Multimedia Communication and the Structuring of Migration Decisions: A Comparative Study of Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Malaysia in the Context of Regional Labor Cooperation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1512.06Keywords:
migration discourse, conceptual metaphor theory, multimedia communication, affective politics, Southeast AsiaAbstract
This study investigates how multimedia communication influences the migration decisions of youth in Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Malaysia—not merely as a reaction to economic constraints, but as a culturally mediated process shaped by metaphorical cognition and affective structures. Drawing upon conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), the politics of emotion (Ahmed, 2004), gender performativity (Butler, 2004), and the sociology of communication (Bourdieu, 1991; Bauman, 2000; Virilio, 2006), the research analyzes 500 survey responses and 80 in-depth interviews conducted across the four countries. The findings indicate that migration is conceptualized through dominant metaphors such as “escape”, “sacrifice”, “flight”, and “mature responsibility”, which are continuously circulated, legitimized, and normalized by regional media. These metaphors not only frame migration as a desirable rite of passage but also delegitimize immobility by associating it with emotional stagnation or social failure. The study proposes an original regional analytical model, demonstrating how transnational media infrastructures condition the emotional and cognitive architectures of migration imaginaries in contemporary Southeast Asia.
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