of pregnant domestic workers’ mobility. On the one hand, as a type of “virtual workspace”，it connects them with their families, friends and the NGO, and facilitates them to construct both real and virtual spaces for self-encouragement and participation to the community as well. On the other hand, for negative contents and the inevitable limitations of social platform, Facebook is not capable to be the main empowerment tool for them.
For pregnant domestic workers, they have to not only take themselves but also their children’s future into consideration. As a result, physical mobility is the cause of their emotional feelings as well as what they need to consider afterward.
To certain extents, efficient information dissemination of Facebook can make up the emotional loss caused by physical mobility. Nevertheless, Facebook is no more than a tool that its effectivity largely depends on how people utilize it. The limitations of this tool show that merely relying on this social media platform is not enough. Even though inequality of communication and lack of related regulations is mentioned above, these problems might be complicatedly related to the power holder that cannot easily be changed. So we argue that more comprehensive instruction should be offered for domestic workers so that they can be aware of their rights in order to protect themselves according to existing laws and regulations, with the knowledge of other social supports such as the assistance from the NGO.
The limitation of our research is that our data collection comes from only 5 interview participants, which is not sufficient for more in-depth analysis. Besides, there also exists lack of consistency for interviews.
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Appendix
Interview outline and questions
Basic information
how long have you been in HK?
When did you get pregnant (under pregnant/ have gave birth to child),
Do you have family members in HK?
How did you get in contact with pathfinders?
Yes:
what kind of support did you get from them?
do you go to check their facebook page for more information?
did you get other online support through Facebook by pathfinders?
What is your future plan (child education,work,living.. )?
Facebook usage after pregnant
Have you ever used FB to search/share information on financial support?
Have you ever used FB to search/share information on healthcare
Have you ever used FB to search/share information on housing
Was there any changes in your working status after pregnancy?
Yes: Did you use Facebook to search/ask someone for information
for work?
Have you ever used facebook to contact with other pregnant domestic workers?
Did you join an online/offline community for pregnant domestic mothers, joined/created any facebook groups for this kind of topic discussion,
Did you build relationships with other pregnant domestic workers during pregnant
Have you ever used FB to contact with your family?
Did you get any suggestions from them?
Have you ever used facebook to search about the law/regulations/ related to your child’s citizenship/ how to give birth to a child in hk? Do you want to get HK citizenship for your child?
Have you ever use Facebook to keep a record of you and your child/life?
what do you usually post?
Why do you post?
emotional states: what did you feel after pregnant (happy, exciting, confused…)
have you ever seen any encouragement words/posts/comments from FB towards pregnant domestic workers ?
have you ever seen any bad(negative) posts or comments towards pregnant domestic workers in hk (making you feel uncomfortable)
does this encouragement or negative posts influence how you feel
Did you want to stay in hk before pregnant?
what about now?
Is there anything on Facebook that you think have changed or influenced your decision.
If she has given birth child
Does your child live with you in HK now?
Yes:
does your child use FB to talk to your husband/other family members?
how often do they talk?
when they contact with each other, do they prefer FB or other ways? Why?
No:
Do you use facebook to contact with your child?
Do you use facebook to contact with your husband/other family members?
How often do you use FB to talk with them?
Did you get help from government/ offline organizations (have no relations with Facebook)after pregnant?
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