- News influencers – People who regularly post about current events and civic issues on social media and have at least 100,000 followers on any of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) or YouTube.
- Political orientation – A measure of a news influencer’s partisan or ideological views. A right-leaning news influencer is one who publicly expresses that they identify as a Republican or conservative or support Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. A left-leaning news influencer is one who publicly expresses that they identify as a Democrat, liberal or progressive or support Vice President Kamala Harris (or supported President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race) in the 2024 election. This information was found in the bio, profile picture, banner image, pinned posts or recent posts on an influencer’s social media account, any personal website or professional page, and prominent media coverage.
- Values and identities – Language or imagery in the bio, profile picture, banner image or pinned posts on an influencer’s social media account that expresses specific beliefs or identities.
- News organization affiliation – An influencer with this affiliation is one who either currently works for or previously worked for a news organization, as well as freelancers who have regularly contributed to news organizations. A news organization can be any news outlet that has a staff and multiple bylines. Researchers considered affiliated influencers to have this background regardless of their news organization’s political orientation, audience size or primary publishing method (digital, TV, print, etc.).
- Major social media sites – The five primary sites we studied, chosen based on audience size and the presence of discussion about news: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube.
About half of all YouTube news influencers explicitly express a clear political orientation. Among those who do, a higher share are right-leaning (28% of all YouTube news influencers) than left-leaning (21%). Just 4% have some other kind of political orientation, and about half (46%) do not express any lean.
News influencers were categorized by whether they identify with a political party or ideology or expressed support for the Democratic or Republican presidential candidate in their social media profile, posts, personal website or media coverage.
About this chapter
This chapter looks at news influencers on YouTube. Virtually all of them also have accounts on other sites. For analysis of news influencers in general across social media sites, read the report overview.
In this report, news influencers are people with large followings on social media sites who regularly post about current events or civic issues. Refer to the methodology for details.
In addition to political ideology, researchers evaluated accounts for any expressed values or identities, finding that 8% of YouTube news influencers express a pro-LGBTQ+ position or identify as LGBTQ+ on their page. An identical share indicate a pro-Palestinian position, while 5% are pro-Israeli. These positions can be indicated in a variety of ways, whether through words, images or emojis (including flags).
Some YouTube news influencers also prominently display their opposition to abortion (3%) or support for abortion rights (less than 1%).
On YouTube, roughly two-thirds of news influencers (68%) are men, compared with 28% who are women.
For details on how researchers categorized news influencers by gender, refer to the methodology.
Almost nine-in-ten YouTube news influencers (88%) have not been affiliated with a news organization. About one-in-ten (12%) currently work for (or used to work for) digital, TV and other news organizations.
For more details on the differences between influencers with a news industry background and those without one, read Chapter 4.
What are YouTube news influencers posting about?
In order to get a sense of what news influencers are posting about, researchers collected and analyzed all public posts by the 500 news influencers in our sample for three separate weeks: July 15-21, July 29-Aug. 4 and Aug. 19-25.
There were many major events related to the election in or around these weeks, including the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump on July 13, the Republican National Convention (RNC) July 15-18, President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race July 21 and the Democratic National Convention (DNC) Aug. 19-22.
Among all YouTube posts that addressed current events and civic issues during these weeks, 68% were about politics or the election – a higher share than other sites. This includes posts about the DNC (11%), the first Trump assassination attempt (8%) and the RNC (6%).
The next-most common topics were social issues (17% of all posts), including racial issues (6%), and international issues (8%), mostly the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars.
What other sites are YouTube news influencers on?
Very few news influencers on YouTube are only on YouTube. The vast majority have a presence on at least four social media sites, including about half (54%) who are on four or more sites in addition to YouTube (five or more in total).
The most common sites where YouTube news influencers can also be found are X, formerly known as Twitter (86%), and Instagram (74%). Smaller shares are also on Facebook (54%) and TikTok (44%).
About half of all news influencers on YouTube (49%) also host a podcast, slightly higher than the share on any other major social media site we studied. Our previous study of podcasts found that about half of top-ranked podcasts also have a video component, often on YouTube.
A smaller share of YouTube news influencers (28%) have a newsletter that they send out to subscribers or fans.
Although a majority of news influencers across social media sites (59%) seek financial support from their audiences, this is especially common on YouTube, where 80% of news influencers do this in some way. This includes 68% who offer subscriptions, often providing content that goes beyond their YouTube videos (YouTube has built-in subscription tools for creators).
One-in-ten YouTube news influencers have a public Discord server where they can further connect with audiences.
