Political Influencers on YouTube: Business Strategies and Content Characteristics

Abstract

Young media users increasingly engage with public affairs via social media such as YouTube, where content is increasingly produced by influencers who neither represent established professional news media nor political parties. Although the audience of these channels is already substantial in absolute terms and still growing enormously—making alternative influencers serious competitors to professional journalism—we still know little about their ways of attracting and monetizing audiences, the topics they emphasize, or the specific content they provide. To address this void, the present study examines political videos and their producers on YouTube in an explorative and comparative way for English- and German-speaking YouTube channels. We conducted a content analysis of the five most popular YouTube videos for each of the 20 most successful English- and German-speaking political influencers in 2020. Our analyses show that, although English YouTubers already appear to be more professionalized, similar patterns emerge in both language regions, particularly with regards to increasing efforts to manage microcelebrity status. In terms of content, two main types of political YouTube videos were identified: “partisan mockery” and “engaging education.” Results will be discussed in terms of their implications for political discourse, youth participation, and established journalistic media.

Political Knowledge to Go: An Analysis of Selected Political Influencers and Their Formats in the Context of the 2021 German Federal Election

“…In addition, the study gave hints that most PSMI in the sample fund their activities just by their own resources. Most recently, a study of German- and English-speaking political YouTubers by Fischer et al (2022) showed that they start to build an economic income by advertising and building their brand through cross-media activities. However, they also emphasized that channels with a broader international audience appeared more successful in this respect than those limited to specific countries or language regions such as the few German-speaking countries.…”

“…One limitation of this study is that it only included PSMI and their content that were nominated for the Hanns Seidel Foundation Award for Political Influencers 2021. In this respect, the sample does not necessarily represent the whole bandwidth of PSMI in Germany (see partly differences to Fischer et al, 2022) or for other countries. However, the sample showed that popular PSMI in Germany were included.…”

“…In a further study of content characteristics, Fischer et al (2022) analyzed videos of German- and English-speaking political YouTubers. They identified two main types of political YouTube videos: “partisan mockery” and “engaging education” (Fischer et al, 2022, p. 259).…”

Reaction and denial propaganda on social media

“…Por otro, se ha indagado en la respuesta de los usuarios, caracterizada por la abundancia de mensajes hostiles y sexistas (Lima-Lopes, 2022). Asimismo, Fischer et al (2022) han estudiado el tema y la naturaleza del contenido, identificando tipologías como "burla partidista" y "educación participativa" en los vídeos analizados, mientras que Finlayson (2020) ha destacado el predominio de un estilo populista, un estilo de actuación política típico de los medios digitales.…”

Political news on Instagram: influencer versus traditional magazine and the role of their expertise in consumers’ credibility perceptions and news engagement

“…Importantly, not only traditional news media use SNS to distribute news. So-called political influencers also gain an increasingly important role as a new generation of gatekeepers on SNS, as they report and share political information increasingly often and use their social reach to engage with politics and current affairs ( Bause, 2021 ; Fischer et al, 2022 ). In fact, political influencers were shown to have a positive effect on consumers’ response rate and the political agenda ( Curiel, 2020 ) as well as on political interest ( Schmuck et al, 2022 ).…”