IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v161y2022ics0301421521005863.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social media as a driver of the use of renewable energy: The perceptions of instagram users in Iran

Author

Listed:
  • Zobeidi, Tahereh
  • Komendantova, Nadejda
  • Yazdanpanah, Masoud

Abstract

Despite political drivers, available solar and wind potentials, and other driving factors, the share of renewable energy sources in Iran's energy mix remains small. Many factors are perceived as barriers to the use of renewable energy sources and therefore influence the willingness of private households in Iran to use this kind of energy. We argue that social media not only plays an increasingly important role in perceptions of various technologies but also influences people's intentions. Therefore, our aim in this study is to understand whether and how social media influences people's intentions to use renewable energy sources. The research sample includes users of Instagram who are interested in and following information being posted on renewable energy sources. The methodology includes the use of a modified version of the extended parallel process model that includes attitude, intention, and trust in social media. The results of structural equation modeling show that the perceived risk of climate change significantly affects respondents' intention to use renewable energies. Also, perceived self-efficacy has a significant impact on attitude, intention, and use of renewable energy. Government agencies can increase the likelihood that household energy consumers will use renewable energy by using trusted channels to deliver necessary messages about the harms of using traditional energy and the low cost and ease of using renewable energy.

Suggested Citation

  • Zobeidi, Tahereh & Komendantova, Nadejda & Yazdanpanah, Masoud, 2022. "Social media as a driver of the use of renewable energy: The perceptions of instagram users in Iran," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:161:y:2022:i:c:s0301421521005863
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112721
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421521005863
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112721?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tan, Chin-Seang & Ooi, Hooi-Yin & Goh, Yen-Nee, 2017. "A moral extension of the theory of planned behavior to predict consumers’ purchase intention for energy-efficient household appliances in Malaysia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 459-471.
    2. Mostafaeipour, Ali & Mostafaeipour, Neda, 2009. "Renewable energy issues and electricity production in Middle East compared with Iran," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(6-7), pages 1641-1645, August.
    3. Rezaei, Rohollah & Ghofranfarid, Marjan, 2018. "Rural households' renewable energy usage intention in Iran: Extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 382-391.
    4. Sedighe Pakmehr & Masoud Yazdanpanah & Masoud Baradaran, 2021. "Explaining farmers’ response to climate change-induced water stress through cognitive theory of stress: an Iranian perspective," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 5776-5793, April.
    5. Karasmanaki, Evangelia & Tsantopoulos, Georgios, 2019. "Exploring future scientists' awareness about and attitudes towards renewable energy sources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 111-119.
    6. Komendantova, Nadejda & Patt, Anthony & Barras, Lucile & Battaglini, Antonella, 2012. "Perception of risks in renewable energy projects: The case of concentrated solar power in North Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 103-109.
    7. Alexander Maennel & Hyun-Goo Kim, 2018. "Comparison of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Potential through Renewable Energy Transition in South Korea and Germany," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, January.
    8. Zhengxia He & Yanqing Zhou & Jianming Wang & Cunfang Li & Meiling Wang & Wenbo Li, 2021. "The impact of motivation, intention, and contextual factors on green purchasing behavior: New energy vehicles as an example," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 1249-1269, February.
    9. Kim, Heetae & Park, Eunil & Kwon, Sang Jib & Ohm, Jay Y. & Chang, Hyun Joon, 2014. "An integrated adoption model of solar energy technologies in South Korea," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 523-531.
    10. Liu, Bingjie & Pennington-Gray, Lori & Krieger, Janice, 2016. "Tourism crisis management: Can the Extended Parallel Process Model be used to understand crisis responses in the cruise industry?," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 310-321.
    11. Kardooni, Roozbeh & Yusoff, Sumiani Binti & Kari, Fatimah Binti, 2016. "Renewable energy technology acceptance in Peninsular Malaysia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1-10.
    12. Alam, Syed Shah & Nik Hashim, Nik Hazrul & Rashid, Mamunur & Omar, Nor Asiah & Ahsan, Nilufar & Ismail, Md Daud, 2014. "Small-scale households renewable energy usage intention: Theoretical development and empirical settings," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 255-263.
    13. Park, Eunil & Ohm, Jay Y., 2014. "Factors influencing the public intention to use renewable energy technologies in South Korea: Effects of the Fukushima nuclear accident," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 198-211.
    14. Esteban, Miguel & Zhang, Qi & Longarte-Galnares, Gorka, 2012. "Cost-benefit analysis of a green electricity system in Japan considering the indirect economic impacts of tropical cyclones," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 49-57.
