Online Personalities — The New Generation of Political Commentators
Are online political commentators the future of American media?
There’s no doubt that political analysis news shows are one of the most popular forms of American mainstream media. If you flip on the television to CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News, chances are you’ll see at least one political commentator spouting their opinion for the world to see. Audiences can choose between leftists such as Don Lemon or Rachel Maddow, or right-wingers like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
The numbers don’t lie. In the third quarter of 2021, Fox News dominated the competition with total viewership, seeing the top four out of five news shows, with Tucker Carlson Tonight taking first with 3.24 million. In Fifth place was MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show at 2.20 million viewers.
No matter your opinion on these hosts, it is clear that these news shows have a large influence on modern-day political discourse. As shown by the 1945 Decatur Study, the two-step flow of communication is a very real phenomenon of news consumption. Mass media messaging, objective or not, reaches opinion leaders such as friends and family, which then is spread through interpersonal interaction.
I’m sure many of you have experienced this phenomenon whether you like it or not. When I visit my grandparents for thanksgiving, the dinner table conversation often devolves into political debate. I find myself having to suffer through my grandparents’ Fox News talking points.
With the rise of the internet in the past two decades, cable television has slowly but surely seen declining viewership year after year, but that isn’t stopping the growth of political entertainment. Live streaming sites such as Twitch have grown enormously in the past 5 years. Starting off as a website for gaming in 2011, it has branched out into a platform where attractive online personalities can flourish. A subsection of the site is dedicated to “Just Chatting” streaming, where a new wave of political commentators have found success.
Internet Celebrity Hasan Piker is one of Twitch’s most successful users with over 1.5 million followers on the site with a high of 223,056 viewers during the January 6th insurrection. A self-proclaimed socialist, Piker covers news from a far-left lens and consistently criticizes right-wing politics and figureheads.
YouTube has seen massive growth in this area as well since it’s debut in 2005. Many political influencers have found success here via consistent video uploads. Not to mention, live streaming can also be done on YouTube now in an effort to compete with Twitch’s popularity.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Steven Crowder, one of the largest right-wing political news commentators on YouTube with 5.51 million subscribers. His live-streamed show, Louder With Crowder, hovers around 1 million views per episode after it is uploaded. Crowder’s content is different from Piker’s in that it is more of a “show”. It has higher production value and features interviews with notable politicians and influencers such as Ted Cruz and Alex Jones. Not to mention, it gets significantly more views.
Online personalities such as Piker and Crowder have capitalized on their loud, unfiltered and controversial methods of political commentary. Besides YouTube and Twitch’s guidelines on hate speech, political commentators such as these can be as unfiltered, ostentatious and loud as they want. Unlike cable news, they can upload or stream whatever and whenever they desire.
Both Piker and Crowder capitalize on their frankly ostentatious methods of communication and persuasion. They may be direct opposites on the political scale, but they ultimately achieve the same goal. These commentators, arguably more extreme than their cable news counterparts, are at least influencing, and at worst radicalizing impressionable audiences. I can argue all day for which side I think is worse, but that isn’t the point. They are impacting the younger generations of this country and our nation’s already problematic divisiveness.
Despite my reservations regarding this kind of political content, I still find myself succumbing to the YouTube algorithm and watching left-wing streamer clips on YouTube. Why? Because they’re so entertaining and fortify my pre-existing beliefs. That’s what is so dangerous about them.
I’m not the only person that’s affected by this. As shown by The People’s Choice Study in 1940, political messaging is significant on reinforcement, or the assurance of one’s views.
Although a far cry away from the reach and viewership of mass media news shows, the trends show constant growth for online media platforms. It’s fair to say that online sites will surpass cable television in viewership at some point in the near future.
Society needs to start looking at this sort of content and seriously consider its value. Researchers should study the media effects, and humanists should debate the ethics and consequences. Online political figures hold a massive responsibility in this area, and at the very least should take accountability for the impact that they have. But perhaps I have too much faith in humanity.
Sources:
https://deadline.com/2021/09/fox-news-msnbc-cnn-ratings-1234846126/
https://twitchstats.net/streamer/hasanabi
