How Americans View Journalists in the Digital Age
U.S. adults largely value journalists’ role in society but see their influence declining – and they differ over what a journalist is.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Research Associate
Luxuan Wang is a research associate at Pew Research Center, where she studies Americans’ experiences with news and attitudes toward new engagement in a changing information environment. Luxuan holds a PhD in Communication, Information & Media Studies from Rutgers University.
U.S. adults largely value journalists’ role in society but see their influence declining – and they differ over what a journalist is.
The share of news influencers in our sample with a Bluesky account roughly doubled in the four months after Election Day 2024, from 21% beforehand to 43% by March.
As people are exposed to more information from more sources than ever before, how they define and feel about “news” has become less clear-cut.
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.
Most news influencers published posts about both candidates in summer and fall, and identical shares were more critical than supportive of each.
Many TikTok accounts mix in news with a variety of other topics, from celebrity gossip to jokes and memes.
This study explores the makeup of the social media news influencer universe, including who they are, what content they create and who their audiences are.
Most U.S. adults follow news about local government and politics, yet only a quarter are highly satisfied with the quality of coverage.
Four-in-ten Americans who get news from social media say inaccuracy is the thing they dislike most about it – an increase of 9 percentage points since 2018.
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