Spheres of influence and new technological trajectories

New migrants confront multiple problems related to accessing appropriate health services and information on arrival in a new country. While research has examined the extent and impact of these problems, much less is known about the role of digital technology, particularly social networking sites, in supporting or undermining the health of migrants. Scholarship on migrant health has yet to engage with the role digital channels play in providing migrants with an alternative means to communicate about health issues that concern them. Yet emerging studies show that migrants are increasingly seeking information about health issues online, either by conducting a Google search on their symptoms or posing (often anonymous) questions in online discussion forums (Ayers et al 2013, Bhandari et al 2014). Further studies demonstrate that the phenomenon of 'Googling' symptoms, what we call asking Dr Google, appears more acute among new migrant and ethnic communities often confronted with concomitant issues in the new homeland. In our focus on new migrants in Australia, we ask what happens to the value and nature of health and medical information when it is circulated in this context. We show that for new migrants access to healthcare is not only restricted by cultural, linguistic and financial constraints, but that the process of migration itself can transforms how new migrants conceptualize their own health and place in the community. Such ways of examining the modes in which health information is transmitted in multicultural environments necessitates new approaches to understanding the social networks of migrants and the changing role these networks play in shaping the ways people think about their own and family's health during migration and resettlement