    15. Zyadin, Anas & Puhakka, Antero & Ahponen, Pirkkoliisa & Cronberg, Tarja & Pelkonen, Paavo, 2012. "School students' knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes toward renewable energy in Jordan," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 78-85.
    16. Bakhtiyari, Ziba & Yazdanpanah, Masoud & Forouzani, Masoumeh & Kazemi, Navab, 2017. "Intention of agricultural professionals toward biofuels in Iran: Implications for energy security, society, and policy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 341-349.
    17. Najafi, G. & Ghobadian, B. & Mamat, R. & Yusaf, T. & Azmi, W.H., 2015. "Solar energy in Iran: Current state and outlook," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 931-942.
    18. Pakmehr, Sedighe & Yazdanpanah, Masoud & Baradaran, Masoud, 2020. "How collective efficacy makes a difference in responses to water shortage due to climate change in southwest Iran," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    19. Ann E. Schlosser, 2005. "Posting versus Lurking: Communicating in a Multiple Audience Context," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 32(2), pages 260-265, September.
    20. Yazdanpanah, Masoud & Komendantova, Nadejda & Ardestani, Roshanak Shafiei, 2015. "Governance of energy transition in Iran: Investigating public acceptance and willingness to use renewable energy sources through socio-psychological model," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 565-573.
    21. Charfeddine, Lanouar & Mrabet, Zouhair, 2017. "The impact of economic development and social-political factors on ecological footprint: A panel data analysis for 15 MENA countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 138-154.
    22. Hajli, Nick & Sims, Julian & Zadeh, Arash H. & Richard, Marie-Odile, 2017. "A social commerce investigation of the role of trust in a social networking site on purchase intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 133-141.
    23. Sally Caird & Robin Roy, 2008. "User-Centred Improvements To Energy Efficiency Products And Renewable Energy Systems: Research On Household Adoption And Use," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(03), pages 327-355.
    24. Atchara Leerapong, 2013. "Applying Diffusion of Innovation in Online Purchase Intention through Social Network: A Focus Group Study of Facebook in Thailand," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 5(3), pages 144-154.
    25. Piyapong Janmaimool, 2017. "Application of Protection Motivation Theory to Investigate Sustainable Waste Management Behaviors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-16, June.
    26. Liu, Wenling & Wang, Can & Mol, Arthur P.J., 2013. "Rural public acceptance of renewable energy deployment: The case of Shandong in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1187-1196.
    27. Halder, Pradipta & Pietarinen, Janne & Havu-Nuutinen, Sari & Pöllänen, Sinikka & Pelkonen, Paavo, 2016. "The Theory of Planned Behavior model and students' intentions to use bioenergy: A cross-cultural perspective," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 627-635.
    28. Karatepe, Yelda & Neşe, Seçil Varbak & Keçebaş, Ali & Yumurtacı, Mehmet, 2012. "The levels of awareness about the renewable energy sources of university students in Turkey," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 174-179.
    29. Ellabban, Omar & Abu-Rub, Haitham & Blaabjerg, Frede, 2014. "Renewable energy resources: Current status, future prospects and their enabling technology," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 748-764.
    30. P Sol Hart & Lauren Feldman, 2016. "The Influence of Climate Change Efficacy Messages and Efficacy Beliefs on Intended Political Participation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-16, August.
    31. Moslem Savari & Hamed Eskandari Damaneh & Hadi Eskandari Damaneh, 2021. "Factors influencing farmers’ management behaviors toward coping with drought: evidence from Iran," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 64(11), pages 2021-2046, July.
    32. Owens, Susan & Driffill, Louise, 2008. "How to change attitudes and behaviours in the context of energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 4412-4418, December.
    33. Bayard, Budry & Jolly, Curtis, 2007. "Environmental behavior structure and socio-economic conditions of hillside farmers: A multiple-group structural equation modeling approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3-4), pages 433-440, May.
    34. Nematollahi, Omid & Hoghooghi, Hadi & Rasti, Mehdi & Sedaghat, Ahmad, 2016. "Energy demands and renewable energy resources in the Middle East," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1172-1181.
    35. Sütterlin, Bernadette & Siegrist, Michael, 2017. "Public acceptance of renewable energy technologies from an abstract versus concrete perspective and the positive imagery of solar power," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 356-366.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Onyia, Chukwuemeka & Okpukpara, Benjamin & Onyekuru, NwaJesus Anthony & Okpukpara, Victoria, 2023. "Willingness to pay for the production of biogas from poultry waste recycling: Evidence from farmers in Nigeria," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 18(2), November.
    2. Myriam Caratù & Valerio Brescia & Ilaria Pigliautile & Paolo Biancone, 2023. "Assessing Energy Communities’ Awareness on Social Media with a Content and Sentiment Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-28, April.
