How do influencers cultivate nature beliefs and environmental behaviors?

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Schweiger
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 535287325

Social media influencers are considered relevant sources of information and factors in shaping public opinion online. Their popularity and relevance, especially among young people, are based on permanent, ritualized contact, para- and ortho-social interactivity - between influencers and fans as well as within the community -, perceived authenticity, credibility, and similarity with fans. While sustainability influencers also include socially relevant content on nature, environmental or climate protection in their communication, influencers with a wide reach usually focus on narrative, entertaining content and are often seen as representatives of a hedonistic, consumption-oriented, less environmentally friendly worldview in which nature only appears as a leisure resource and aesthetic background. It is known from cultivation research for television and beyond that long-term contact with media content and the meta-messages there can promote corresponding world views in recipients. Research has identified effect-enhancing characteristics of media, content and audiences that overlap strikingly with the success factors of influencers mentioned at the beginning. Therefore, it can be assumed that influencers cause significant cultivation effects among young people, which can also be resonantly reinforced in their communities ('co-cultivation'). To date, cultivation effects through influencers and their communities have not been studied in the environmental field or on any other topic. Therefore, the project wants to focus on the influencers with the widest reach in German-speaking countries. For this purpose, their content and meta-messages on ideas about nature and their environment-related behavior on the social media platforms with the widest reach will be analyzed in terms of content (Message System Analysis) and combined with a three-wave survey for reception and cultivation analysis (Cultivation Analysis) among young people between 16 and 29 years of age. In addition, statements and meta-messages in the influencers' communities will be collected (Community Analysis) in order to understand their cultivation-related relevance. In this way, the project aims to determine the extent to which influencers as personalized communicators and their online communities influence young people's individual ideas about nature and environmental behavior in the long term, on the one hand, and to contribute to the conceptual and methodological further development of the cultivation approach in a profoundly changed media environment, on the other.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants