The majority of news influencers are conservative men, study finds
The majority of news influencers are conservative men, study finds
The latest Pew Research report on news content creators paints a damning picture of our skewed information ecosystem
This morning, The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research organization, published a deep 122 page report that found that the news influencer landscape skews male and leans disproportionately conservative, creating a concerning imbalance in our online news landscape that could ultimately have profound political consequences.
The report is the result of months of research and analysis consisting of surveying over 10,000 U.S. adults about their news consumption habits and analyzing data from hundreds of news content creators across social platforms.
According to Pew's sample, men dominate the news influencer space space by a margin of roughly two to one, comprising 63% of all news content creators compared to just 30% who are women. This gender disparity is compounded by a political tilt: 27% of news influencers explicitly identify as conservative, significantly outnumbering the 21% who lean liberal—a gap that balloons on platforms like Facebook, where right-leaning influencers outnumber left-leaning ones by a staggering three-to-one ratio. 39% of news influencers explicitly identify as conservative on Facebook, compared with just 13% who identify as liberal.
In a media environment where about 4 in 10 adults under 30 regularly get news from news content creators, this imbalance isn’t just inequitable—it’s a systemic distortion of public discourse that ultimately undermines democratic values, entrenches conservative messaging, and accelerates polarization. I've written before about how desperately the left needs to build an infrastructure to amass online influence, these stats highlight just how urgent that mission is.
Over the past two decades, as I outlined in my book, Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet, our media ecosystem has become fragmented and entirely reoriented around online influence. Content creators are directly reshaping how millions of people understand the world and they largely come from outside traditional journalism. Just 23% of news influencers studied were currently or previously ever employed by a news organization.
Though Pew doesn't go into detail on why news influencers skew male and conservative, there are several factors feeding this slant. Though right-leaning content creators constantly accuse mainstream platforms of censoring their views, data definitively proves otherwise: conservative voices are consistently amplified across social media platforms, especially X (even before Elon) and Facebook.
Many studies have shown this over the years. A 2021 report published by the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, from disinformation expert Paul Barrett and researcher J Grant Sims offers a detailed debunkings. It found that claims of anti-conservative bias on social media are themselves “a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it”.
Still, according to a 2020 study by the Pew Research Center, 90% of Republicans believe that their views are being censored online, and 69% of Republicans believe social media companies “generally support the views of liberals over conservatives."
“There is no evidence to support the claim that the major social media companies are suppressing, censoring or otherwise discriminating against conservatives on their platforms,” said Barrett, the disinformation researcher who worked on the report. “In fact, it is often conservatives who gain the most in terms of engagement and online attention, thanks to the platforms’ systems of algorithmic promotion of content.” Across social media, right wing content receives regular amplification while left wing content is suppressed.
Social media platforms have also long boosted men's voices over women’s. The refusal to tamp down on misogynistic hate and harassment, or provide users with tools to protect themselves, has resulted in the silencing of women's voices across the internet. This dynamic is especially pronounced on platforms like YouTube and Twitter.
A 2022 report issued by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting online extremism, found that harassment against women was rampant on YouTube. “Videos pushing misinformation, hate and outright conspiracies targeting women are often monetized,” the report said. Washington Post reporting found that prominent male influencers on YouTube would regularly mobilize their audiences to attack women creators, driving women off the platform and silencing their voices.
Even when women content creators aren't directly targeted, they suffer gender bias that limits their reach.
One 2019 study of people who spoke at or conducted research presented at the largest academic meeting for health services researchers, found that even though women academic experts posted as frequently as male experts on Twitter and followed and engaged with similar numbers of people, they, amassed, on average, only half as many followers as their male colleagues. Male experts also got nearly double as many likes and reposts.
Male news influencers often push narratives that exclude or marginalize female or nonbinary voices. The result is a media environment that caters disproportionately to male audiences and viewpoints.
"Men’s viewpoints are held paramount above women’s and women having any opinion often get shouted down and belittled when it comes to news topics, and we generally get abused for having one, full stop," Marverine Cole, a British journalist, recently told Press Gazette in an article on the lack of female news influencers.
This imbalance is compounded by algorithms that favor sensationalized and emotionally charged content that keeps users clicking, commenting, and sharing. Male influencers, particularly those with conservative or contrarian views, excel in this attention economy because their content sparks outrage or fervent agreement, both of which drive engagement.
TikTok stands out as the one bright spot in the social media-driven news landscape. The Pew report found that the platform offers a significantly more equal and progressive ecosystem for news influencers compared to other apps. Unlike Facebook, YouTube, X, and Instagram, where men dominate the influencer space, TikTok has the smallest gender gap, with 50% of its news influencers being men and 45% being women.
