Digital Experiences of Nature Leading to the Creation of Nature Values

A century has passed since intrinsic nature values fostered establishing protected areas; half a century has passed since utilitarian nature values and ecosystem services were framed. Yet the biodiversity crisis and mass extinction continue to accelerate. In response, and with the urgent need for transformative change in mind, relational values have entered the science-policy arena (IPBES, 2022). Research on relational values has mostly focused on Indigenous and long-standing human–nature relationships. Here, we extend this work to the hybrid physical–virtual realm of social-media, now part of everyday life for many people.

We develop a manual coding approach to systematically analyse digital nature-experiences and the emergence of Digital Relational Values (DRVs) in visual and textual social media data from Weibo (Mandarin), YouTube (English/Spanish), and Twitter/X (English/Spanish). Based on six intercoder iterations, we propose a DRV classification comprising 18 categories, grouped into four clusters: (a) Identity (Personal identity, Cultural identity, Sense of place, Spirituality); (b) Human–human (Social responsibility, Social memory, Social cohesion, Social relations); (c) Human–nature (Sense of agency, Stewardship principle, Reciprocity, Ecological literacy, Kinship); and (d) Giving of Nature (Livelihoods, Well-being, Eudaimonia, Aesthetics, Hedonics).

Results show marked differences in the prevalence of nature-related content across platforms and languages—most notably between Twitter/X in English (76% of posts) and Twitter/X in Spanish (25%). However, when posts contain nature content, they consistently express DRVs (58–64%, depending on platform and language). Aesthetic values dominate (48.6% on Weibo; 11.5% on Twitter/X-Spanish), while other DRVs are present but more fragmented and less consistent across platforms and languages. For instance, hedonic values are more strongly expressed on Twitter/X-Spanish (8.7% of nature posts) and YouTube-English (8.3%), whereas stewardship principle and ecological literacy are more prevalent on Weibo (4.8%) and Twitter/X-Spanish (9.6%), respectively.

Overall, our findings support Langemeyer & Calcagni’s (2022) hypothesis that indirect nature experiences on social media can give rise to a novel type of nature values. At the same time, the study highlights priorities for further research: how aesthetics and other DRVs may act as leverage points for ecological transformation; how specific DRVs spread across platforms; and why some relational values—such as eudaimonia, sense of agency, and reciprocity—are comparatively underrepresented.