Influencing the news

A special (and extra) Double Take podcast this week on the recent release of the Digital News Report – and specifically the Australian edition, which includes a lot of food for thought.

Of particular interest in this year’s Australian report from the University of Canberra is the upswing in news consumption by younger audiences and their reliance on influencers to source information. In fact, the DNR finds a majority of under 25-year-olds have never used a newspaper or a radio news bulletin to get their news. Yet in the under 35-year-old cohort, interest in politics is now higher than in older cohorts, with many young people happening upon news in their social media feeds (especially TikTok) and being directed to it by influencers.

In the words of one of the report’s researchers, Adjunct Associate Professor Caroline Fisher from the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra: in the digital world, influencers are the new opinionistas. Listen to the conversation here on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.