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🙋‍♀️ Last, this article explores differences in the presence of these elements across SMIs (e.g., based on gender). As such, female SMIs in this sample are most likely to self-disclose and to offer simplifying political content, which may have positive consequences for followers’ political involvement.

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📢 In addition, about half of the political videos contain specific content cues such as calls for participation or explanations of political terms that could elucidate why people often associate parasocial opinion leader functions with them (e.g., the ability to simplify political topics).

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🤳 To compensate for the lack of personal exchange—which is the typical context of opinion leadership—SMIs for example use direct address or self-disclosure to build a connection with followers. I find that they employ these techniques as much in their political as in their non-political content.

📰 Consistent with the opinion leader label, SMIs are primarily opinion-driven in their communication. When factual claims are made, SMIs mainly draw from legacy news media to support them—but frequently they also fail to provide sources for most claims made in a video.

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Intimate and Opinion-Oriented Communication? Examining Social Media Influencers’ Opinion Leader Potential Through Their Political Content

📊 New publication! In this single-author piece, I present insights into political content from social media influencers (SMIs) on YouTube in Germany. In the article, I examine to what extent SMIs construct an opinion leader role in their communication. doi.org/10.1080/1520...

doi.org

Social media influencers (SMIs), described as popular social media users, have repeatedly posted about political topics on their channels. Extant work has described these SMIs as (parasocial) opini...

Hendrik Meyer @hendrikmeyer.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Reposted by Darian Harff

📢 Happy to see this #OpenAccess paper out in #Journalism! "From disruptive protests to disrupted news frames: Comparing German news on climate protests" with @mikefarjam.bsky.social, Helena Rauxloh & Michael Brüggemann

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Filipe Campante @filipecampante.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

NEW PAPER!! We study how the "AI slop" era could actually boost demand for credible news. In an experiment with thousands of Süddeutsche Zeitung readers, we found that AI misinformation made people *trust news less*, but *read it more*. 🧵

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Sam Jeffers @worklesshard.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Top social issues advertisers across various EU countries in the last 90 days - lots and lots of fundraising advertising, particularly for aid to Gaza. From October, Meta stops this.

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Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice @dhrice.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Also Mia is on the job market and you should hire her, she’s an amazing scholar!

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Hendrik Meyer @hendrikmeyer.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

New in Social Media + Society: How do (non-)disruptive #climate #protests shape social media debates? We analyzed ~5M Twitter/X posts on #FFF & #LetzteGeneration: Disruptive protests generate more engagement—but also more polarization, driven by right-wing/conservative users: doi.org/10.1177/2056...

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Anaëlle Gonzalez @gonzalezanaelle.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

🥳 New publication on the links between social media use and perfectionism in adolescence, as part of Prof. @lauravandenbosch.bsky.social 's MIMIc project (www.projectmimic.eu/)

projectmimic.eu

Project MIMIc

Associate professor at the Media Psychology Lab

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Media Psychology Lab @mediapsychologylab.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

The Media Psychology Lab has been awarded the Society Award 2025 by KU Leuven’s Humanities and Social Sciences Group, recognizing our research’s societal impact and public relevance. We are honored by this recognition and committed to continuing research that bridges media, well-being, and society!

Advertising & Media Psychology Research Group (U of Vienna) @adme-uvienna.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Reposted by Darian Harff

📢 New Publication 📢 @rinatmeerson.bsky.social, @kevinkoban.bsky.social, Jörg Matthes review bystander research on content moderation, highlighting theoretical heterogeneity, a focus on cognitions, & lacking attention to content, moderation, context, & individual features. 👉 doi.org/10.1080/1369...

Heleen Dekoninck @heleendekoninck.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Reposted by Darian Harff

Pub alert ⚠️ It’s not just about 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 to be like them—it’s about 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯. Our new PoMRA scale measures perceptions of media role models’ attainability. We found that influencers seem more within reach than celebrities, underscoring why attainability matters in media effects studies✨

Possible areas of use - in research on counter-stereotypical role models - in social comparison research (it may act as a potentially important boundary factor of effects) - in research on social media influencers (attainability may be their unique quality and explain their influence potential)

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We found that PoMRA is correlated with constructs like perceived similarity, but clearly captures a unique construct. We examine that men generally view their role models as more attainable than women, and that social media influencers are viewed as more within reach than traditional celebrities.

Our scale Perceptions of Media Role Models‘ Attainability (PoMRA) measures the extent to which people feel that they can become like their media role models. We used data from 3 independent youth samples to test and validate our scale. Three versions of the scale (23-, 10-, 5-item) were created.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

2️⃣ In the concept paper, we argue that closeness to opinion followers in status can make opinion leaders seem *attainable*. In the second pub @jmcquarterly.bsky.social, we (w/ @heleendekoninck.bsky.social and @desireeschmuck.bsky.social) present a measure for attainability: doi.org/10.1177/1077...

doi.org

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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Last, a simple two-step model does not sufficiently capture the various flows of communication between influencers (dubbed *proximal mass opinion leaders*/ProMOLs), their audiences, and other actors in the public sphere. We illustrate the multiple layers of ProMOLs’ impact in the visual model below.

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Using this typology, we argue that influencers—who have often been referred to as OLs—share some similarities with traditional OLs despite their high reach. We argue that personalized communication with followers in self-built networks allows them to develop horizontal + personal influence.

In this pub, we address the need to revisit the opinion leader (OL) concept in a media environment characterized by high actor diversity and converging forms of communication. We introduce a novel OL typology, building on two dimensions: OLs’ level of personalized communication and status tier.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

📝📝 Excited to announce two new publications! 1️⃣ Together with Paula Stehr and @desireeschmuck.bsky.social, I wrote a conceptual paper that has now been published in New Media & Society. This article is all about opinion leadership & social media influencers! Read it here: doi.org/10.1177/1461...

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Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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aytalina @aytalina.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Attending this amazing workshop on data donations by @valeriehase.bsky.social @frodewald.bsky.social 👩🏻‍💻 #COMPTEXT2025

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Jasmina Rosič @jasminarosic.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

New paper in JCMC📃📢 With @laraschreurs.bsky.social & @lauravandenbosch.bsky.social we explored reciprocal longitudinal links between adolescents' perceived digital well-being & self-esteem + the role of digital inequality & smartphone screen time doi.org/10.1093/jcmc... @erc.europa.eu MIMIc project

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Vienna Media Change & Innovation Lab @vmci-univie.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

This week, we had two exciting presentations in our VMCI research talk series by our visiting PhD students, @puckguldemond.bsky.social and Arianna Colombo! Puck presented effects of political microtargeting, Arianna a novel classification of political influencers. Bedankt & Grazie to you two!