News Influencers on Social Media

This book engages with a contemporary phenomenon of newsfluencers - individuals who use social media platforms to present news using innovative formats such as image and video to engage with their audience, analyzing news stories according to certain topics that resemble their personal interests. Such a role - integrated within the periphery of journalism - has been noted by scholars and major international outlets and has been evolving. It brings professional journalists and peripheral actors together in an individual effort to bring innovation in how information is produced and distributed to digital audiences, particularly young people who are distant from traditional media and who look for an inspiring role model figure through which they can learn about topics that they are most interested in. To explain this phenomenon, the book looks at the topic from two dimensions – production (including those who produce news for young people, working within journalism organizations but increasingly also acting upon their individualization on social media platforms to disruptively contribute to the field) and reception (including adolescents who frequently use social media platforms to know about current events).