Influencers and celebrities, better sources of information than journalists in the eyes of young people? This is what a benchmark global report tends to show, which points to the growing importance of the TikTok social network as a channel for accessing information. “The younger generations, who have grown up with social networks, often pay more attention to influencers or celebrities than to journalists, even when it comes to information”, underlines the 2023 report from the Reuters institute. for the study of journalism, attached to the English University of Oxford.
This annual report on digital information, published Wednesday, June 14, is based on online surveys conducted by the company YouGov among 94,000 people in 46 countries. Highlight this year: the majority of users of Tiktok, Snapchat and Instagram (55%, 55% and 52% respectively) say they pay attention to influencers or celebrities when it comes to news. Conversely, on Facebook (which, like Instagram, belongs to the American group Meta) or Twitter, less used by young people, journalists play the leading roles.
Asked by AFP, the main author of the report, Nic Newman, cites the example of the young Englishman Matt Welland, who reviews current affairs or daily life on TikTok for his 2.8 million subscribers. . “It can also be a celebrity talking about a current event,” continues Nic Newman, referring to English footballer Marcus Rashford’s digital campaign in 2020 in favor of free meals for poor children. Because for the TikTok generation, the term “information” has a much broader meaning than in its traditional meaning, where we first think of politics or international relations. For these young people, the info “designates any new thing, all sectors combined: sport, entertainment, gossip people, news, culture, arts, technology, etc.”, noted the Reuters institute in another study specifically devoted to this subject. last year.
This seizure of power by influencers is the most spectacular effect of an upheaval in the hierarchy between social networks: the traditional ones like Facebook are losing ground, outdated by those based on video, like TikTok, YouTube (which belongs to the Alphabet group, parent company of the American giant Google), Instagram and Snapchat. It is to the latter that young people turn, including for information. Even if it “remains one of the most used social networks globally”, Facebook “is becoming much less important as a channel for accessing information” and therefore as a creator of traffic to news sites, notes the report. . In 2023, only 28% of respondents say they access information via Facebook, compared to 42% in 2016.
This is partly due to its “disengagement” from the news sector, which no longer seems to be a strategic priority, and partly because video-based networks are “increasingly capturing the attention of the most youth”. Among them, the Chinese TikTok is “the fastest growing”: it is used by 20% of 18-24 year olds as a source of access to information (5 points more than in 2022). Frequently accused in the West of being a tool of influence, even espionage, for Beijing (which it defends itself from), TikTok is, according to the study, particularly used in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
More broadly, due to the habits of the younger generations born under social networks, “our dependence on these intermediaries” in access to information “continues to increase”. Paradoxically, respondents say they are aware of the risk of disinformation and suspicious of the news selection algorithms on which the networks rely. But it is less and less frequent for the public to arrive directly on a site or an info app: most of the time, it first goes through a social network.
This “puts pressure on” the economic model of the media, based “on advertising and subscriptions”, especially in a context of crisis where households are reducing their spending. All this constitutes “a much more fundamental change” for the information industry than the digital switchover itself, judges the director of the Reuters institute, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen.
