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Social media influencers promote not only products and brands but also their opinions on serious topics like party politics or climate change. These so-called digital opinion leaders may exert a powerful impact on their followers’ political attitudes. Accordingly, we explore new directions to explain how influencers’ communication is related to political outcomes by proposing the concept of perceived simplification of politics (PSP). We argue that PSP may fuel political cynicism but also stimulate youth's interest in politics. We also explore important boundary conditions of these associations. We use data from three studies, a two-wave panel survey of adolescents ( NT2 = 294), a cross-sectional survey of young adults ( N = 632), and a two-wave panel survey of young adults ( NT2 = 496) in Germany between 2019 and 2020. Findings of all three studies show that the frequency of exposure to social media influencers’ content increases PSP. In Studies 1 and 2, PSP is related to higher political cynicism, while in Study 3, this relationship is restricted to influencers’ communication about environmental topics and gender equality. Furthermore, Studies 2 and 3 suggest that PSP also increases political interest—yet this association requires a certain level of parasocial interaction (PSI) with the influencer and is contingent on specific political topics.

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Political parties increasingly rely on sophisticated targeting strategies to persuade potential voters. However, questions have been raised about the effectiveness of targeted political ads, considering that citizens frequently oppose the use of their data for political purposes. In this study, we investigate three avoidance behaviors that citizens might employ in order to circumvent targeted political ads: cognitive avoidance, blocking behaviors, and privacy-protective behaviors. We test if privacy concerns, perceived personalization, and overload explain why individuals resort to avoidance behaviors. Moreover, we explore interrelations between the different avoidance strategies. Findings from a two-wave panel study ( N = 428) in the context of the Viennese state election showed that privacy concerns increased cognitive avoidance and privacy-protective behaviors. In contrast, perceived personalization decreased cognitive avoidance and blocking behaviors. Cognitive avoidance further reduced privacy-protective behaviors over time, indicating that low-effort strategies might inhibit preventive actions against data collection practices.

Mobile social media have become a widespread means to participate in everyday social and professional life. These platforms encourage the disclosure and exchange of personal information, which comes with privacy risks. While past scholarship has listed various predictors and consequences of online privacy concerns, there has been to date no empirical investigation of a conceivable relationship with perceived stress. Using a longitudinal panel study, we examined the reciprocal relationship between mobile social media privacy concerns and perceived stress. Results supported the hypothesis that mobile social media privacy concerns at T1 are associated with higher perceived stress at T2. However, we found no evidence for the reverse association, that is, perceived stress at T1 was not related to mobile social media privacy concerns at T2. The findings are discussed based on two models—the “Antecedents privacy concerns outcomes” model and the “Privacy calculus” model.

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