Intermediaries Online? Craftspeople Communicating about Sustainability on Instagram

This research insight presents an empirical study of the sustainability communication practices of professional tradespeople on Instagram. Tradespeople often play a pivotal role offline when individuals make decisions about sustainability such as, for instance, home renovations or energy retrofits, and audiences use the internet extensively to find inspiration. With tradespeople increasingly having a social media presence, a central question is if they also function as intermediaries online, exerting influence on homeowners’ sustainability decisions through social media. To answer this question, a content analysis was performed on 613 Instagram posts by professional Danish carpenters and woodworkers. The analysis finds that…