Investigating the Online Presence of Immigration Organizations: Understanding the Role of Social Justice and Technical Communication

Abstract

This dissertation investigates how immigration organizations in the US use their online presence to disseminate information. Immigration organizations are typically non-profit organizations whose mission involves helping migrants (whether with legal services, or any number of other services). This dissertation contributes to the conversations on social justice in technical and professional communication (TPC) by focusing on an often overlooked area in TPC research: migration and migrants in the US. This project contributes to the intersection of TPC and migration by investigating how immigration organizations use certain key online spaces and the information they share there. To begin, I first identified a network of national immigration organizations through hyperlinks. This network allowed me to identify two key organizations to further study, namely Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). I then studied the website of each organization, focusing on their content and targeted audiences. Finally, I studied their Twitter accounts, focusing on content, targeted audiences and tweets’ metadata (including frequency of tweets, replies and retweets). Combining the results from the website analysis and Twitter analysis, I discuss the implications of the study, including voice, power and privilege, and audience engagement. Finally, I discuss the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the study and its implications for immigration organizations’ dissemination of information in online spaces.