Abstract
Online communities are increasingly becoming a useful tool in for the immigration process. As the decision to immigrate can bring about a significant disruption to one’s life, it is vital to understand how the use of online communities may influence the immigration decision and support the immigration process. In this paper, we focus specifically on South African immigrants who plan to immigrate or have already immigrated to the United Kingdom and their use of Facebook groups. We adopt a mixed methods approach and combine quantitative and qualitative techniques to develop a holistic understanding of the immigration decision and process. Our findings show that online communities can be influential towards the immigration decision, but instrumental during the immigration process, transforming one’s social network before and after their immigration.
Recommended Citation
Chen, Mei and Zamani, Efpraxia D., "Online Communities and the Immigration Journey: A mixed-methods study on Facebook Groups" (2023). UK Academy for Information Systems Conference Proceedings 2023. 1.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ukais2023/1