The Rise of the News Influencer

The media landscape continues to shift underneath our feet, whether we like it or not. I noticed news influencers' impact on politics and the information economy during the Democratic National Convention. Several news media outlets reported on the internal scuffles in the information sphere at the convention, as these influencers challenged legacy media (corporate media) and fought for relevance and physical space within the convention itself. The impact of social media on journalism cannot be overstated, as it has fundamentally changed how news is gathered, shared, and consumed.

As a media professor and someone who works with students daily to help them achieve their roles in the information economy as reporters and writers, I believe that adding the influencer component to the news economy within our newsroom is important because of the changes that are taking place, and the need for them to be agile and adaptable within this new information economy. This is the world of the digital natives, and it is a space that is gaining momentum as a place where folks get their news.

Here we are in this brave new media world of pink slime and corporate media overlords with a new set of warriors fighting for your attention: social media influencers. A PEW report on this topic came out on Monday, so I wanted to share some of the findings with you. As a Gen Xer who grew up as the internet genesis, and with the transition of print to digital and the emergence of these platforms and ways of getting news, I know it is essential to understand each of them and not throw up our hands as things change. I, personally, still love printed stuff. However, as informed citizens, it is our job to understand and remain informed critical thinkers, no matter the platform on which the information comes. Here are some key terms to help you as you navigate this article.

What were the key findings of this research?

First, about one in five Americans—including a much higher share of adults under 30 (37%)—say they regularly get news from social media influencers.

Americans who regularly get news from news influencers see several types of information from these creators. Overwhelming majorities say they get all four types of content asked about in the survey: basic facts (90%), opinions (87%), funny posts (87%), and breaking news (83%). Adults who regularly get news from news influencers generally say content from news influencers has helped them better understand current events and civic issues and that it is at least somewhat different from the news they get from other sources.

Second, most news influencers are on multiple sites, but X is the most common. (Caveat: this could be changing now that there is a mass exodus from X to BlueSky, but that remains to be seen)

• More news influencers in the PEW study have an account on X than on any other social media site: 85% are on X, compared with 50% on Instagram, the next-most popular site.

• At the same time, it is common for influencers to have a cross-site presence to maximize their audience. About two-thirds of news influencers in the study are on more than one site, including 27% on five or more sites.

• Influencers share content through podcasts (34%) or newsletters (22%). Across sites, a majority of news influencers (59%) monetize their online presence in some way, whether through subscriptions, donations, or merchandise sales.

Third, news influencers are primarily men who more explicitly identify as right-leaning than left-leaning

This was the reasonably disturbing nugget of information Taylor Lorenz wrote about, which I linked to previously.

• Among the news influencers in the PEW sample, men outnumber women by a roughly two-to-one margin: 63% of influencers are men, compared with 30% of women. (The remainder are nonbinary, or researchers could not determine their gender.)

• Many Republicans have long believed that social media sites censor conservative viewpoints. But overall, more news influencers explicitly present a politically right-leaning orientation than a left-leaning one (27% vs. 21%) in their account bios, posts, websites, or media coverage. About half of influencers do not express any clear political orientation. Influencers on Facebook are particularly likely to express right-leaning views prominently: There are three times as many explicitly conservative news influencers (39%) as liberal ones (13%) on the site.

• Nearly one in five news influencers (18%) share part of their identity or beliefs beyond their political orientation, such as expressing support for a specific political cause or value through words, images, or emojis on their account page. Among the most common expressions are LGBTQ+ identity or support (6%) or being pro-Palestinian (5%).

Last, most influencers (77%) have no affiliation or background with a news organization.

News influencers primarily offer independent voices from outside the news media. About three-quarters of news influencers (77%) have no past or present affiliation with a news media organization, while 23% have been employed in the news industry in some way.

• News influencers with a news organization affiliation are less likely to express a clear political orientation: 64% have no political stance, compared with 44% of those who have never worked for a news organization.

• When they do explicitly identify with a political orientation, news influencers with links to a news outlet tend to be right-leaning. A quarter (25%) say they are conservative, Republican, or pro-Trump, while just 9% are liberal, Democratic, pro-Harris, or pro-Biden. Among news influencers without links to a news outlet, roughly equal shares express a right-leaning (27%) and left-leaning (25%) stance.

In my mind, legacy media must adapt to this quickly, and you can see some of this going on with the content creation on social media that many news outlets use to drive engagement to the spaces where credible news exists. It is undoubtedly one of the main drivers for our content on the student news website where I am an advisor, The Talon (shameless plug, please support student journalism). Students create social media posts on our Instagram, Facebook, and Threads to drive readers to the website to read our journalists’s news’ news posts - these are done in the form of graphics or video reels. Often, this needs to take a creative approach because folks are in the social media spaces - and can be driven to the news they may not otherwise read.

Alongside social media, media houses have aimed to keep pace, rebranding themselves, exploring new business models, and seeking to capitalize on the changing landscape in various ways. What is happening is a changing model. Journalists are, first and foremost, storytellers; many are finding a new place for their talents across social media platforms, reaching their relevant audiences where they are. Enter the journo-fluencer.

One of the most significant impacts of social media on journalism is the speed at which news spreads. In the past, journalists relied on traditional media outlets to disseminate their stories to the public. However, with the advent of social media, news can now be shared instantly with a global audience. This has created a sense of urgency in reporting, as journalists strive to be the first to break a story. News organizations, citizen journalists, and social media influencers who can quickly share information with their followers are now competing. Often, I have found that this is a component that supercharges information - in the race to get the information out there, it is done so at the expense of accuracy. Unfortunately, the first information tends to be sticky due to the primacy effect.

According to an article in PR Daily, as the lines between media, social media, editorial content, and visual storytelling all blur, so must the disciplines, skills, relationships, and ways of working within an agency structure. Trusted media relations tactics and influencer relations teams can’t work in silos or even side-by-side but need to morph into one blended approach that recognizes and embraces the broad spectrum of creators who the binary journalist or influencer can neatly categorize.

Changing Relationship with Audience

Social media has also changed the relationship between journalists and their audience. In the past, news was a one-way street, with journalists simply delivering information to the public. However, with social media, news has become a conversation. Journalists can now interact with their audience in real time, responding to comments and questions and even incorporating user-generated content into their reporting. This has created a more engaged and interactive experience for journalists and their audience.

The bottom line is that the industry must begin adapting to these changes or die. The credibility of the older legacy media must be balanced with the new influencer-based economy so that consumers can trust the information they find online on social media and not be misled by the overabundance of a male-dominated right-wing media economy.

Here is a link to the full PEW report if you have time and want to read through it. I tried to summarize the key points so you don’t have to read all of it.

Things I am reading/listening to this week:

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US found that identifying as a Republican and having low analytical thinking skills predict a lower ability to discern true from false news. Link: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2409329121

People paying the most attention to the election were most likely to vote for Harris.

https://www.dataforprogress.org/insights/2024/11/14/what-political-news-engagement-tells-us-about-donald-trumps-victory 

Podcast with Jeff Jarvis about the future of newspapers and how they can adapt to the future of new journalism.

Tim Miller interviews Amanda Carpenter in his Bulwark podcast, It’s Time to Fight. I found it particularly helpful after the election.

Also this one really spoke to me and helped me to address some of the anger that women are feeling post-election.

Leave your comments below, and have a great week, everyone!