TY - GEN
T1 - A grounded theory analysis of the techniques used by social media influencers and their potential for influencing the public regarding environmental awareness
AU - Okuah, Obrukevwe
AU - Scholtz, Brenda M.
AU - Snow, Bernadette
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper forms a part of a larger project where empirical investigations will be carried out to further confirm the findings. This project falls under the National Research Foundation (NRF - community social and marine cohesion towards pro-environmental behaviour) for funding project UID 111819.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.
PY - 2019/9/17
Y1 - 2019/9/17
N2 - There is a need for new inventive strategies to communicate to the public on particular subjects such as climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainability. Social Media Influencers (SMIs) are an emerging type of third-party endorsers who can aim to shape and influence the attitudes and perceptions of people through social media. In the field of marketing, SMIs have had great impact on customer retention and relationships. SMIs could help in engaging with the public to adopt pro-environmental behaviour. However, there is limited research related to SMIs in the field of environmental awareness. This study reports on a grounded theory analysis that explored the literature related to the characteristics of SMIs and the techniques used by SMIs that could be used by researchers for influencing the public regarding environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviour. This paper fulfils a need for identifying strategies for engaging and influencing the public to gain insights into their pro-environmental behaviour.
AB - There is a need for new inventive strategies to communicate to the public on particular subjects such as climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainability. Social Media Influencers (SMIs) are an emerging type of third-party endorsers who can aim to shape and influence the attitudes and perceptions of people through social media. In the field of marketing, SMIs have had great impact on customer retention and relationships. SMIs could help in engaging with the public to adopt pro-environmental behaviour. However, there is limited research related to SMIs in the field of environmental awareness. This study reports on a grounded theory analysis that explored the literature related to the characteristics of SMIs and the techniques used by SMIs that could be used by researchers for influencing the public regarding environmental awareness and pro-environmental behaviour. This paper fulfils a need for identifying strategies for engaging and influencing the public to gain insights into their pro-environmental behaviour.
KW - Environmental Awareness
KW - Pro-environmental behaviour
KW - Social Media
KW - Social Media Influencers
KW - Social Networking Sites
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073155472&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85073155472&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3351108.3351145
DO - 10.1145/3351108.3351145
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85073155472
T3 - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
BT - 2019 SAICSIT Conference
PB - Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
T2 - 2019 Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists: Digital Eco-Systems Gone Wild, SAICSIT 2019
Y2 - 17 September 2019 through 18 September 2019
ER -
