The Rise of Influencers in the Federal Election

Australian news has, understandably, been dominated by the federal election and its fallout over recent months. Amidst the rough and tumble of it all, a potentially concerning trend has been building in our news media for some time – the increasing prevalence of social media and influencers as significant elements of our information ecosystem.

37% of young Americans now get news from online news influencers, according to a 2024 study by the Pew Research Center. This is part of a growing trend of people, especially young people, getting their news primarily from social media.

News media has never been static. From newspapers to radio to television, the news has always adapted to new mediums to reach new audiences. This is a trend that has continued with the advent of social media. Essentially every major news publication in the country has an Instagram account and Facebook page, where they will either advertise their stories or post them in full. Many will also create content specific to the format of the site, such as Instagram reels.

Social media represents an incredible opportunity for news publications to reach a fresh audience, creating accessible content that can help inform people who previously would have had little-to-no engagement with current affairs.

This was explicitly stated as being the goal of veteran reporter Leigh Sales in her social media-focused election coverage for the ABC. Throughout the election, Sales released short-form videos aimed at quickly informing viewers of the key events during the campaign.

The Daily Aus, a youth-targeted news organisation founded in 2017, does an exemplary job providing news in both text and short-form video formats to hundreds of thousands of Australians almost entirely through social media accounts. Noise itself is an example of a (much smaller) news platform that is based largely on social media.

Social media also enables smaller publications to reach new audiences and cover issues that traditional media may pass over.

If credible publications can continue to leverage this technology effectively, it could be a boon to our democracy. But that’s not what this article is about.

During the election campaign, we saw influencers, with little to no media training, becoming prominent political commentators.

It started with the surprise March pre-election budget, when influencers were permitted to be part of the budget lockup for the first time. This decision by the government allowed information about the federal budget to reach people who previously would have remained ignorant to it. However, it also meant that some of these people were getting this information from pundits with little to no formal media training or experience in fiscal analysis. It’s easy to imagine why the government would view it as being advantageous to have low-information voters be informed about their last major pre-election act by people who lack the skills and resources to critically analyse it in the same way that major news producers do.

This continued into the election campaign itself, with both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton appearing on prominent podcasts to promote themselves, where they received far lengthier, cushier interviews than they would have with the vast majority of conventional media. 

Albanese’s interview with Abbie Chatfield on her ‘It’s A Lot’ podcast was, in fact, referred to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) over concerns that it was essentially undisclosed political advertising. While the AEC ultimately found that they did not meet this threshold, the fact that they were very publicly scrutinised in this light should demonstrate how promotional these influencer appearances can seem.

Politicians bypassing conventional media and instead reaching audiences through influencers is in no way unique to the Australian context. The 2024 US presidential election also saw the two major candidates seek refuge in easy influencer interviews, avoiding major news networks, especially those perceived as being ideologically hostile to them.

Donald Trump’s appearance on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ in particular gained widespread attention, with the podcast considered the biggest in the world.

Australia is one of the most democratic countries in the world, and this is something that we as a nation should genuinely be proud of and celebrate. But our democratic institutions mean little without an educated and informed electorate – something this shift risks jeopardising. The dangers of this possible future, in which politicians can avoid critical analysis by mainstream media and instead opt to be interviewed by untrained and often blatantly partisan influencers, should be obvious.

Even when influencers are genuinely well-intentioned and make an effort to avoid bias in their coverage of political issues, there are certain elements of journalism that only larger publications can handle efficiently, such as certain forms of fact checks and verification, especially with regard to complex international events.

As fewer and fewer people get their news from traditional sources, they can potentially be exposed to a range of information and perspectives that would previously have been inaccessible. However, the tendency of social media algorithms to funnel users into echo chambers makes it very easy to get stuck in a partisan bubble. This is something politicians are clearly eager to exploit in a bid to reach voters. 

Maybe this isn’t so big of an issue as I make it out to be. It’s not as if traditional news publications are devoid of bias. Peter Dutton certainly got his fair share of coddling interviews from Sky News during his time as opposition leader. 

Additionally, the incentive for politicians to go down this path is less in Australia than in the US, where drumming up support from low information voters who typically wouldn’t bother showing up on election day is an important part of electoral campaigning. Only 63.9 percent of eligible voters participated in the last American election, while the recent Australian federal election had a participation rate of 89% thanks to our compulsory voting laws.

It would also be disingenuous to imply that all influencers who produce political content are ignorant or morally bankrupt. There is some genuinely impressive analysis out there, and in a few cases, genuinely important, groundbreaking investigative journalism. As much as I find him annoying and tone deaf, Jordan Shanks-Markovina (better known by his online persona FriendlyJordies) successfully brought credible allegations of corruption against then-NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro, providing an example of what influencers are capable of with their significant platforms and relative lack of regulation.

Our increasingly decentralised media spaces offer huge opportunities, but also incredible risk, as media conglomerates at least nominally bound by codes of conduct and best practice are gradually supplanted by fractious individuals who are difficult to hold to account and easily fly under the radar of regulatory bodies. It’s a fundamental shift, and one that both news consumers and regulatory bodies should be aware of.