A Systematic Content Analysis of the Moral Foundations Featured in Celebrities’, Influencers’, and Athletes’ Instagram Content

Despite the attention that moral media content has received for many years, no research has systematically investigated the moral foundations featured in (visual) user-generated content. This is important because exposure to moral content may influence the relative salience of different moral foundations among consumers, with implications for their moral decision-making and reasoning. This manual content analysis investigated the prevalence and consistency of the moral foundations represented in the Instagram profiles of the 59 most followed Western celebrities, athletes, and influencers. The study coded 1,256 posts and 2,936 stories, documenting the exemplification of moral foundations and their links with gender, endorser type, platform feature (i.e. stories vs. posts), and presence of emojis. Results from multilevel analyses showed that famous individuals posted more content that upheld than violated moral foundations, with an overrepresentation of care and loyalty content. On average, morally laden content represented one-fifth of the posted content, with most personalities sharing moral content at least once. No difference was observed between posts and stories. Men and athletes featured more loyalty than women, celebrities, and influencers. The representation of moral content, especially care, predicted the use of positive emojis. The theoretical implications for the long-term processes of the MIME are discussed.