Designing Ethical Social Media Strategies for Visual Messaging on Immigration Issues (2017)

While the United States has long been considered a nation of immigrants, the issue of immigration has become more contentious by the day in the past few years. Whether the issue is limiting travel from specific nations in the Middle East and Africa, building a wall to deter illegal immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border and enforcing new policies regarding immigrant families with children entering the United States, or blocking immigrant caravans to the United States from Central America, conversations on- and offline have become increasingly polarized – often along partisan lines. Social media platforms appear to play an increasing role in these conversations, but there is a lack of research in the role visuals play, even though it’s frequently the visuals that catch our attention first. Visual social media platform messages—for instance on Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat—are more likely to affect us emotionally, but are less frequently studied, creating a gap in the field.