Message-Design Logic and GreenpeaceAfrica’s Facebook Posts: A Qualitative Descriptive Online Questionnaire of South African Millennials’ Sustainability Perceptions and Practices in 2020

Abstract

This study investigated Facebook and its perceived role in South African Millennials’ sustainability perceptions and practices. The problem was based on the insufficient literature on the perceived influence of social media sustainability messages on peoples’ pro-environmental perceptions and actions, from a South African context. This was addressed by interpreting participants’ responses to determine whether environmental awareness aligned with sustainable action or not. Message-design Logic theoretically guided the study, and central concepts of Expressive, Conventional and Rhetorical Logic were used to thematically analyse participants’ responses. The snowball method was used to acquire five participants and data was collected via an online questionnaire which qualitatively presented participants’ perceptions. The findings suggested that sustainable posts on GreenpeaceAfrica’s Facebook did influence South African Millennials’ sustainable perceptions and practices by first creating environmental awareness which then led to environmental action. This study contributed insight to the Communications field and organisations regarding improving their communication practices targeting people of a similar age group, based on participants’ responses and the findings in this study.