What is your postdoc project about?  

“My project focuses on how social media influencers affect public opinion formation and political engagement. Influencers are usually associated with topics like gaming, cooking, or lifestyle. However new studies have shown that influencers who normally don’t post political content sometimes take on an activist role and express political opinions or succeed in setting the political and mainstream media agenda. An example of this was the recent public discussion in Denmark about the invisible mental labor women do when managing a household, such as remembering birthdays and making the grocery lists, referred to as ‘mental load’. After influencers like Christina Sander brought this up on their social media channels, it became part of a wider political discussion in mainstream news outlets. It shows how influencers have the potential to influence what we talk about politically.”  

How did you get interested in this subject?  

“Since my MA thesis and PhD project, I’ve been interested in how the use of alternative sources of news and information relates to political attitudes. My PhD project investigated how widespread the use of online alternative news media is in Denmark and what characterizes the users.  In public debate, I think there has been a stereotypical image of alternative media users as extremists with no trust in mainstream news stuck in echo chambers. However, my research project painted a more nuanced picture: I found that, in Denmark, the people who use alternative news media usually do so in combination with mainstream media. Even though they usually do trust mainstream media less than the rest of the population, their trust in mainstream media is still relatively high. This could be because, in Denmark, trust in mainstream news media is generally high compared to, for example, the US. Similarly, I found that the users do hold more left-wing and right-wing political views than the rest of the population, but, on average, do not position themselves on the extreme fringes. Social media influencers are another new source of information that might influence people’s attitudes.”   

What are you working on at the moment?  

“In relation to the social media influence project, I am working on two survey studies that include two online experiments designed to test whether social media influencers affect their followers’ political opinions and participation. What we’re specifically doing is measuring peoples’ policy attitudes and willingness to engage in different types of political participation after exposure to a political statement made by an influencer. We’re comparing this to exposure to the same political statement coming from a mainstream news media source. The idea is to test whether the effects of exposure to a political message is stronger when coming from an influencer compared to direct exposure from traditional media. We’re deploying this survey both in Denmark and the US, to be able to compare the results across countries and different national contexts. Right now, what I’ve been doing is translating and adapting the survey to an American context.”   

What findings from your project do you find the most interesting or surprising so far?  

“Since we haven’t collected all data yet, we don’t have any findings for now. I’m excited to examine what role influencers play in possibly shaping people’s political opinions and participation. Ideally, in a democratic society, people make informed political decisions after assessing the available and relevant information and coming to their own conclusions. With the abundance of information available today, especially given digitalization and social media, what sources people get their information from is important. That's why it’s crucial to investigate what role social media influencers play in this, and how this affects democracy.”  

What do you look forward to working with in the future?  

“Something I’m looking forward to later in the social media influence project is looking at the role of so-called opinion leaders. Opinion leaders are citizens who are more interested in news and politics than others and play a vital role in interpreting and disseminating political information to their social network.  The theory of opinion leadership was developed in the 40s and 50s, and traditionally, the role opinion leaders play has been considered positive for democracy, among other things because they diffuse political information to people in their social network who might be less politically interested. But seeing as the information landscape has dramatically changed in recent years, we don’t know what sources the opinion leaders of the digital age use to stay informed. If those sources turn out to be untrustworthy, they could potentially be spreading ‘bad’ information, such as conspiracy theories. It will be exciting to examine what sort of information they’re disseminating, and if they can still be considered a net positive for democracy.”