Intimate and Opinion-Oriented Communication? Examining Social Media Influencers’ Opinion Leader Potential Through Their Political Content

Abstract

Social media influencers (SMIs), described as popular social media users, have repeatedly posted about political topics on their channels. Extant work has described these SMIs as (parasocial) opinion leaders, partly based on three suppositions: first, that they provide subjective perspectives on political issues; second, that their posts contain intimacy cues which allow SMIs to develop an informal influence on followers; and third, that they fulfill certain opinion leader functions by sharing mobilizing, simple, and engaging messages. However, we lack research that evaluates whether these assumptions hold for SMIs’ political content. Closing this research gap, this content analysis of YouTube videos (NTotal = 678, NPolitical = 295) shows that SMIs who are popular among youth primarily communicate opinions to their audiences in their political posts. When factual claims are made, these commonly constitute the basis for opinionated statements. Furthermore, parasocial content attributes (e.g., self-disclosure) are often featured in the political content of these popular SMIs, where they occur as frequently as in their nonpolitical content. Last, fact-oriented and female SMIs in this sample are most likely to offer simplifying and potentially interest-arousing content. They may thereby fulfill specific opinion leader functions for followers and be especially capable of raising audiences’ political involvement.