THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION AS THE DRIVE FOR IMMIGRATION: A CASE STUDY IN FINLAND

Abstract

Recently many studies have remarked migration issues. Thus, in countries such as Finland, having a governmental strategy for increasing the number of migrants, especially educated immigrants or encouraging international students to stay, is highly important. While Finland is recognized as the happiest country, it would be arguable why it is not included in the list of top destination countries for immigration. The literature shows communication is one of the most issues for immigrants and international students, particularly those from Asian countries. Therefore, this study aims to understand how technology-based communication such as the use of social media influences international students' decision to immigrate. Respectively, 23 Iranian tertiary-level students were interviewed as the case of the study. Uses and Gratification theory was employed to investigate the role of media usage among the participants. The findings showed that although there is high desire among the participants to immigrate to Finland, the difficulty and unpopularity of the Finnish language and culture of distance in Finland reduces the motivation to emigrate and made the participants feel being the outsider in the university and society. The use of communication media has facilitated university admissions and communication with family, friends, compatriots and other international students, but has not been able to connect them to Finnish society. While educated immigrants in every country are human resources, the results of this study draw our attention to explore different aspects of communication, identifying motivating factors and reducing frustration among international students for immigration. These results emphasize on the development of strategies and tools for harnessing the potential of media and technology to connect international students as future educated immigrants in the host community.