Politics – Simply Explained? How Influencers Affect Youth’s Perceived Simplification of Politics, Political Cynicism, and Political Interest

Abstract

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.

Political Influencers on Social Media: An Introduction

“…Building on the classic theories of the two-step flow of communication and of opinion leaders (Katz, 1957; Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955), influencers are often understood as similar to opinion leaders who exert influence over the opinion of others by relaying information, and who act as powerful intermediaries between audiences and the primary emitters of information (in classic models, the primary emitters have been media, though influencer economies and contemporary media ecologies have shifted toward a potential variety of primary emitters). While the literature on opinion leadership and on social media influencers is deeply interwoven, one main difference between the two is that traditional celebrities/opinion leaders gain their social clout outside a social media platform, whereas for an influencer, fame is a product of direct entanglement with a platform (Schmuck et al, 2022). In other words, a social media influencer is tethered to a platform’s infrastructure.…”

“…In exploring the effects of engaging with political influencer content, Schmuck et al (2022) develop the concept of “perceived simplification of politics,” suggesting that people may perceive politics to be “overly simple and easy to solve,” (p. 742). This, in turn, might lead to more political cynicism, but also more political interest.…”

“…The so-called “Rezo effect” in Germany describes how a German YouTube influencer by the name Rezo attacked the German conservative party CDU in a video; other influencers released similar videos, creating a bandwagon effect, which has been associated with an increase in votes for the Green party among a young voter segment in the country (Allgaier, 2020). Researchers have also shown how political influencers can play important roles in political education and literacy (Riedl et al, 2021; Schmuck et al, 2022). Another study pertaining to the effects of engaging with influencer content shows that following influencers who discuss politics can impact subsequent political online participation (Dekoninck & Schmuck, 2022).…”

“…She found that political influencers on the right can create funnels to draw others into gradually more extreme spaces and radicalization (Lewis, 2018). Schmuck et al (2022) explored the potential of political influencers for raising interest in politics among young people and find that indeed a positive effect may be an increased interest in politics, but also a turn to more political cynicism. Similarly, Riedl et al (2021) described the role political influencers can play as ambassadors of political education and literacy.…”

“…As a social space for communication, platforms can help shape politics and political communication. Platform politics (Gillespie, 2010) and government regulations (Harris, 2019;Schaffer, 2022) prescribe how political influencers should disclose their activities, for example, by using certain hashtags or text disclaimers in their posts so that it is easily discernible for others that something was paid for. Platforms typically prescribe the ways in which political advertising is permitted, or they may (more or less successfully) attempt to ban it altogether (Mozilla Foundation, 2021).…”