Fighting for sustainability on Instagram: Uncovering who sustainability influencers are

Abstract: Background: Social media has permeated practically every aspect of our everyday lives. One of these social media platforms is Instagram, which enables people to connect, communicate and share information with other users. The potential of these and social media influencers (SMI) to influence users’ behaviours is considerable. However, sustainability influencers, an emerging type of SMIs, have gained little attention in the literature so far. Objective: The purpose of this thesis is three-fold: 1) to gain a deeper understanding of how sustainability is conceptualised by sustainability influencers, 2) to shed light on what it means, in practice, to be a sustainability influencer, and 3) to capture the prevalent discourses within the field. Methods: The thesis draws from 13 semi-structured interviews with Swedish sustainability influencers and uses Q methodology to capture the prevalent logics within the field. Results: The interviews identified two main conceptualizations of sustainability: inner-focused and outer-focused. Through Institutional Logics, the Q method captured four distinct discourses or perspectives in the field: bioenvironmentalists, protective liberals, critical thinkers, and institutionalists. Conclusions: The main conclusions of the thesis are: i) sustainability influencers are self-proclaimed SMIs who focus, at least partly, on topics related to sustainability, ii) there is a gender gap in the field of sustainability influencers in Sweden in favour of women, iii) there are two main conceptualizations of sustainability, which may impact the influencers’ areas of focus, iv) there are four prevalent discourses within the field of sustainability influencers with very limited areas of consensus, and v) sustainability influencers’ main challenges include stress, mental health, and financial issues. Implications: This thesis’ main contribution lies in its novel description of sustainability influencers, their values and beliefs, and the way they operationalize these in their Instagram accounts.