IOM's WAKA Well unravelled: A multimodal discourse analysis of an internet-based migration-information campaign

Most migration-information campaigns (MICs) funded by European countries or the European Union (EU) itself, with the collaboration of international and transnational organisations, have been targeting central and western Africa as origin areas for several undocumented migrants. In 2019, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) launched WAKA Well, an innovative campaign in the form of a website designed to provide young people from several African countries with information about risks associated with irregular migration and local opportunities. Using a multimodal discourse analysis (MMDA) methodology, the study identifies and discusses discourses and communicative strategies involved in the design of the WAKA Well campaign, by analysing the construction of meaning across its web pages and the logico-semantic relations between elements on the website. As such, the work enriches the state of the art on MICs by providing it with the first in-depth website analysis that accounts for the intrinsic multimodal nature of this type of campaign. The paper confirms previous findings from the existing literature revolving around the overgeneralisation of the campaign's target and the quantitative and qualitative prevalence of immobility over mobility in its contents, but also shows that such preference occurs regardless of the (ir)regularity of the journey. Unlike other campaigns, WAKA Well also displays an unexpected visual silence over human trafficking and a greater focus on local opportunities, often conveyed through images evoking patriotic feelings.