Global Flows and Digital Discourse: Decoding Immigration Debate through Political Economy and Cultural Studies

Social media is a digital battlefield, where opposing viewpoints clash over immigration policies and refugee resettlement. This article aims to theorize the intersection of critical political economy and cultural studies to examine immigration debates in the age of digital media. Critical political economy highlights how global capitalism, labor markets, and political institutions shape immigration policies, media ownership, and the commodification of migrant voices. Cultural studies, by contrast, interrogate the symbolic dimensions of media narratives, showing how identity, representation, and cultural ideologies structure public discourse on migration. By situating immigration debates within broader structures of capitalism and analyzing the cultural turn toward meaning-making, the study shows how public attitudes toward migrants are produced and contested in social media discourse. This theoretical synthesis indicated how economic interests and cultural narratives converge to shape intercultural communication, and thus the need for critical approaches to digital discourse, diversity, and representation in global migration debates.