Social media influencers (SMIs) are defined as regular individuals who become well-known via self-branding on social media. Youth use content posted by SMIs not just for entertainment, but also for political information. However, we know little about which groups of young people are most likely to be exposed to their political messages or why some youth seem to favor SMIs’ political information over news content from other sources. Inspired by the selective exposure paradigm, this cross-country study conducted between April 2022 and March 2023 explored which variables positively relate to selecting SMIs as primary political information sources among a quota-based sample of emerging adults (16–22 years old) in Germany ( N = 559) and Belgium ( N = 495). We focused on dispositional factors, namely young people’s political predispositions (e.g., subjective political knowledge, institutional mistrust) and source perceptions (e.g., perceived expertise, perceived opinion leader functions), that may be associated with selecting SMIs for political information. Overall, 59 percent of youth in our study were able to name a favorite political SMI. In this analytical sample, youth who were male, politically active, or ascribed opinion leader functions to SMIs were likely to consider them central political information sources. Moreover, country-specific multi-group analysis showed that, in Germany, low subjective political knowledge and parasocial relationships developed with SMIs were linked with relying on them for political information.

中文翻译：

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谁依赖社交媒体影响者获取政治信息？一项针对青少年的跨国研究

社交媒体影响者 (SMI) 被定义为通过社交媒体上的自我品牌而出名的普通人。青少年使用 SMI 发布的内容不仅是为了娱乐，还为了获取政治信息。然而，我们对哪些年轻人群体最有可能接触到他们的政治信息，或者为什么一些年轻人似乎更喜欢 SMI 的政治信息而不是其他来源的新闻内容，我们知之甚少。受选择性接触范式的启发，这项于 2022 年 4 月至 2023 年 3 月期间进行的跨国研究探讨了在德国新兴成年人（16-22 岁）的配额样本中哪些变量与选择 SMI 作为主要政治信息来源呈正相关。 （N = 559）和比利时（N = 495）。我们重点关注性格因素，即年轻人的政治倾向（例如，主观政治知识、机构不信任）和来源认知（例如，感知的专业知识、感知的意见领袖功能），这些因素可能与选择 SMI 获取政治信息有关。总体而言，我们研究中 59% 的年轻人能够说出最喜欢的政治 SMI。在这个分析样本中，男性青年、​​政治活跃分子或赋予 SMI 意见领袖职能的青年人可能将其视为核心政治信息来源。此外，针对特定国家的多群体分析表明，在德国，与 SMI 建立的主观政治知识较低和准社会关系与依赖它们获取政治信息有关。