Sharing Resources on Facebook Groups: Polish Immigrants in Germany, Norway and UK

Facebook groups enable their members access to diverse resources symbolic and material, scarce and free, exhaustible or renewable. Depending on the group’s objective, resources are co-used, gifted, bartered, swapped, freecycled or sold (bought) by users responding to the needs of others or satisfying their own needs. Based on posts collected through the Facebook’s Application Programming Interface (API), this study examines sharing of resources among Polish immigrants in Germany, Norway and United Kingdom, belonging to the public Facebook groups. Findings suggest that the most important resource shared by members of Polish immigrant groups on Facebook is job-related information. Moreover, Facebook groups appear to be a popular selling tool and less effective sharing space for Polish immigrants in Germany, Norway and UK. However, some sharing economy models such as freecycling, swapping and bartering are identified based on Facebook posts.