About one in five Americans say they get their news from social media influencers, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center.
Of the 21 percent of adults who say they get their news from influencers on social media, the split is roughly even across parties.
The same can’t be said for age, as 37 percent of adults under 30 say influences are a source of news, compared to 26 percent of adults aged 30-49 and 15 percent aged 50-64, the survey found.
The survey defined an influencer as someone who regularly post about current events and has over 100,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X or YouTube.
Sixty-five percent of those who get news from social media say influencers have bettered their understanding of current events and civic issues, and 71 percent say the news from influencers is at least somewhat different from news from other sources.
Respondents who are further to either end of the political spectrum were also more likely to say influencers helped them understand modern news better compared to their more moderate counterparts. Similarly, these groups are also more likely to consume more content from influencers they already agree with.
Pew also surveyed news influencers themselves and found the most popular social media platform is X, which 85 percent of had an account on, followed by Instagram and YouTube, according to the survey.
About two-thirds of influencers in the survey said they are on more than one site, including 27 percent who are on five or more sites. Male influencers also largely outnumber female news influencers, 63 to 30 percent.
While 48 percent of influencers did not have a clear political orientation, 27 percent of news influencers specifically identified as right-leaning, compared to 21 percent who identified as left-leaning. The exception to these patterns is TikTok, in which 28 percent of news influencers are left-leaning and 21 percent are right-leaning, and 45 percent of creators are women.
About three-quarters of news influences are not and have never been affiliated with a news organization. The survey found that they are less likely to express a clear political orientation. For those who did have a clear affiliation, a quarter identified themselves as conservative, Republican or pro-Trump, compared to the nine percent who branded themselves as liberal, Democratic, or pro-Harris or pro-Biden.
As social media continues to expand its impact and influence, politicians have taken note. Social media influencers received credentials for the Democratic National Convention in August, and politicians have appeared on podcasts popular on social platforms. The survey found that about a third of social media news influencers host a podcast.
The survey, which was a part of the Pew-Knight Initiative, a partnership between Pew and the Knight Foundation, consisted of 10,000 adults and 500 news influencers. It was conducted from July 15-Aug. 4 and has a margin of error of 1.2 points.
