From Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette to Joseph Stalin’s Pravda, news outlets have always played a central role in politics and the maintenance and disruption of power. In political battles, information is ammunition. Controlling the flow of information has proven decisive to the achievement of political aims. Political journalism can unearth or bury corruption. We have plenty of examples of both in our nation’s history.
What we don’t have precedent for is the rapid way in which political journalism is transforming. Traditional media’s failure to live up to standards of truth, integrity, and responsibility, along with the internet’s emergence, has led to a new media ecosystem filled by a new class of information merchants: the influencer.
In her book “Invisible Rulers,” Renée DiResta explains:
The technological transformation [of social media] created communication structures that eliminated human gatekeepers from the process of curation, reducing the power of media elites. It gave rise to an entire new class of speaker—influencers—and reorganized broadcasting from one-to-many to many-to-many.
The role of social media influencers was originally focused on marketing products by partnering with businesses, a paper by Christian von Sikorski, Pascal Merz, and Desirée Schmuck published in American Behavioral Scientist explains. “However, as the landscape of social media has evolved, so too has the scope of their content. Today, SMIs [social media influencers] are actively involved in communicating political messages….”
The rise of the online influencer as a major political force betokens both opportunity and risk. It undercuts the power of an elite class of institutionalized information brokers whose integrity was, shall we say, questionable, yet it simultaneously gives rise to a new class of elites whose ultimate allegiance or set of rules aren’t always clear.
Influencers wield real political power. With top podcasters, vloggers, and bloggers accumulating audiences in the millions, they have the ability to significantly shift political conversations and opinions. Donald Trump’s last election victory was achieved in part through utilizing the online “manosphere” and appearing on the shows of influencers such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Lex Fridman, and Logan Paul. A recent study found that influencers can even have an impact on the formulation of policies by political parties and the polarization of public opinion in general.
While I differ from DiResta on a number of important issues, her insights into the complex new world of influencers help us understand the way these new power brokers differ from the media powerhouses of the past:
As in media eras past, [online influencer’s] content serves to advance the ideological aims of the faction. Today, however, the new Propagandists present as charismatic individuals, not prominent mass media or shadowy public relations figures. These influencers are often closely aligned with hyper-partisan media, sometimes taking contributor roles at such outlets, but they remain their own brand. Perhaps most importantly, the new Propagandists develop deep ties to audiences as accessible individuals. They are simultaneously trusted opinion leaders—chatting about their interests, hobbies, the latest article they read—and invisible rulers. It’s a potent mix: they are idol, friend, comrade, and persuader.
This informal, personal relationship between influencer and audience is one factor that makes the influencer so different from the talking heads on network television. It’s part of what makes influencers such effective opinion leaders. “[Social media influencers] manage to communicate in a particularly authentic way,” Sikorski et al. observe, “and at the same time reduce the complexity of topics, make content easier to understand, offer orientation, and arouse political interest.”
Influencers, because they’re a “media of one,” often give off an independent, anti-establishment aura that people find appealing and trustworthy. They generally situate themselves as counter-institutional, sometimes even revolutionary – the lone voice crying in the wilderness, inveighing against the corruption of the establishment.
What sometimes gets obscured in all this, however, is that the influencer is himself a part of a new elite wielding significant power and accumulating significant wealth. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing – because of his or her power, an honest and courageous influencer can singlehandedly bring down an empire of lies spread by legacy media, for instance. Yet we do well to realize that influencers are not “just like you and me,” at least, not once they become established. They have teams working behind the scenes, marketers crafting their “brand,” lawyers covering their liabilities – in other words, a corporate structure behind the friendly face.
“Because people still largely associate propaganda with ‘media,’ and political influencers present as individuals, they manage to achieve the reach of media while being perceived as somehow exempt from its incentives,” DiResta reminds us. “In reality, they may well be true believers of an ideology, but they also benefit financially.”
This is not to say that influencers are intentionally spreading propaganda or engaged in money grabs (though some may be). However, we must be aware that the influencer is not always the independent and disinterested figure they present as.
The modern “media of one” model lacks some of the checks and balances of the traditional newsroom, too. “Unlike traditional media and journalists,” Sikorski et al. note, “SMIs’ political engagement or discussions are not bound to professional norms and ethical standards, nor is their content subject to editorial oversight or fact-checking. Many influencers also lack formal expertise in the topics they discuss.” This is both a blessing and a curse; after all, the “professional norms” of legacy media too often turned out to be a sanctimonious bunch of drivel, an externally imposed set of “orthodox” opinions, or something genuinely important in theory but gleefully ignored in practice. “Expertise” was often synonymous with being indoctrinated or paid off by powerful entities. At the same time, there was at least a show of avoiding the subjectivity and imbalance of a single person’s point of view. Influencers make no attempt at this, frequently lacking any counterbalance to their own views – which then become the views of millions of Americans. It doesn’t help that these views tend to get more extreme with time because the influencer must keep people engaged, and radicalization gets clicks.
“Painting with a broad brush is as old as time,” DiResta observes, “and a grain of truth or real justifiable outrage is what makes this kind of content potent: Mass media often doesn’t cover the powerful as forcefully as they should. There is injustice in the world. Highlighting and channeling outrage is critical to the political process, and influencers are very well positioned to do just that.”
The problem arises when outrage itself becomes the product or when influencers (and their audiences) get locked in their own echo chambers because of their distrust of any outside voices. Intense tribalism can result, even within political parties.
“While some influencers can educate and raise political awareness," Sikorski et al. warn, "others may promote political agendas without adhering to journalistic standards, potentially spreading misinformation, biased narratives, or extremist content, particularly to young people still shaping their political views.”
Of course, traditional media spread plenty of agendas and misinformation, too. But the new power brokers – online influencers – are subject to the same temptations toward ratings, money grabs, and surrender to ideology. In this delicate moment, we need to figure out how to maximize the advantages of the new influencer economy while minimizing its dangers.
Before becoming a writer, Walker Larson taught literature and history at a private academy. His writing has appeared in over a dozen outlets, including The Hemingway Review, The Epoch Times, and his Substack, The Hazelnut. He is also the author of two novels, Hologram and Song of Spheres.
This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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