Context effects of an influencer’s image background on followership in image-sharing social media platforms: The role of perceived naturalness and originality

Personal images of individual influencers are the backbone of image-sharing social media platforms (SMPs). Extant research on using personal images to develop online followership has focused on the main figure or focal area in the images. In doing so, extant research is unable to capture the perceptions and relative value of the main figure which depends not only on the figure but also on the contextual background location. We address this important research gap by studying the context effects of the background location used in images of influencers on followership in image-sharing SMPs. We use theory from context effects and visual perception literature in psychology and consumer behavior to develop our theoretical arguments leading to the hypotheses. We argue that the background location in images of an influencer has a direct and indirect effect on development of followership. Specifically, we hypothesize that an outdoor background is likely to have a greater effect on developing followership compared to an indoor background. Furthermore, this relationship is serially mediated by perceived naturalness and perceived originality. We use secondary field data from Instagram posts to test the direct effect of background location. In addition, experimental data are used to test for both the direct and indirect mediated effect. We obtain support for our hypotheses.