Fifth of Americans regularly receive news from influences on social media

Just over a fifth of us adults now receive regular news from influencers on Social mediaA new survey by Pew-Knight Initiative has found.

An analysis of who these influencers are indicated to get from the most popular accounts for news online has ever formally worked in journalism and that they are more likely to lean on the right than the left.

The results come like The US Media is struggling with the result of the 2024 presidential election and what it means for the reach and influence of professional journalism.

InvestigationPublished on Monday, Canvassed 10,658 American adults this summer and weighed to be demographically representative of the US population.

Of the respondents, 21% said that they “regularly” receive news from influencers. That figure rose to 37% among us adults aged 29 and lower and 26% among those between 30 and 49.

Black, Latin American and Asian Americans were more likely than the average American adults to regularly get news from influencers, with 27%, 30%and 29%respectively. Americans with lower income (26%) were the most likely socio -economic console to get news in this way and women (23%) were more likely to do so than men (19%).

Nearly two -thirds (65%) of Americans who said they received news from News Influencers rated the content positively and said it “helped them to better understand current events and citizen issues”.

About a quarter said it made little difference to their understanding of the world while 9% said it made them “more confused”. About six out of ten (58%) said they follow or subscribe to at least one news influence.

There was little difference between right-wing (21%) and left-wing (22%) people in how likely they were to get news from social media influencers-even if the influencers themselves were more likely to create right-wing content.

(Read more: From James O’Brien to Joe Rogan – Rise of News Influencers and Alternative Voices)

Top US News Infectors are mostly male and inclined right

In addition to the survey, the Pew researchers saw a selection of 500 “news influences”, defined as individuals who had used news-related keywords in early 2024 which had at least 100,000 followers. over X (former twitter)Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok or Facebook.

Figures captured in the research included ones such as Podcaster’s Joe Rogan and Felix Biederman, Nyu Journalism Professor Jay Rosen, Psychologist and Trump Family member Mary L Trump, Twitch Streamer Hasan Piker, journalists Piers Morgan, Megyn Kelly and Katie Couric, Lawyer Alan Dershow Alyssa Milan.

Less than a quarter (23%) of the news that influencers tried had ever worked for a news organization. At X (formerly Twitter), the proportion of news influencers with ties to a news organization rose to 26%, while on Youtube it fell to 12%.

Most of the 500 News impacters did not identify themselves as right or left. Of those who made it identified 27% explicitly as Republican, conservative or supporting Donald Trump And 21% as Democrats, liberal or Kamala Harris supporters.

The influencers who had worked in news were less likely to explicitly reveal a political orientation (by 64% that remained uninjured, against 44% of them without a traditional news association), but those who formulated a position were more likely to be quite inclined (25 %) than left (9%).

Instagram was the most explicitly political platform for news influences, with 55% of creators there revealed an orientation (30% right, 25% left). Although Facebook had a higher proportion of seemingly unreleased news influences, it also had the largest proportion of right -handed news influences (39%, compared to 13% which was left -handed).

Tiktok was the most left -wing platform, with 28% of news influences that explicitly identified themselves as left -handed compared to 25% right -wing.

Most (63%) of the news that was assessed were men. Tiktok was the most gender -balanced platform, with 50% of the news influences where men and 45% women. Youtube Was the least balanced: 68% of the news influences on the video platform were men against 28% women.

X was the most widely used platform among news influences, with 85% of the 500 estimated there. Half had an Instagram account, 44% published on Youtube, 32% to Facebook30% to threads, 27% to TikTok and 12% to LinkedIn.

Of the 500 News impact, 59% earned their presence. The most common way to do this was through subscriptions (49%), with 29% accepting donations and 21% selling goods. The proportion who make money in their accounts rose to 74% on TikTok, 77% on Facebook and 80% on Youtube.

A third (34%) of the influencers also hosts a podcast and 22% have a newsletter.

Pew research incorporated Chatgpt into its method. The chatbot was handed over text and transcribed sounds from the influencer accounts and asked to analyze the content to determine whether the influences identified themselves, for example left or right. A human researcher then stained 1% of the results to check that they were correct and the error rate was included in the research.

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