Googling immigration: The associations between search behavior, immigration levels and migration attitudes

Álvaro Mariscal de Gante Martín

doi:10.14198/obets.27886

Autores/as

Álvaro Mariscal de Gante Martín Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados (IESA-CSIC), España https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8917-2746

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14198/obets.27886

Palabras clave:

Google Trends, inmigración, actitudes hacia la inmigración, política migratoria, xenofobia

Resumen

Google Trends ha captado la atención académica por su aplicación en campos como la propagación de enfermedades, los patrones de consumo o el comportamiento electoral. Sin embargo, la investigación sobre actitudes en materia étnica es limitada, y la mayoría de la literatura se centra en términos de búsqueda racistas en Estados Unidos, descuidando así la inmigración y los países europeos. Además, ningún estudio hasta la fecha ha contrastado patrones de búsqueda con medidas explícitas de encuesta sobre prejuicio racial o antinmigrante. Este estudio examina el caso de España para explorar en qué medida (y cuáles de) las búsquedas en Google sobre inmigración están asociadas con actitudes en materia migratoria y/o niveles de población inmigrante. A partir de datos panel a nivel regional desde 2010 hasta 2022, se utilizaron modelos de regresión OLS de efectos fijos para contrastar si el comportamiento de búsqueda está relacionado con datos de la Encuesta Social Europea y/o del Padrón de Habitantes. Las búsquedas sobre inmigrantes son significativamente más prevalentes en áreas con mayores proporciones de personas nacidas en el extranjero con características fenotípicas distintivas. Asimismo, algunas búsquedas sobre el número de personas inmigrantes en el país están consistentemente asociadas a preferencias restrictivas en política migratoria, en línea con investigación consolidada sobre la relación entre actitudes negativas y percepciones de amenaza demográfica. Aunque fueran propensas a falsos positivos, estos resultados sugieren que el auge de ciertas búsquedas sobre el volumen de población inmigrante podría servir como una herramienta útil para detectar potenciales cambios respecto a las preferencias en política migratoria sin coste y en tiempo real.

Financiación

Programa de Formación del Profesorado Universitario (FPU) del Ministerio de Universidades del Gobierno de España

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