Technology and connections Mexican immigrants in the U.S.

Abstract

The expansion of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure in the developing world has considerably increased opportunities for people to connect. Today, people can better maintain long-distance relationships as well as be better informed of how their family, close friends, and emotional partners are doing. As a result, many migrants use ICTs to maintain and strengthen ties to their places of origin. For many years, the most popular means of communication for migrants was the telephone since it allows communication at relatively low rates even for international calls. Now new types of ICTs for family communication such as Internet services (e.g., instant messaging) are becoming more common. Given the economic, social, and political implications of migrants being connected to their places of origin, this socio-technical phenomenon deserves attention from academia, industry, and governments. Four different forms of ICTs are studied here: 1) hometown Web sites, 2) video conferencing, 3) call forwarding services, and 4) online TV. We analyze contributions of these services to enhance migrants' communication as well as the factors for adoption.