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.
AlinejadDPonzanesiS (2020) Migrancy and digital mediations of emotion. International Journal of Cultural Studies23(5): 621–638. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877920933649
BlanfordJIHuangZMacEachrenAM, et al. (2015) Geolocated tweets to explore city-scale mobility patterns. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems53: 36–47.
4.
BlommaertJSzablaM (2018) Superdiversity and the complexity of repertoires in online discourse: polish migrants in Belgium. Discourse, Context & Media25: 5–13.
BurrellK (2009) Polish Migration to the UK in the ‘New’ European Union: After 2004. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing.
7.
CiupijusZ (2025) Being (un)settled as citizens and community: Post-2004 Polish migrants, brexit and the legacy of the parekh report. Ethnicities25(1): 107–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687968241247569
8.
CohenR (2008) Global Diasporas: An Introduction. 2nd edition. London: Routledge.
9.
DrinkwaterSGarapichMP (2015) Migration strategies of Polish migrants: do they have any at all?Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies41(12): 1909–1931. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2015.1027180
10.
FihelAKaczmarczykPMackiewicz-ŁyziakJ, et al. (2007) Labour Mobility Within the EU in the Context of Enlargement and the Functioning of the Transitional Arrangements. Country Report: Poland. University of Warsaw.
11.
FiorioLAbelGCaiJ, et al. (2017) Using Twitter data to estimate the relationship between short-term mobility and long-term migration. Web Science17: 25–28, June, Troy, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3091478.3091496
12.
GalasińskaA (2010) Online discourses of polishness: negotiating identity in post-2004 migrant communities. Social Identities16(3): 349–362.
13.
GreinerCSakdapolrakP (2013) Translocality: concepts, applications and emerging research perspectives. Geography Compass7: 373–384. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12048
14.
GrigoryevDBerryJWStogianniM, et al. (2023) The integration hypothesis: a critical evaluation informed by multilevel meta-analyses of three multinational datasets. Journal of Intercultural Relations97: 101897. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2023.101897
15.
Grzymała-KazłowskaA (2015) Social anchoring: immigrant identity, security and integration reconnected?Sociology50(6): 1123–1139. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038515594091
16.
Grzymała-KazłowskaARyanL (2022) Bringing anchoring and embedding together: theorising migrants’ lives over time. Comparative Migration Studies10: 46. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-022-00322-z
17.
HerdağdelenAAdamicLMasonW (2016) The social ties of immigrant communities in the United States. Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Web Sciences. ACM, 78–84.
18.
Grzymała-MoszczyńskaHTrąbkaA (2014) From children of migrants to migrant children. Studia Migracyjne – Przegląd Polonijny40(3): 5–15.
19.
JancewiczBKloc-NowakWPszczółkowskaD (2020) Push, pull and brexit: polish migrants’ perceptions of factors discouraging them from staying in the UK. Central and Eastern European Migration Review9(1): 101–123. https://doi.org/10.17467/ceemr.2020.09
20.
KhosraviNikM (2017) Social media critical discourse studies (SM-CDS). In: WodakRMeyerM (eds) Methods of Critical Discourse Studies. London: Sage, pp. 205–230.
21.
KhosraviNikM (2020) Social Media Discourse, (Dis)Information and Democracy: Politics, Accountability and the Public Sphere. London: Routledge.
22.
KimJWang SonneSEGarimellaK, et al. (2023) Online social integration of migrants: evidence from Twitter. Migration Studies11(4): 544–571. https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnad017
23.
MessiasJBenevenutoFWeberI, et al. (2016) From migration corridors to clusters: the value of Google+ data for migration studies. Social and Information Networks. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1607.00421
24.
MillerMYangMLimR, et al. (2013) A test of the domain-specific acculturation strategy hypothesis. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology19(1): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030499
NguyenHHvon EyeA (2002) The acculturation scale for Vietnamese adolescents (ASVA): a bidimensional perspective. International Journal of Behavioral Development26: 202–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/01650250042000672
27.
OiarzabalPedroAlonsoAndoni (2010) Diasporas in the new media age: Identity, politics, and community. University of Nevada Press.
28.
OkólskiMSaltJ (2014) Polish emigration to the UK after 2004: why did so many come?Central and Eastern European Migration Review3(2): 11–37.
29.
OrtizFernando (1995) Cuban Counterpoint Tobacco and Sugar. Duke University Press.
PethSASterlyHSakdapolrakP (2018) Between the village and the global city: the production and decay of translocal spaces of Thai migrant workers in Singapore. Mobilities9(2): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2018.1449785
32.
RudminFWCastroWJ (2016) Acculturation research critiques and alternative research designs. In: Schwartz SJ and Unger J (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Acculturation and Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at:https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190215217.013.4
33.
RyanLMulhollandJ (2015) Embedding in motion: analysing relational, spatial and temporal dynamics among highly skilled migrants. In: RyanLD’AngeloA (eds) Migrant Capital. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 135–153.
34.
RyanLSalesRTilkiM, et al. (2007) Recent Polish migrants in London: social networks, transience and settlement. Research Report, January. Available at. https://www.researchgate.net/
35.
RyanLSalesRTilkiM, et al. (2008) Social networks, social support and social capital: the experiences of recent Polish migrants in London. Sociology42(4): 672–690. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038508091622
SchroverMSchinkelW (2013) Introduction: the language of inclusion and exclusion in the context of immigration and integration. Ethnic and Racial Studies36(7): 1123–1141. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.783711
38.
StateB (2014) The Migration of Professionals: Globalization of the Labor Market Using Linkedin Data.
39.
SzablaM (2021) Digital migration practices and transnational belonging among Polish migrants in the Netherlands. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies47(14): 3174–3191.
40.
TrevenaP (2009) ‘New’ Polish Migration to the UK: A Synthesis of Existing Evidence. Southampton: ESRC Centre for Population Change.
41.
TrevenaP (2018) Attracting and Retaining Migrants in Post-brexit Scotland: Is a Social Integration Strategy the Answer?Edinburgh: Scottish Parliament Information Centre.
42.
VanceaMihaelaBosoAlex (2015) Migrant Women and Labour Integration in Catalonia: The Impact of New Information and Communication Technologies. Revista de Estudios Sociales53: 138–149. doi: 10.7440/res53.2015.11.
WardCKusL (2012) Back to and beyond Berry’s basics: the conceptualization, operationalization and classification of acculturation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations36(4): 472–485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2012.02.002
45.
WerbnerP (2012) The place which is Diaspora: citizenship, religion, and gender in transnational contexts. Diaspora21(1): 95–114.
46.
WhiteA (2011) Polish Families and Migration Since EU Accession. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
47.
ZagheniEWeberI (2012) You are where you e-mail: using e-mail data to estimate international migration. Science338(6108): 345–348.
48.
ZagheniEGarimellaKStateB (2014) Inferring international and internal migration patterns from Twitter dataProceedings of the 23rd International World Wide Web Conference Companion. ACM, pp. 439–444.
