Who Americans think of as news influencers on social media

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About one-in-five U.S. adults (21%) say they regularly get news from news influencers on social media, according to our recent study. The study is part of the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

But because the idea of “news influencers” is relatively new, we also wanted to know who Americans are thinking of when they hear the term. So in an open-ended question, we asked U.S. adults who say they regularly get news from news influencers to name the first one who comes to mind for them.

How we did this

As part of a broader study of news influencers on social media, Pew Research Center asked survey respondents an open-ended question about the first social media news influencer who comes to mind for them. The full survey of 10,658 U.S. adults was conducted from July 15 to Aug. 4, 2024. We asked the 2,012 respondents who said they regularly get news from news influencers on social media to answer the open-ended follow-up question. Responses were manually coded into categories. In total, we coded 2,012 open-ended responses. For more details on how news influencers were identified and analyzed, as well as how news influencers in the landscape study were identified, refer to the methodology.

Everyone who completed the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection. Surveys were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline, and its methodology.

This is a Pew Research Center study and analysis from the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Find related reports online at https://www.pewresearch.org/pew-knight/.

In response, half named a person (as opposed to an organization or entity) or gave no response. The 425 people they named reflect a wide range of backgrounds – from journalists to opinion commentators to politicians to content creators.

A stacked bar chart showing that audiences name a wide range of people when asked to identify the first news influencer who comes to mind for them.

Most of these people fit the definition of news influencers in our larger study – that is, people with large followings on social media who regularly post about news or politics. The influencers our respondents most often named include Philip DeFranco (volunteered by 3%), Tucker Carlson (2%), Ben Shapiro (2%), V Spehar from Under the Desk News (2%) and Carlos Eduardo Espina (2%).

Several other influencers each were named by 1% of respondents. They include Dan Bongino, Joe Rogan, Brian Tyler Cohen and Elon Musk. (Bongino, Rogan and Shapiro also emerged as prominent podcasters in our 2022 study of podcasts as a source of news and information.)

Some of our respondents mentioned politicians. For instance, 2% named President Donald Trump as the first news influencer who comes to mind for them. While Trump has a large following on social media and regularly posts about current events, our larger study did not include elected officials or political candidates as news influencers.

Others named people who do not regularly talk about the news, such as the YouTube personality MrBeast (1%).

Respondents also listed other types of creators besides individual people. For example, 7% named a media outlet as the first news influencer who comes to mind for them, while smaller shares mentioned a social media site, search engine or news aggregator. Another 42% gave no response or said they couldn’t think of a news influencer. This suggests that even for many Americans who say they regularly get news from news influencers, it is difficult to quickly think of a specific one.

Links between naming a news influencer and feeling connected to them

A bar chart showing that those who name an individual when thinking about news influencers have stronger ties to influencers in general.

Our analysis also finds that respondents who name a person as the first news influencer who comes to mind have closer ties, in general, to the influencers they get news from.

Among respondents who named a person in response to our open-ended question, 72% report following or subscribing to a news influencer on social media. By comparison, among those who did not name a person or did not respond to the question, only 45% say the same. The rise of algorithmic feeds, which often deliver posts to users from outside their follower list, could be one explanation for why some people say they regularly get news from news influencers without following any.

Respondents who named a person also are more likely than other respondents to report feeling a personal connection to a news influencer: 39% say this, compared with 23% of those who did not name a person or did not respond to the question.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline, and its methodology.