Filipino content creators brokering migration to Australia on TikTok

This article contributes to the growing body of work on brokerage and the organization of transnational mobility by introducing social media content creators–specifically those on TikTok–as emerging forms of digital brokers. While they share similarities with migration agencies/brokers in connecting formal regulatory systems and migration social actors, they also play a distinct role in shaping migrant subjectivities. Through the construction of aspirational narratives and platform-specific practices, these creators, belonging to the category of informal brokers do not directly promote their services; yet they significantly contribute to the crafting of migrant identities that align with the expectations of overseas labour markets or directly promote migration agencies. By foregrounding the affordances of TikTok–its algorithmic visibility, participatory culture and affective modes of engagement–we illustrate how digital platforms mediate contemporary migration imaginaries and pathways. In doing so, we also address the relative paucity of scholarship on the education-migration-social media nexus, particularly in terms of how different actors and relational dynamics co-produce the pathways that facilitate international mobility of students, and migrants more broadly.