Youth Need Trust and Connections to Navigate the Digital Media Landscape
By: Hannah Michelle Bussa
A lot of the discourse around the 2024 election focused on the digital media ecosystem and the influence of influencers on getting people out to vote, especially young people.
This was seen on both sides of the aisle: Kamala Harris was encouraged to go on the Call Her Daddy podcast, and Donald Trump’s campaign thanked Joe Rogan and other influencers during their victory speech on election night.
However, CIRCLE’s poll data shows that young people (ages 18-34) did not report influencers among their top three motivations to vote in the 2024 election. Young people actually reported being “persuaded to vote by influencers or celebrities” as their least likely motivation for voting.
While young people may not be influenced to get out to vote by influencers, the changing media landscape still has an impact on our elections.
Bridget Todd, Creator and Host of iHeartRadio’s tech podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet and Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, is a frequently cited expert on digital experiences for women and other marginalized people.
“Even if young people are self-reporting that influencers didn’t have an impact on their voting habits, the data does suggest many of us – young people included – are increasingly getting news from influencers,” she said.
According to Pew Research, about one in five adults in the US gets their news from influencers on social media. The rate is higher for young people. In the CIRCLE poll, 77% of young people listed at least one social media platform as one of their top three news sources.
“So even if these influencers are not specifically shaping the voting behavior of young people, influencers are certainly shaping young people’s understanding of the news and how they are consuming news,” Todd said.
A Shifting Media Landscape
As young people navigate this media ecosystem, it’s important to explore how it impacts them.
While only 1% of young men reported being motivated by influencers to vote in CIRCLE’s poll, the changes in the overall digital media ecosystem may have played a part in young men’s notable 15-point shift to the right in the 2024 election.
This shift may be due to the digital media ecosystem being dominated by right-leaning sources. A recent Media Matters analysis of digital content found that “the most popular of this content is overwhelmingly right-leaning.”
Beyond political affiliations, young people are also impacted by the increase of disinformation online. Members of Gen Z fall for scams online more than Baby Boomers, reporting higher rates of victimization in identity theft, romance scams, and cyberbullying. Teens are also more likely to believe online conspiracy claims than adults.
“My biggest concern is that our digital media ecosystem has become a marketplace for scams and lies, one where it isn’t just the bad actor who is profiting, but social media platforms as well,” Todd said. “Imagine being a young person who has to rely on an internet awash in scams and lies to find out information about the world, your community, your health, or your democracy? Our young people deserve so much better.”
Young people also have to navigate growing extremism online. Following young men’s significant political realignment in the 2024 election, a spotlight has been put on the manosphere.
Taylor Lorenz, founder of User Magazine and author of Extremely Online, describes the manosphere as “a loose ecosystem of male-focused podcasts, content creators, YouTubers - internet personalities, basically, that speak to men online.”
She said a lot of manosphere content is made up of misogynistic, anti-woman content that vilanizes women and pushes patriarchal values and male chauvinism.
Algorithms often target young men to amplify this extreme content. In an interview with PBS News, Joshua Citarella, Host of the Doomscroll Podcast, said young boys can come across “manosphere” content by the ages of 13, 14, and 15, which can be impactful years later.
In her book about online extremism, Men Who Hate Women, Laura Bates writes that many young men desire the security of a group allegiance, which is “gleefully satisfied by manosphere communities, keen to seize upon disenfranchised, angry young men and fill their gaping holes with false promises, skewed logic, and hate.”
The desire for connection and community is human – but young people should not feel like they have to turn to extreme content online to find it.
Connection as an Antidote to Extremism
Young people also report a lack of trust in social media companies, despite relying more on social media for news. CIRCLE’s poll data shows social media companies as the least trusted institutions by young people (only 19% trusted), compared to institutions like nonprofit organizations, the military, and local government. Lorenz said she thinks this speaks to the success of a reactionary and dangerous movement to convince young people that social media and online communication are bad. She noted the work of academics like Candice Odgers and Alice Marwick, who have debunked these ideas through their decades of studies on kids and social media.
“I think that young people are now adopting those sentiments is really terrifying, because it sets the stage for a lot of the really dangerous legislation that we’re seeing emerge,” she said. “All of these terrifying laws are being passed right now under the guise of cracking down on social media, and what they’re really doing is censoring speech among the public.”
Lorenz said the push for ‘safety’ online in the form of censorship “has resulted in why we have such a broken media ecosystem.”
Todd said she is worried that young people are being left with a worse digital media ecosystem than the one she grew up with, and that our young people deserve better.
“I especially feel for the young people from historically marginalized groups who are coming of age on today's Internet,” Todd said. “Black kids, queer kids, trans kids - young people from all of those groups encounter plenty of hate online that says that their lives aren't as valuable as other people's, or that they shouldn't exist at all.”
While young people have plenty to navigate in this changing media ecosystem, digital platforms are often blamed for issues that are not directly caused by social media.
Lorenz said it can be easier to attack Instagram than focus on the issues people are facing, like the lack of a social safety net, debt, and poverty that many face across the country.
Social media, despite the challenges of disinformation and extremism online, can be a positive tool for young people to make connections and build community. Young people should be supported as they come of age online, so they don’t feel like they have to turn to extreme content to find it.
“It’s about fostering meaningful connections, trust, community, and conversations and nourishing young people with them so much that they won’t have an appetite for extremist content and lies online,” Todd said.
Social media is an undeniable influence on young people. While influencers may not be directly getting young people out to vote, the changing digital media landscape influences elections as young people consume news while navigating disinformation and extremism online.
Young people need to be supported in learning how to balance the impacts of disinformation and extremism while learning how to build community and access news online. Improving media literacy is a key first step in supporting young people as they navigate the changing digital media landscape that influences our elections.
Hannah Michelle Bussa is a writer from the Midwest. She is currently working on a nonfiction book. Find her on Substack and Instagram @hannahmichellebussa
