It’s been a week since I first read about the new media consumption survey from the University of Mississippi and it it feels even more relevant today, in light of the reaction of the White House Correspondents’ dinner incident than it did even a week ago. You can read it here.
The survey goes into detail about how voters in the 2024 Presidential Election are getting information now. The headline – that prompted a live TV segment where I broke this down – is that more of them (you? us?) are getting news online and streaming, even via social media, particularly through “influencers” than we do on via TV. But the detail on who those influencers are tells the rest of the story.
If you included politicians, the data shows that the current President of the United States has the most influence of all, especially, but not exclusively, over his own voters. He’s followed by the current Vice President, the White House Press Secretary and the current Secretary of Health and Human Services.
But take the politicians out of it and then you can an idea of the power that personalities have over how even voters feel about the national news. Podcaster Joe Rogan has sway with more than 11% of voters, followed by Fox News opinionsts Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfield and billionaire and “X” platform owner Elon Musk, followed by pretty much the rest of the Fox News lineup. Late night comics Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, recent targets of the federal government, are also in the top 10. Nowhere to be found is anyone who acts as a journalist.
As the creators of the survey note, this is not exactly new in American society, noting the influence of radio commentator and priest Charles Coughlin from the early days of that medium. And I’ve written before about that too, namely Rush Limbaugh’s loyalty-building edict to his audience when he was #1 in ’90s talk radio: “Don’t read the news, I’ll read it for you.”
But what we’re seeing now has some significant differences. Namely, it’s not just about “appointment viewing” on radio and TV anymore. It’s available to us at any time, on any platform, on any device, sometimes whether we’re searching for it or not. Opinion is everywhere and only the most strong-headed among us can’t or won’t be influenced by it, especially when it validates our line of thinking.
And what about the news itself? It’s still there. But if we want it, we have to seek it out. And we probably have to pay for it. And at the local level, where it’s so vital to communities especially when blocked by national distraction, it’s still mostly influencer-free.