The Problem with Influencers
Hint: It’s Not News
Each year I ask my graduate students “where do you get your news?” Each year the answer gets hazier and hazier. Whereas back in 2015, when I first started teaching environmental reporting, around a third of the class would say something like “The New York Times” or “NPR” now the most common answer is “my Phone.” “But where on your phone?” I often ask as a follow up. “I dunno,” the answer comes back. “It just sorta comes to me.”
Sorta comes to you?
Eventually as my questions probe deeper I start to understand. It comes to them through social media which in turn comes to social media via an algorithmically selected collection of individuals that the student in question favors. Yes, from Influencers.
We’re in the middle of a giant reordering of priorities with respect to news and information. Today the margins now own the center.
For a while this didn’t bother me so much. One does not want to be the fuddy-duddy professor shoving down the throats of twenty-somethings the musty practices and beliefs of yesteryear. And, anyway, youth culture has always explored the margins for newer things, things that sparkle, things that break the mold, things that literally refresh society.
