20% of Americans Get Their News From Influencers

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People have been getting their news from social media for years, but an increasing number of users are turning to "news influencers" over traditional journalists to learn about current events. According to Pew Research, most of these influencers are men who favor X over YouTube.

Of the 10,658 people surveyed by Pew, 21% of all US adults say they go to social media for their news first. The 18-to-29 demographic relies on influencers for news the most, at 37%, while only 7% of the 65-and-over crowd says the same.

There's no clear political distinction among people who follow news influencers; the percentage of those who identify as Republican or Democrat is at 21% and 22%, respectively.

Among the news influencers themselves, 63% are men, 30% are women, and the rest identify as nonbinary or do not disclose their gender.

"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," Pew says. "About half of influencers do not express any clear political orientation."

Facebook is favored among those with right-leaning views, but X is the most popular site overall, followed by Instagram and YouTube.

TikTok stands out in a few ways. The ByteDance-owned platform has the smallest gender gap (50% men to 45% women), and it's the only service out of the top five where right-leaning influencers don't outnumber left-leaning ones. TikTok influencers are also more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ and support LGBTQ+ rights in their profiles at 13%.

As for why people follow news influencers, 65% say it's to help them better understand a topic; only about 31% feel a personal connection to the hosts.

Pew defines a "news influencer" as someone who has at least 100,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube and regularly posts about current events and civic issues. About 77% of these people are not affiliated with a traditional news outlet. Those who are linked to a mainstream organization are less likely to express political views.

Per Gallup, roughly 70% of people don't view mass media favorably, with 33% showing general distrust and 36% showing no trust in traditional media.

Pew collected data for its study between July 15 and Aug. 4, before the US election turned social media upside down this month. Despite X being the most popular place for news influencers, a record number of people dropped Elon Musk's platform after the election for alternatives like Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon.

Before the election, 94% of Americans were concerned about election misinformation spreading on social media, a worry that was amplified by foreign countries conducting influence campaigns.