Yayu Feng, assistant professor of emerging media at the University of St. Thomas College of Arts and Sciences, recently spoke with MPR about the impact that influencers have had on the news and on social media trends.
From the story:
Host: I’ve been wondering a lot about this, this election cycle, as a journalist, and thinking, what can we all do better to make sure that media literacy is thriving and is really at the forefront? It just seems very important. And I got to tell you, I was surprised that it was only one in five Americans that say they regularly get their news from influencers on social media. Does that surprise you?
Feng: No, I’m not surprised at all. And in fact, a couple of years ago, they’ve had a survey that shows people are mostly getting their news from social media. And now it’s kind of a logical trend where people are getting these information from news influencers as they come up, since people’s news, diet, and consumption habits really changed.
Host: Yeah. And so the Pew study found that one third of adults under 30 get their news from influencers – so even more. And we saw candidates going on really popular podcasts – “Call Her Daddy” and Joe Rogan’s podcast. Why do you think young people in particular are turning to influencers and podcasters for their information and news?
Feng: Yeah, I think young people these days, they do not have a typical or traditional news diet. And they’re a generation that grows up with social media. They use social media to share their lives. This is basically their space of the world, where much of their social life unfolds. And so they’re very used to the structure and the logic and including the notion of having a personalized, curated feed. When people say that they want just the fact stories from their news, that’s not really entirely true. Many people are just being fed by algorithms or seek out information that confirms their beliefs.
And so for young people already not consuming a lot of legacy media and spending a lot of time on social media, social media influencers are becoming one of the biggest, popular or most popular sources for them. And also, these influencers are really good at breaking down a lot of issues into very easily digestible pieces. And I would say the young people are really growing up in the age – I call it a digital fast food age with a shortened attention span. So I’m really not surprised that it got so popular with the young people.
