by Jiun-Chi Lin, National Sun Yat-sen University (Taiwan, ROC).
In the age of digital communication, social media influencers (SMIs) have become more socially influential due to their growing numbers and virtual popularity. During the 2024 US presidential election, SMIs were actively engaging in political debates in the US and Taiwan. Meanwhile, as alternative information sources, SMIs show their strength in increasing public interest in politics. Nevertheless, communication scholars have underlined their concerns about the quality of SMI information. This study asks the following question: What are the relationships between the audience’s perception of SMI information and their general perceptions of political information in elections?
I conducted online panel surveys (pre- and post-surveys) in both countries during the 2024 US presidential election. The post-surveys include 752 successful samples in the USA and 641 in Taiwan. The study employed a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) method to outline potential patterns among SMIs, public trust in traditional media, and audiences.
The study highlights two major findings. First, the public’s lower trust in information received in elections is closely related to their low trust in SMI information in both countries. Interestingly, in Taiwan’s case, people tend to believe election information when they positively evaluate the quality of SMI information.
Second, while SMIs are expected to set the electoral agenda, this feature also shapes how people evaluate SMI information positively. When SMI content eliminates the audience’s cost of accessing contextual information (e.g., understanding a specific issue), people are willing to believe what SMI says. In contrast, when SMI content is too complex for the audience, the information quality from SMIs decreases. While the former shows its uniqueness in Taiwan, the latter can be found in both countries.
Third, based on the cross-country comparison, the preliminary findings indicate that Taiwanese people’s high dependency on these online influencers can increase their perceptions of information accuracy. This is significantly different from what I observed from the US data. Hence, it also highlights that SMIs play a more important role in Taiwan’s elections.
What can we learn from these preliminary findings? We should not neglect the potential of SMIs on agenda setting in the digital communication process. Their posts and videos not only explain abstract and complex political issues in understandable ways. These pieces of simplified information can be influential when SMIs are accumulating their own readers who like their posts. For media practitioners, educators, and governments, this advantage can facilitate the dissemination of information and arouse public interest in politics.
Nevertheless, to address scholarly concerns about content quality, the production of SMI messages should rely on more authentic or official information (e.g., fact-checking organizations). Meanwhile, online influencers should disclose the necessary information to their audience (e.g., sponsors). For the audience, strengthening the skills of media literacy becomes necessary. In particular, the study shows positive correlations between public perception of informational accuracy and their evaluation of SMIs.
Note: The preliminary findings were presented at the 2025 IDS conference at KU Leuven in September 2025.
Author
Dr. Jiun-Chi Lin is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Political Science at National Sun Yat-sen University (Taiwan). His current research projects mainly explore relationships between (digital) communication and democracy by focusing on different actors (e.g., parties, social media influencers) and employing mixed-method approaches.
