Project Overview: Managing the transnational flow of people is one of the greatest challenges facing nation-states in the 21st century, requiring governments to negotiate complex issues of sovereignty, national security, and human safety and well being. Since the 1990s, governments around the world have increasingly integrated public information campaigns (PICs) into their overarching border enforcement strategies. However, little research had examined the use of PICs and their impact on border governance and state sovereignty. This project contributed to existing research and knowledge in the field of political geography and related social sciences by examining the development, implementation, and spatial impacts of PICs as they were used by the United States and Australia between 1990 and 2018.

This project had three objectives: 1) to trace the development of PICs as a strategy of border enforcement; 2) to map the spatial and institutional frameworks through which PICs have been created and distributed and how these distribution networks relate to the form, content, and effectiveness of campaigns; and 3) to identify the role PICs play in producing political geographies of border enforcement. 

Methods: The 5-year long project integrated qualitative and quantitative data sources in order to trace the development, implementation, and spatial impacts of PICs as a border enforcement strategy. Interviews with key informants involved in campaign development and implementation were conducted. Interview data was supplemented with budget and evaluation data obtained through freedom of information requests in both national contexts and online and archival research. This resulted in an archive of over 1,000 files related to the development and implementation of public information campaigns and actual campaign materials from over 30 campaigns carried out between 1998 and 2018.  

Findings: The project demonstrated how public information campaigns became an increasingly prevalent border enforcement strategy in the 1990s and 2000s, despite lacking clear evidence of their efficacy. The project further revealed how campaign development and distribution relies upon a diffuse network of government agencies, private contractors and companies, non-governmental organizations, and transnational technologies. These networks enable the widespread distribution of campaign materials into migrant sending communities and spaces of transit, while also allowing for the development of both generalized and culturally-specific messages regarding why individuals should not migrate or support unauthorized migration. We additionally found that unlike border enforcement strategies that rely on hard power strategies of militarization and migrant detention and criminalization, public information campaigns rely on soft power strategies that work to compel emotional and affective responses among audiences and ultimately impact decision-making among potential migrants and their familial and social networks.  This points to the expansion and broadening of governmental strategies of border control. Finally, the project demonstrated how the backgrounds and experiences of government employees and contractors are central to shaping the campaign materials developed and messages circulated. This points to the importance of analyzing the development and implementation of governmental policies at the scale of individual actors, as well as at the agency/organization and national scales.   

Research Products: A diverse array of research products resulted from this project. We published eight peer-reviewed academic publications and book chapters and have three additional in preparation. Ten research presentations were delivered to academic and researcher audiences across the United States and internationally. Two StoryMaps documenting the emergence of public information campaigns as a global phenomenon of border enforcement and demonstrating the way in which they alter the geography of border enforcement were developed and made publicly available online in order to support public knowledge and undergraduate and graduate education. Feminist data visualization techniques and approaches were advanced throughout the project and insights garnered were outlined in academic publications, conference presentations, and an international workshop series. The project further supported research training among undergraduate and graduate social science students. 

Last Modified: 12/24/2024
Modified by: Jill Williams