ABSTRACT
How do we communicate with international students about their well-being? Do international students know how to find information on taking care of themselves in the host country? Are the ways in which governments and stakeholders communicate with the citizenry effective in communicating with international students? Since international students are digitally savvy and mostly occupy the same digital communication worlds and use the same digital platforms as the host country community, shouldn't communicating with them be easy? Why does communicating with international students the ‘right way’ matter? This chapter addresses this suite of questions by observing that – because international students are transient migrants – the ways in which we communicate with them should differ from the ways in which we communicate with the broader resident community. Moreover, this chapter debunks the myth that international students are ‘digital natives’. Instead, it suggests that international students are sojourners who make a ‘digital journey’ in the digital environment when they make the physical journey from one country to another for study. Through a presentation and discussion of various research projects as case studies, this chapter argues that how we communicate with international students is crucial for their well-being since it has an impact on them and their transient migrant experience.