Politically, TikTok also bucks the trend: it’s the only platform where right-leaning news influencers (25%) do not outnumber left-leaning ones (28%). TikTok also has a higher concentration of news content creators who identify as LGBTQ+ or advocate for LGBTQ+ rights (13%), which is more than double the proportion on other platforms.
As I've written previously, TikTok remains a hub for progressive activism online. But unfortunately, this has made the app the target of right wing ire and directly fed efforts to shut it down.
Overall, Pew's findings paint a concerning picture of the new online news landscape. The widespread dominance of conservative male voices in the news content creator world tilts public discourse toward reactionary right wing narratives, which are then boosted by algorithms that reward sensationalism and outrage.
As millions of young people turn to content creators for news, these gender and ideological disparities must be addressed. If we don't fight for change and build systems to amplify more women and progressive voices online, we will be stuck with a media landscape that continues to exacerbate inequality and warps our political landscape for the worse.
What I’m reading
The death of mid-length video
Where have all the eight-minute videos gone? - The Etymology Nerd
The Influencers Going Viral in Aisle 8
With young people in the grip of a cost-of-living crisis, TikTok creators are turning grocery runs into rich-girl-coded productions—and followers are eating it up. - Cosmo
Influencers Are Going Full MAGA
After Trump’s win, a red hat is no longer bad for business. - The Cut
More fun stuff
Coca Cola’s annual Christmas commercial was created entirely with AI this year— bleak!
Marc Jacobs on guest editing the December Issue of Vogue revealed that he wanted to put Anna Wintour on the cover, but she flat-out refused and told him to “move on.”
Why school cell phone bans don’t work.
YouTuber Rosanna Pansino grew a cannabis plant in her father’s ashes then smoked a blunt out of the leaves, in accordance with her dad’s dying wish.
Loved this TikTok video by
on how insidious and harmful efforts to ban politics discussion on BookTok are.A good rundown on the drama over a pair of influencers trying to sell $98 polyester pajamas to stay at home moms.
L.A. east side brunch spot All Day Baby is closing December 15th. :(
I’m hearing reports that the Warby Parker x Emma Chamberlain pop up in LA was not as packed as anticipated. I didn’t have a chance to drive by this weekend, but if you went please report back!
AJ and Big Justice have released a Christmas song titled “Jingle Boom”:
A TikTok video connecting Anne Frank to The Rizzler.
Pop accounts continue to do free PR for gambling apps.
Sheryl Sandberg collabbed with Jett of Pookie and Jett, who also welcomed their first child (a daughter named Paloma) last week.
Moo Deng has a theme song and it’s only a matter of time before we get the club remix.
Private Medical, which charges patients a $40,000 year retainer, is at the forefront of a new type of health care for the ultra-wealthy that has taken concierge medicine to a whole new level.
“While countless articles and TV shows preach the virtues of minimalism, in tidying our homes and throwing out clothes, and despite “digital cleanses” which never did catch on, we collect and create digital things on a gargantuan scale: screenshots, videos, posts on social media, likes, saves, messages, and interactions. We’re encouraged to pare it down to the most essential physical things in life and encouraged to do the exact opposite in our digital lives.” — Our camera rolls, our selves: the phone photo archive as digital maximalism.
The Vatican and Microsoft are creating an AI-generated version of St. Peter’s Basilica to allow virtual visits and catalog damage to the masterpiece.
For more great content follow my meme page, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Instagram broadcast channel where I share links all week long.
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"I’ve been at supermarkets in the sprawling, affluent community of Summerlin, Nevada".. one of those lines that makes the author lose credibility in the first paragraph alone.
"This was supposed to be the year that schools broke up with smartphones."
Honestly, this starts to get kind of depressing if I actually think about it. The teachers don't even know how to use their phones, the article is about kids consuming via the phones, there should be MANDATORY use of phones in schools and there should be EXTENSIVE education about how they work and how to use them properly. Instead the attention hungry teachers are still trying to find ways to force kids to pay attention to them for no legitimate reason. Just another example of how society has failed to evolve in any meaningful way even with all of the world's recorded knowledge in everyone's pockets.
Video based news reporting has always been exploitative entertainment, I'm sure the Pew Research Center hasn't wasted any time running the numbers of how many fashion influencers skew female v. other genders. Fashion is a form of communication and news gets communicated through fashion just as much as it does every other artform. Likewise with BookTok, or any other genre, news gets communicated through all of it, the subject is just a conduit. People who want to watch people actually waste their lives barking at each other about politics apparently just want to hear it from male characters for whatever reason. If those same guys did an earnest CSWM it would get ten views because that show calls for a different character in the lead.
I thought the comment about Bluesky being full of theater kids made a lot of sense. This is all theater 101.