News creators are increasingly where people get their news (check out Hanaa’s ongoing series of interviews with news creators from around the world) and a new study from the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University takes a deep dive into New Jersey’s local news influencers.
Using a combination of AI tools, custom code, and qualitative interviews, the researchers — Carrie Brown, Tara George, and Yi Luo — looked at metrics like relevance to New Jersey audiences, content types, and general communication approach to make a (delightfully highway-themed) interactive report. A few standout findings:
- About half (49.8%) of posts were highly specific to New Jersey. This, the authors write, “suggests these creators are making deliberate choices about what to cover, and much of it overlaps with the kind of community-level reporting that traditional news outlets have reduced.”
- Only about 1 in 4 posts (a combined 24.4%) were classified as news, opinion, or educational content. The most prevalent content types were, perhaps unsurprisingly, “lifestyle” (31.8%) followed by “promotion” (24.2%). (Content categories were a slight point of contention; the AI models generally agreed on categories, but human coders sometimes didn’t, which perhaps speaks to the blurriness of the types of things news influencers tend to post about.)
- The majority of influencers studied don’t see themselves as journalists, even if they cover things that local papers might have covered in the past, like sports, local restaurants, or community events. They don’t always fill the reporting gap left behind by local newspapers. “Most influencers produce opinion and commentary content rather than original investigative reporting,” the authors write. “They tend to react to and contextualize existing news rather than break stories — functioning as information brokers who amplify, curate, and add local perspective to coverage originating elsewhere. Attribution to the original sources is inconsistent.”
- Monetization is all over the place. “A minority of influencers support themselves entirely through content creation; others earn little or nothing from it,” the authors write. “Revenue sources include brand sponsorships, platform creator funds, affiliate marketing, and event fees — but creators described them as unstable and unpredictable.”
- Influencers have to put much more work into community management and audience engagement than traditional journalists do. Political influencers in particular have to deal with trolls, though they also have audience members who rise to their defense. Ambiguity, one journalist-influencer told the researchers, actually helps build trust.
You can find the full report here.