    3. Evangelia Karasmanaki & Evangelos Grigoroudis & Spyridon Galatsidas & Georgios Tsantopoulos, 2023. "Satisfaction with Media Information about Renewable Energy Investments," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-15, July.
    4. Rahmani, Amir & Mashayekh, Javad & Aboojafari, Roohallah & Bonyadi Naeini, Ali, 2023. "Determinants of households' intention for investment in renewable energy projects," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 823-837.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul Chibuogwu Ashinze & Jian Tian & Peter Chiedu Ashinze & Mehrab Nazir & Imrab Shaheen, 2021. "A Multidimensional Model of Sustainable Renewable Energy Linking Purchase Intentions, Attitude and User Behavior in Nigeria," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-16, September.
    2. Rezaei, Rohollah & Ghofranfarid, Marjan, 2018. "Rural households' renewable energy usage intention in Iran: Extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 382-391.
    3. William Philip Wall & Bilal Khalid & Mariusz Urbański & Michal Kot, 2021. "Factors Influencing Consumer’s Adoption of Renewable Energy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-19, August.
    4. Victor Fernández-Guzmán & Edgardo R. Bravo, 2018. "Understanding Continuance Usage of Natural Gas: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Evaluation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-17, August.
    5. Bhowmik, Chiranjib & Bhowmik, Sumit & Ray, Amitava, 2018. "Social acceptance of green energy determinants using principal component analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 1030-1046.
    6. Assali, Alia & Khatib, Tamer & Najjar, Angham, 2019. "Renewable energy awareness among future generation of Palestine," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 254-263.
    7. Liobikienė, Genovaitė & Dagiliūtė, Renata, 2021. "Do positive aspects of renewable energy contribute to the willingness to pay more for green energy?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    8. Muhammad Rizwan Ali & Muhammad Shafiq & Murad Andejany, 2021. "Determinants of Consumers’ Intentions towards the Purchase of Energy Efficient Appliances in Pakistan: An Extended Model of the Theory of Planned Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-17, January.
    9. Muhammad Yaseen Bhutto & Yasir Ali Soomro & Hailan Yang, 2022. "Extending the Theory of Planned Behavior: Predicting Young Consumer Purchase Behavior of Energy-Efficient Appliances (Evidence From Developing Economy)," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(1), pages 21582440221, February.
    10. Van Dael, Miet & Lizin, Sebastien & Swinnen, Gilbert & Van Passel, Steven, 2017. "Young people’s acceptance of bioenergy and the influence of attitude strength on information provision," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 417-430.
    11. Karytsas, Spyridon & Theodoropoulou, Helen, 2014. "Socioeconomic and demographic factors that influence publics' awareness on the different forms of renewable energy sources," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 480-485.
    12. Phimsupha Kokchang & Yuan Zhao & Suthirat Kittipongvises, 2023. "Understanding Citizens’ Perceptions and Attitudes toward Energy Restructuring under China’s NDC for Quality of Life: A Case of Linfen City," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(5), pages 566-576, September.
    13. Seol A. Kwon, 2022. "Where Does an Individual’s Willingness to Act on Alleviating the Climate Crisis in Korea Arise from?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-17, May.
    14. Muhammad Aslam Mohd Safari & Nurulkamal Masseran & Alias Jedi & Sohif Mat & Kamaruzzaman Sopian & Azman Bin Abdul Rahim & Azami Zaharim, 2020. "Rural Public Acceptance of Wind and Solar Energy: A Case Study from Mersing, Malaysia," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-24, July.
    15. Yazdanpanah, Masoud & Komendantova, Nadejda & Ardestani, Roshanak Shafiei, 2015. "Governance of energy transition in Iran: Investigating public acceptance and willingness to use renewable energy sources through socio-psychological model," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 565-573.
    16. Baharoon, Dhyia Aidroos & Rahman, Hasimah Abdul & Fadhl, Saeed Obaid, 2016. "Personal and psychological factors affecting the successful development of solar energy use in Yemen power sector: A case study," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 516-535.
    17. Ntona, Eirini & Arabatzis, Garyfallos & Kyriakopoulos, Grigorios L., 2015. "Energy saving: Views and attitudes of students in secondary education," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-15.
    18. Zeng, Shihong & Tanveer, Arifa & Fu, Xiaolan & Gu, Yuxiao & Irfan, Muhammad, 2022. "Modeling the influence of critical factors on the adoption of green energy technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    19. Evangelia Karasmanaki & Spyridon Galatsidas & Georgios Tsantopoulos, 2019. "An Investigation of Factors Affecting the Willingness to Invest in Renewables among Environmental Students: A Logistic Regression Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-18, September.
    20. Neveen Hamza & Ruben Paul Borg & Liberato Camilleri & Charalampos Baniotopoulos, 2022. "Experts versus the Public: Perceptions of Siting Wind Turbines and Performance Concerns," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-25, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:161:y:2022:i:c:s0301421521005863. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.