Platform-conditioned anchoring: Rethinking acculturation through cross-platform digital practices among Polish migrants in Scotland

Abstract

The article reconceptualizes migrant adaptation as a platform-conditioned process by integrating acculturation theory with the concept of digital anchoring. Focusing on Polish migrants in Scotland, it examines how psychosocial footholds – symbolic, relational, moral, cultural, functional, and transnational – are constructed and negotiated across multiple social media platforms. The study draws on a systematically collected corpus of 852 anonymized Facebook posts (January–June 2025), complemented by a cross-platform qualitative extension comprising 152 textual units from publicly accessible Instagram and Threads content. Combining quantitative lexical mapping with in-depth thematic coding, the analysis reveals that anchoring processes vary across digital architectures. While Berry’s acculturation typology (integration, separation, assimilation, marginalization) remains useful as a map of possible orientations, the findings demonstrate that these orientations emerge from ongoing anchoring processes rather than fixed strategies. On Facebook, homeland political debates function as symbolic anchors through ideological confrontation, while solidarity exchanges, heritage preservation, and moral appeals foster relational, intergenerational, and ethical anchoring. Engagement with Scottish institutions appears largely pragmatic and domain-specific. In contrast, Instagram and Threads foreground entrepreneurial, affective, and lifestyle anchoring. The study advances anchoring theory by demonstrating that digital interaction is not merely reflective of adaptation but constitutive of it. Digital platforms operate as adaptive infrastructures that shape the visibility, affective intensity, and interactional form of migrant belonging. By introducing platform-conditioned anchoring, the article offers a processual and technologically grounded framework for understanding transnational adaptation in the digital era.