- News influencers – People who regularly post about current events and civic issues on social media and have at least 100,000 followers on any of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) or YouTube.
- Political orientation – A measure of a news influencer’s partisan or ideological views. A right-leaning news influencer is one who publicly expresses that they identify as a Republican or conservative or support Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. A left-leaning news influencer is one who publicly expresses that they identify as a Democrat, liberal or progressive or support Vice President Kamala Harris (or supported President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race) in the 2024 election. This information was found in the bio, profile picture, banner image, pinned posts or recent posts on an influencer’s social media account, any personal website or professional page, and prominent media coverage.
- Values and identities – Language or imagery in the bio, profile picture, banner image or pinned posts on an influencer’s social media account that expresses specific beliefs or identities.
- News organization affiliation – An influencer with this affiliation is one who either currently works for or previously worked for a news organization, as well as freelancers who have regularly contributed to news organizations. A news organization can be any news outlet that has a staff and multiple bylines. Researchers considered affiliated influencers to have this background regardless of their news organization’s political orientation, audience size or primary publishing method (digital, TV, print, etc.).
- Major social media sites – The five primary sites we studied, chosen based on audience size and the presence of discussion about news: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube.
About an even balance of TikTok news influencers explicitly identify with the political left and right: 25% of TikTok news influencers publicly express a right-leaning political orientation, while 28% lean left.
Influencers were categorized by whether they identify with a political party or ideology or expressed support for the Democratic or Republican presidential candidate in their social media profile, posts, personal website or media coverage.
About this chapter
This chapter looks at news influencers on TikTok. Virtually all of them also have accounts on other sites. For analysis of news influencers in general across social media sites, read the report overview.
In this report, news influencers are people with large followings on social media sites who regularly post about current events or civic issues. Refer to the methodology for details.
Related: TikTok users’ experiences with news
TikTok also has a higher share of news influencers (relative to other sites studied) who identify as LGBTQ+ or support LGBTQ+ rights (13%).
Meanwhile, more TikTok news influencers express a pro-Palestinian view (9%) than a pro-Israeli viewpoint (2%).
These values and identities can be indicated in a variety of ways, whether through words, images or emojis (including flags).
TikTok news influencers are more evenly split between men (50%) and women (45%) than news influencers on other sites, who tend to be mostly men.
For details on how we coded news influencers by gender, refer to the methodology.
The vast majority of news influencers on TikTok (84%) do not have a background with a news organization. But 16% do have links to the news industry, including people who formerly worked for a news organization (e.g., a newspaper, TV station or news website) but are now independent.
For more details on the differences between influencers with and without a news industry background, read Chapter 4.
What are TikTok news influencers posting about?
To get a sense of what news influencers are posting about, researchers collected and analyzed all public posts by the 500 news influencers in our sample for three separate weeks: July 15-21, July 29-Aug. 4 and Aug. 19-25.
There were many major events related to the election in or around these weeks, including the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump on July 13, the Republican National Convention (RNC) July 15-18, President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race July 21 and the Democratic National Convention (DNC) Aug. 19-22.
Among posts by TikTok news influencers that addressed current events and civic issues, 52% were focused on U.S. government, politics or elections.
Other common topics were social issues (including racial issues), international issues, crime, and technology (such as cryptocurrencies).
What other sites are TikTok news influencers on?
It is very common for news influencers on TikTok to also have accounts on several other social media sites. In fact, more than half (57%) have accounts on four or more other sites in addition to TikTok, while only 11% are on TikTok alone.
TikTok news influencers are slightly more likely to have an account on Instagram (82%) than any other site. But a majority also have accounts on YouTube (71%) and X, formerly known as Twitter (64%). And half of influencers on TikTok also have a Facebook account.
Some TikTok news influencers also engage with their audiences in other ways. Nearly four-in-ten (37%) host a podcast, and 22% produce an email newsletter.
Six-in-ten news influencers on TikTok offer paid subscriptions, often to additional content beyond just videos on TikTok, while four-in-ten solicit donations and a similar share (38%) sell branded merchandise. All told, about three-quarters (74%) seek financial support in at least one of these ways. (TikTok has tools to help all creators – not just news influencers – monetize content.)
More than one-in-ten TikTok news influencers (14%) also have a public Discord server where they can further connect with fans and followers.
