Politics – simply explained? How influencers affect youth's perceived simplification of politics, political cynicism, and political interest

Autor(en)

Desiree Schmuck, Melanie Hirsch, Anja Stevic, Jörg Matthes

Abstrakt

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 (N-T2 = 294), a cross-sectional survey of young adults (N = 632), and a two-wave panel survey of young adults (N-T2 = 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.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft

Externe Organisation(en)

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Journal

International Journal of Press/Politics

Band

27

Seiten

738-762

Anzahl der Seiten

25

ISSN

1940-1612

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221088987

Publikationsdatum

2022

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Communication, Sociology and Political Science

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/70c6d2ef-6268-4f27-9167-afd3e1a7407c