News Influencers Have Eclipsed Traditional Media

submited by

Style Pass

2024-11-21 13:30:18

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

There’s new data released this week confirming much of what I’ve written in this newsletter for the past year: More and more Americans are getting their news from influencers on the internet.

The Pew Research Center, in partnership with the Knight Foundation, released a report this week that found that around one in five US adults regularly receive news from news influencers, or what the study defines as a person who consistently posts news-related content with more than 100,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube.

That’s more than 50 million people getting their news this way. When Pew asked adults from the ages of 18 to 29 years old, that number increased to 37 percent. Come 2028 (sorry!), these audiences will likely grow even bigger, with creators taking an even more dominant role in news distribution and consumption.

It's not your average politics newsletter. Makena Kelly and the WIRED Politics team help you make sense of how the internet is shaping our political reality.