"The rise in false narratives surrounding immigrants and refugees is often amplified by social media and manipulated for political gain"
This is a guest episode from the third season of the Borders and Belonging Podcast, which is produced by the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration (or “CERC”) at Toronto Metropolitan University. They just launched a new season, called “in conversation”, in which leading voices dive into urgent migration issues shaping Canada and the world. You can find it on all major streaming services. And of course, please stay tuned for the next episode of the Migration Podcast!
“The rise in false narratives surrounding immigrants and refugees is often amplified by social media and manipulated for political gain. In this episode, host Maggie Perzyna unpacks the dangerous intersection between digital disinformation and immigration. Experts emphasize this critical area of study as social media networks increasingly shape public opinion and policy decisions, while false narratives about migration spread faster than ever.
Guests: Katie Paul, Director, Tech Transparency Project; Anatoliy Gruzd, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Privacy Preserving Digital Technologies, Toronto Metropolitan University; and Mattias Ekman, Associate Professor, Stockholm University.”
More about the Projects mentioned in this episode:
The hybridization of political communication: Politicized news formats and the boundaries of journal. Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Foundation (RJ).
Migrant Integration in the Mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides. Canada First Research Excellence Fund.
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Media & Blogs
After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News (2020). Directed by Andrew Rossi. HBO.
Caulfield, T. (18 Sept 2024). Welcome to the Poilievre conspiracy theory vortex: Adopting absurd narratives has become a staple of right-wing politicking. The Walrus.
Cadwalladr, C. (3 Aug 2024). ‘A polarisation engine’: how social media has created a ‘perfect storm’ for UK’s far-right riots. The Guardian.
Isaac, M. & Schleifer, T. (7 January 2025). Meta Says It Will End Its Fact-Checking Program on Social Media Posts. New York Times.
Social Media Lab. (12 February 2024). Inside the Social Media Lab’s Bridging Divides studies on online migration discourses. Toronto Metropolitan University.
The Social Dilemma. (2020). Directed by Jeff Orlowski-Yang. Netflix.
Urban Refugees | Empowering refugee-led organisations. International Civil Society Centre. Youtube.
Woolf, M. (23 Oct 2024). Ottawa to cut immigration targets in a major policy reversal. Globe & Mail.
Reports and Policy
Annual Report 2023. Integrity Institute.
Banulescu-Bogdan, N., Malka H. & Culbertson, S. (2021). How we talk about migration: The link between migration narratives, policy, and power. Migration Policy Institute.
Bateman, J. & Jackson, D. (31 Jan 2024). Countering disinformation effectively: An evidence-based policy guide. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Boswell C. & Smellie, S. (2023). Migration narratives in political debate and policy-making. BRIDGES Working Papers, number 19.
Chadwick, J. (3 June 2024). It’s time to restore some sanity to the Internet: Why we need a 180 on Section 230. Mother Jones.
For Sale on Facebook: Accounts That Can Run U.S. Election Ads. (18 September 2024). Tech Transparency Project.
Facebook Black Market for Ad Accounts Looms Over India Election. (6 May 2024). Tech Transparency Project.
lanier, J., Stranger, A. & Tang, A. (30 Oct 2024). Sunset and renew: Section 230 should protect human speech, not algorithmic virality. Harvard Kennedy School, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
Lu, S. (3 Jan 2025). Tech law in 2025: A look ahead at AI, privacy and social media regulation under the new Trump administration. The Conversation.
Wang, M., Lin, P. & Knockel, J. (2024). Should We Chat, too? Security analysis of WeChat’s MMTLS encryption protocol. The Citizen Lab, University of Toronto.
Books & Book Chapters
Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso.
Ekman, M. (2018). Online Islamophobia and the politics of fear: Manufacturing the green scare. In Muslims, Migration and Citizenship (pp. 149-165). Routledge.
Herman, E. S & Chomsky, N. (2002). Manufacturing consent : The political economy of the mass media. Pantheon Books.
Scholarly Articles
Balibar, E. (2002). World borders, political borders. Pmla, 117(1), 68-78.
Ekman, M. (2019). Anti-immigration and racist discourse in social media. European Journal of Communication, 34(6), 606-618.
Ekman, M. (2018). Anti-refugee mobilization in social media: The case of soldiers of Odin. Social Media+ Society, 4(1), 2056305118764431.
Ekman, M. (2022). The great replacement: Strategic mainstreaming of far-right conspiracy claims. Convergence, 28(4), 1127-1143.
Ekman, M., & Krzyżanowski, M. (2021). A populist turn?: News editorials and the recent discursive shift on immigration in Sweden. Nordicom Review, 42(s1), 67-87.
Ekman, M., & Widholm, A. (2017). Political communication in an age of visual connectivity: Exploring Instagram practices among Swedish politicians. Northern lights, 15(1), 15-32.
Ekman, M., & Widholm, A. (2015). Politicians as media producers: Current trajectories in the relation between journalists and politicians in the age of social media. Journalism practice, 9(1), 78-91.
Gruzd, A., Mai, P., & Taleb, O. (2024). Digital battleground: An examination of anti-refugee discourse on Twitter against Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. First Monday.
Gruzd, A., Paulin, D., & Haythornthwaite, C. (2016). Analyzing social media and learning through content and social network analysis: A faceted methodological approach. Journal of Learning Analytics, 3(3), 46-71.
Gruzd, A., & Roy, J. (2014). Investigating political polarization on Twitter: A Canadian perspective. Policy & internet, 6(1), 28-45.
Gruzd, A., Wellman, B., & Takhteyev, Y. (2011). Imagining Twitter as an imagined community. American Behavioral Scientist, 55(10), 1294-1318.
Nasuto, A. & Rowe, F. (2024). Understanding anti-immigration sentiment spreading on Twitter. PLoS ONE 19(9): e0307917.
Schneider-Strawczynski, S., & Valette, J. (2025). Media coverage of immigration and the polarization of attitudes. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 17(1), 337-368.
Triandafyllidou, A., & Monteiro, S. (2024). Migration narratives on social media: Digital racism and subversive migrant subjectivities. First Monday.