Leveraging Web 2.0 technologies to foster collective civic environmental initiatives among low-income urban communities

There are a number of challenges facing the low-income urban communities living in slums in most of the developing countries such as the Mathare slum. Provision of essential public basic services in the Nairobi slums is lower compared to what is offered to the rest of the City. But, services such as the garbage removal also requires participation of the residents for successful service delivery. The objective of this study was to investigate whether use of Facebook, as a Web 2.0 technology, can support the residents of Mathare slum to actively participate in civic environmental initiatives and to foster community activeness towards civic environmental protection. The study employed a mixed methods approach to investigate the problem. This was achieved through a preliminary survey (700 respondents) to collect data on use of Web 2.0 among the residents of Mathare slum, an experiment with 175 residents, who participated in a community civic environmental initiative using Facebook and a survey to measure continuance intentions on use of Web 2.0 technologies for collective community Web 2.0-mediated activities towards protecting the environment among low-income urban communities. The study constructed and successfully tested a model of Web 2.0 use and online environmental protection initiatives. Use of Web 2.0 technologies for environmental protection emerged as a significant predictor of online social capital, community environmental activeness and continuance intentions to participate in environmental initiatives, while perceived cost negatively moderates the relationship between Web 2.0 use and continuance intentions. Implications and recommendations for policy, practice and research are provided.