The creators and consumers in the world of news and information on social media
The Pew-Knight Initiative supports new research on how Americans absorb civic information, form beliefs and identities, and engage in their communities.
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. Knight Foundation is a social investor committed to supporting informed and engaged communities. Learn more >
This study uses a multimethod approach to understanding news influencers, an emerging part of the news and information landscape. The project includes three different research components: a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults conducted through Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an in-depth examination of a sample of 500 news influencers identified across five major social media sites, and a content analysis of 104,786 posts they produced during three distinct time periods in summer 2024.
Survey
The survey portion of this analysis was conducted from July 15 to Aug. 4, 2024, among 10,658 U.S. adults. Everyone who completed the survey is a member of the Center’s ATP, a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection. Surveys were…
