The Technology and Diaspora: Investigating Immigration Issues in Timog Online

This study investigates the reciprocal relations of technology and diaspora through the examination of immigration issues in Timog Online forum. Through the types of messages conveyed by forum users, authors look at how these messages relate to in the cultivation of social capital. Timog Online forum serves as a virtual community among Filipinos in Japan. It provides information, support as well as communication platform to most Filipino migrants. This study, therefore, illustrates how forum users appropriated and utilized computer-mediated communication (CMC) like the Timog Online forum. It is hoped that concerns raised and resolved in the immigration forum can present the value of Internet as a bridge for community formation, engagement as well as the enhancement of Filipino migrants’ social capital.