The findings, drawn from a survey of more than 10,000 U.S. adults and an analysis of social media posts posted this summer by influencers, provide an indication of how Americans consumed the news during the height of the U.S. presidential campaign that President-elect Donald Trump ultimately won.
The study examined accounts run by people who post and talk regularly about current events - including through podcasts and newsletters - and have more than 100,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X or TikTok. They include people across the political spectrum, such as the progressive podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen and conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro, as well as non-partisan personalities like Chris Cillizza, a former CNN analyst who now runs his own newsletter.
The report found that news influencers posted mostly about politics and the election, followed by social issues like race and abortion and international events, such as the Israel-Hamas war. Most of them – 63% - are men and the majority – 77% - have no affiliation, or background, with a media organization. Pew said about half of the influencers it sampled did not express a clear political orientation. From the ones that did, slightly more of them identified as conservative than as liberal.
As opposed to entertainment pundits on cable news
I take psychic damage every time I discover where the people around me get their news from. They dont even corroborate sources!
These two use Trump as their cash cow. They are 100% fake.
That’s the benefit of a place like Lemmy: you get a lot of different news from a lot of different sources, so you can corroborate and read different viewpoints on the same issue.
That was my first thought: I’m not really familiar with the content of any influencers, but I assume the best of them are better than the worst of the more conventional news sources.
That’s number is staggeringly lower than I would have guessed.
I think if this were broken down and listed by a few demographics like age it’d probably have percentages closer to what you’d guess, for a few groups. TV-loving boomers probably lower the average and Gen Z is likely well above 20% for example
Regularly get their
newsmisinformationfor some reason, the article does not provide a link to the study it is describing. but i believe this is the study they are referring to.
one of the things i was most curious about is how the study defines “influencer”. the article does not mention this, but the study does:
In this study, we use the term “news influencers” to refer to individuals who regularly post about current events and civic issues on social media and have at least 100,000 followers on any of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) or YouTube. News influencers can be journalists who are or were affiliated with a news organization or independent content creators, but they must be people and not organizations.
so, the 20% figure does includes people who obtain their news by following journalists on youtube. however, the “key findings” section does explicitly mention that 77% of the examined news influencers have “no affiliation or background with a news organization.”
honestly, i thought all of the key findings were very interesting and that section was very accessible. here’s another highlight: the percentage is higher for adults under 30: 37% of adults under 30 get their news from an influencer.
I don’t really understand this. If I’m reading news that’s shared here, does that count as getting my news from social media? It’s usually a post from a source, not just some random guy telling me stuff he made up. I get that there are people who talk about the news on the internet, but is that just with no reference to the actual news/source? What’s this breakdown in the definition of journalism? Do I live under a rock? What the fuck is going on here?
The focus is who is providing the news on social media, which is influencers … who often have a vested interest in passing off rumors and innuendo as actual news.
Is this where they are hearing about how all the gangs of immigrants are taking over apartment complexes? I heard someone recently list this as one of the big reasons they voted for trump.
I’m not seeing a source to check what they define as social media but I’m gonna just call bullshit in general.
20 percent of people get their news. full stop. most people dgaf.
if it’s not social media or just media then it’s likely messenger apps. they’re sure as fuck not getting it from print media.
If an influencer reads an Associated Press article, is that social media?
no, that’s an influencer reading an associated press article. however, they will likely be reading it out loud on social media. and then some questions arise:
- why this article?
- are they reading the full article? if not, what parts are they omitting?
- are they adding any kind of commentary to the article? if so, is that being properly backed up with citations?
