Exploring the role and use of values & emotions in promoting prosocial action via Instagram

Abstract: Inspired by recent work on value-based messaging in migration-relatedcampaigning to elicit sympathy, this project explores theoretical rationale foremploying values in the field of communication for social change (C4SC),understood in its broad sense as aspiring to engender prosocial behaviour. The project is framed by the main question of how values, emotions and(prosocial) action relate to one another. Historic and more recent sociologytheories related to values, emotions and action such as the Jamesian Theory of Action, Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, Schwartz’s Refined Theory ofValues, Caprara et al’s Prosociality, inform my theoretical hypothesis that for anindividual responding to a stimulus values are relatively stable frames whichguide goal setting, whilst emotions perform a cognitive function of evaluation,combined they create the impetus for (prosocial) action, though do notguarantee the impetus will be acted upon. Whether evidence that this hypothesis is enacted by traditional C4SC actors is the second endeavour of this project, for which a 42-text comparative analysisis performed to observe whether and how calls to action (CTA), values and emotions are present in existing prosocial campaigning. The texts are sourced from Instagram, the growing visual-first social media platform that offerscomparable units and serves as symbolic representation of the actors’communication. The main finding of this analysis is that values and emotions are present acrossthe range of themes and content producers. Whilst values associated withprosocial behaviour feature strongly across the board, values are present in a multitude of ways, sometimes in provocative or counter-intuitive ways within anindividual text. This diversity is positive for the potential of individual texts to engage a wider audience by reflecting the complexity of each person’s ownvalue profile. Being more subjective, the types of emotions elicited is less clear than valuesspoken to/challenged. Nonetheless the ways emotions are employed provideample food for thought for researchers and practitioners, and there is credible proof that each text will evoke some form of emotional engagement, whichanswers to the criteria in the hypothesis for emotion-facilitated evaluation. The findings on CTAs are informative, particularly when compared between thedifferent C4SC actors studied; there is a tendency for global level campaigningto be more general and national and local level more specific, whilst governmental level demonstrates limited CTAs for social change, focusing oncelebration of progress instead. The findings on the three units of interest in this project demonstrate fertileground for further research into the interplay between values, emotions andaction, as well as demonstrating to practitioners that understanding the value profile of target audiences is a worthwhile step in campaign design, and toconsider how a campaign might provoke certain emotional responses leadingeither to heightened engagement or risking emotional dissonance.  The project contributes to C4SC by testing a methodology for decoding CTAs,values and emotions, providing a baseline on how these units are used incurrent campaigning, and proposing various avenues of follow-up research,including connecting this work to intent and impact i.e. the extent to which thecampaigns motivated prosocial action. It builds on the work that inspired me bydefining why an emotional response is useful in prosocial campaigning and howthis relates to values and action.