In a recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center, it has been brought to light that individuals in the United States who closely followed news influencers throughout the presidential campaign were more likely to come across positive content about Donald Trump compared to Kamala Harris. Despite influencers discussing both candidates Trump and Harris relatively equally on social media platforms, there was a noticeable disparity in the quantity and tone of posts, with Trump receiving more coverage that leaned towards favorability.
Pew’s research indicates that approximately 20% of Americans frequently receive news through influencers such as podcasters and commentators, with a majority of them asserting that this form of information consumption aids in their comprehension of various topics. The study delved into over 150,000 posts from around 500 influencers, characterized as individuals who consistently engage in discussions about current events and boast at least 100,000 followers across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
During the campaign, Trump actively targeted the youth-centric audience catered to by influencers in comparison to Harris. For example, Trump secured an interview with the popular podcaster Joe Rogan, a platform that Harris did not engage with. Despite an equal proportion of influencers (42%) expressing criticism towards either the Republican or Democratic presidential candidate, Trump overshadowed Harris with the sheer volume of supporting posts from his followers. Notably, there were twice as many critical posts about Harris on the Elon Musk-owned platform X than there were positive ones, whereas the sentiment towards Trump was more evenly distributed, as outlined by Pew’s findings.
Moreover, the analysis revealed that the majority of political content from influencers was concentrated on the platform X, where 79% of political posts originated. Among the influencers posting on X, 48% identified as right-leaning, while 28% leaned towards liberal ideologies. On average, right-leaning news influencers were observed to post approximately 183 times per week, whereas their more liberal counterparts posted an average of 72 times weekly, according to Pew.
Journalist David Bauder, specializing in the media and entertainment domain for the Associated Press, shares insights at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
