Media ethics expert 'concerned' as social media influencers become a go-to source for news

NINA MOINI: Well, during the 2024 election cycle, it became clear that people were not just getting their information from traditional news organizations, but instead, they were turning to political influencers and social media or podcasts. And the campaigns really tuned into that, making several podcast appearances.

Well, a new Pew Research study confirmed this notion, finding that one in five Americans regularly get their news from influencers on social media. It's even higher for adults under 30. But a majority of these news influencers have no news affiliation or journalism background. So it brings up the question, how is this new wave of news affecting media literacy and how people understand the world around us?

Joining me now to unpack that question is an expert in media literacy and ethics. Yayu Feng is an associate professor of emerging media at St. Thomas. Thank you so much for joining us, Yayu.

YAYU FENG: Thank you so much for having me, Nina.

NINA MOINI: I've been wondering a lot about this, this election cycle, as a journalist, and thinking, what can we all do better to make sure that media literacy is thriving and is really at the forefront? It just seems very important. And I got to tell you, I was surprised that it was only one in five Americans that say they regularly get their news from influencers on social media. Does that surprise you?

YAYU FENG: No, I'm not surprised at all. And in fact, a couple of years ago, they've had a survey that shows people are mostly getting their news from social media. And now it's kind of a logical trend where people are getting these information from news influencers as they come up, since people's news, diet, and consumption habits really changed.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And so the Pew study found that one third of adults under 30 get their news from influencers-- so even more. And we saw candidates going on really popular podcasts-- Call Her Daddy, Joe Rogan's podcast. Why do you think young people in particular are turning to influencers and podcasters for their information and news?

YAYU FENG: Yeah, I think young people these days, they do not have a typical or traditional news diet. And they're a generation that grows up with social media. They use social media to share their lives. This is basically their space of the world, where much of their social life unfolds. And so they're very used to the structure and the logic and including the notion of having a personalized, curated feed.

When people say that they want just the fact stories from their news, that's not really entirely true. Many people are just being fed by algorithms or seek out information that confirms their beliefs. And so for young people already not consuming a lot of legacy media and spending a lot of time on social media, social media influencers are becoming one of the biggest, popular or most popular sources for them.

And also, these influencers are really good at breaking down a lot of issues into very easily digestible pieces. And I would say the young people are really growing up in the age-- I call it a digital fast food age--

NINA MOINI: [LAUGHS]

YAYU FENG: --with a shortened attention span. So I'm really not surprised that it got so popular with the young people.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, it's just a different time. 77% of news influencers, according to this study, have no background or affiliation with a news organization. Is that concerning to you that they're not really held to any type of journalistic standards?

YAYU FENG: I do. I do feel very concerned about that, and especially as a media ethics scholar. A couple years ago, when the term "fake news" just started to spread around, I think it did really serious damage to the public's understanding and expectation of news and journalism. And now these people, they're called news influencers. And I think this is going to potentially affect how young people perceive news and journalism, perceiving them as something that you can be influenced by.

And while the influencers can engage and inform, like you said, they do not really share the same professionalism or ethical standards. We can't always expect their content to be verified or fact-based. They're still influencers. They are not necessarily reporting. But they're interpreting and shaping the conversation in ways that traditional professional news outlets can't or won't.

So the line between opinion and fact, which is already very blurred, it's just more blurred. We really need a higher level of media literacy to be able to distinguish between these types of contents and make your own decision.

NINA MOINI: So if people are choosing to watch or listen to these news influencers, what should they be mindful of? What advice would you give? And maybe you give this already to your students.

YAYU FENG: So I think the first thing that they need to understand is how to decide whether they're listening to these-- their purpose of listening to these people. Are they seeking facts, or are they just trying to get some kind of perspectives? It's important to understand why we're getting news. And that helps you to decide whether you are getting what you want to get from the sources that you're consuming.

And I think the other layer to this is, there's a lot of expectation, especially for the young people, that information on the internet should be free. But good journalism is very expensive, and people don't realize that the industry is struggling. I recently showed some data in my class to show students that a lot of people think that local newsrooms are doing well financially, but--

NINA MOINI: Mm--

YAYU FENG: --much lower-- yes, I know. It's shocking. And a very low percentage actually pay for subscriptions or support their local news. And so students were kind of also shocked by this. So I guess the gap between the demand for free content and the cost of producing, high-quality journalism also created the space for influencers to thrive or feel, but often without the same accountability.

So I always tell my students to recognize that kind of discrepancy. And I always reinforce the idea that for good journalism to produce good reports, it takes resources, it takes time. It's not just going to be as easy as putting up together influencer content on the social media platform. So, yeah.

NINA MOINI: Sure. Yeah, so I'm curious if your research delves into at all what media organization, journalistic organizations can do to make sure that their product or their content-- that does have standards and ethics, hopefully-- is where people would turn, where news consumers would turn.

YAYU FENG: Yes. So there are a lot of literatures that really find out that professional journalists these days, because of the participatory media culture, they're using ethics or ethical standards as a way to draw a boundary between what they do and what people who call them amateur journalists do. They do realize that ethical standards were those kind of moral obligations is what make them professional. That is what make their content what they're proud of.

And so I also think that journalists needs to probably do a better job in explaining what they do. Right now, there's this disconnection between what journalists are really trying to do to provide accurate, reliable information to help people make informed decisions, and what the public thinks they're doing. Some of that disconnection can be resolved through better explanation.

But news literacy research have also found out that journalists do not always know how to articulate or explain what they do clearly to the public. A lot of those seem very common sense to them, but the public really does not have a good understanding of the news industry, especially the young people. So we need to build the trust in the journalists' work and help audiences navigate.

So in my media literacy class, I also made it my mission to teach those who are majoring in journalism, stratcom, and digital media to learn how to explain their work and to connect with the audience.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, like transparency. I think people are really craving like show your work.

YAYU FENG: Exactly.

NINA MOINI: Before I let you go, Professor, you're dealing with college-aged students, and a lot of people have already formed their media habits by then. I'm curious when and where do you think we as a society need to be starting this conversation on news literacy.

YAYU FENG: I really think it should be as early as we can in K through 12. It's a very important period of time, and it's an impressionable age. It's a good time to teach people about those.

But in college-- because they're starting to get more critical information-- they're starting to form a way to analyze and evaluate media contents. I think it's also a really good opportunity to teach them. Maybe it's about how to just be more thoughtful and reflecting on your way of consuming information. Or it's about telling them how to recognize bias, to question source of a story, or understand how social media algorithms shape what they see.

I think it's not too late in college to just have them reflect on the things that they've done before. I find that a lot of students in my class were surprised by what they find about themselves through recording their media habits and recording their news diets. They never were given the time to seriously reflect on those things. But these skills are very essential for participating in any kind of democracy where information really is the power.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and it's probably never too late to learn new habits. People just need to have a way to learn it and get the information. Professor, I really appreciate you being here and talking about this really important topic with us and sharing your work.

YAYU FENG: Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

NINA MOINI: Thank you. That was Yayu Feng, associate professor of emerging media at St. Thomas.