Enjoying nature on Instagram: A moderated mediation model of photographic aesthetics, image manipulation, and environmental attitude

Studies on traditional media suggest the optimistic relationship between consumption of nature-specific contents and cultivation of pro-environmental attitude. Nevertheless, with the incessant development of media features on social media, little has been done to examine the potentiality between nature-specific contents and environmental preservation. On Instagram, which is highly popular among young adults, there are numerous features for manipulating photographic aesthetics. Based on the theoretical model of aesthetics-ecology relationship, the current study employed survey to examine the relationship between aesthetics of nature photos on Instagram, perceived image manipulation, pleasant feeling, and pro-environmental attitude among young-adult viewers. With data collected from 420 young adults in the United States, results showed that pleasant feeling mediated the relationship between perceived aesthetics of nature photos and pro-environmental attitude, which facilitated recycling behavior. Moderated mediation analysis illustrated that the indirect effect was greater for viewers who perceived higher level of image manipulation on the nature photos. The findings suggested a potential good use of image manipulation on social media regarding environmental preservation.