Social Networks and Transnationalism: A Content Analysis of Selected Filipino Migrant Workerss Facebook Posts as a Transnational Engagement Tool

Abstract

This paper used quantitative-qualitative mixed methods via content analysis, observing the present-day transnational ties of Filipino migrants in the cyber-space. It specifically employed Facebook as a leading social network through which the subjects’ transnational engagements took shape. Using social networks, particularly Facebook, as emerging tools to carry out ethnographic studies, this paper aimed to identify and establish a pattern of transnational involvements Filipino migrants in this study had. This study first used a quantitative approach by way of tabulations, noting down the transnational posts of the subjects and their reaction/s and/ or behavior in relation to varying issues they engage in. The tabulations were used to (1) identify the different transnational activities the subjects have via Facebook, and (2) establish a pattern of Transnationalism they manifest. This paper sought to produce baseline data from which future research can be based. It also sought to underpin the emerging importance of social networks as a data-collection instrument. An issue that is currently under-researched in the regional and international academic discussions and the global public sphere, this paper used the quantitative design to qualitative, as content analysis of the subjects’ posts on their Facebook walls was ultimately done.