Political Participation and Media Use of Highly Qualified Migrants

The migration flow of high-skilled migrants and brain drain have been important subjects of research and drawing the attention of many researchers. Especially, in Turkey, by the change of the social structure and political system, we started to face more and more the migratory movement of high-skilled people from Turkey to live abroad. The main objective of this article is not to mention the main reasons or motivations of this immigration, which is the very subject of other published articles; however the main objective is to show the relation of high-skilled Turkish migrants with communication tools and examine their political participation patterns in home and host country. The data was collected by an online survey realized between 320 high-skilled Turkish migrants living abroad and having at least a university degree. The population of the research has not the aim to represent all Turks living abroad; instead it indicates the sharp reality of the continuing migration flow of Turkish high-skilled migrants. This study aims to show the relation between political participation and communication by the case study of a very specific population, Turkish high-skilled migrants, in order to understand the basic social and political tendencies of this population