Migration Research in a Digitized World : Using Innovative Technology to Tackle Methodological Challenges

This open access book explores implications of the digital revolution for migration scholars’ methodological toolkit. New information and communication technologies hold considerable potential to improve the quality of migration research by originating previously non-viable solutions to a myriad of methodological challenges in this field of study. Combining cutting-edge migration scholarship and methodological expertise, the book addresses a range of crucial issues related to both researcher-designed data collections and the secondary use of “big data”, highlighting opportunities as well as challenges and limitations. A valuable source for students and scholars engaged in migration research, the book will also be of keen interest to policymakers.

Steffen Pötzschke is a postdoctoral researcher and deputy team leader of the GESIS Panel at the GESIS – Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences in Mannheim (Germany). Furthermore, he is a corresponding member of the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (University of Osnabrück, Germany). Steffen holds a master’s degree in International Migration and Intercultural Relations and a doctorate (Dr. phil.) from the University of Osnabrück. Steffen participated in several migration research projects and has profound practical knowledge in designing and implementing cross-cultural surveys. In his recent research, he investigates the possibility of using social networking sites as tools to sample hard-to-reach populations.

Sebastian Rinken (PhD, European University Institute, 1996) is deputy director of the Spanish Research Council’s Institute for Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC) in Córdoba. He has published widely on immigrant populations’ social integration and natives’ attitudes toward immigration and immigrants, addressing issues such as the relation between ideological polarization and anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as the methodological challenge of eluding social desirability bias, among many others. His methodological repertoire includes qualitative approaches, probability-based surveys, non-probability sampling for on-site and online surveys, and survey experiments.