Influencers have more reach on 5 major platforms than news media, politicians: report

The TikTok app logo is shown on an iPhone on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

OTTAWA — More than two-thirds of younger Canadians engage with political content from influencers — and influencers have significantly more reach on five major social media platforms than news media outlets or politicians, a new study indicates.

A significant portion of the political content Canadians see on the major platforms “comes directly from influencers,” says the report from the McGill University and University of Toronto-led Media Ecosystem Observatory.

The report focused on posts from individuals and institutions on X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Bluesky. It did not look at or compare reach on websites, other online platforms or traditional platforms.

The researchers say they identified 1,097 influencers and collected 4.1 million of their posts from January 2024 to July 2025 on five social media platforms. Over that time period, politicians were responsible for 1.1 million posts while media outlets accounted for 2.8 million.

“We can say that Canadians online are more likely to see a political opinion from a political influencer than from a politician, for example,” said Zeynep Pehlivan, digital trace lead at the Media Ecosystem Observatory.

Pehlivan said we are witnessing a structural power shift away from institutions like political parties and news outlets to individuals on social media.

The report incorporates results from a survey of Canadians and tracked millions of online posts.

Overall, 42 per cent of Canadians surveyed reported engaging with those they consider influencers on political topics. That number was lower among Canadians older than 55, at only 32 per cent.

When researchers added together the number of posts on the five platforms from influencers, news outlets and politicians, influencer activity accounted for about half of the total. They also accounted for 62 per cent of engagement, as measured by likes.

“Influence is shifting from institutions to individuals, with news outlets and political parties and advocacy groups not reaching as many people as they used to,” the report states.

When asked why they engaged with influencer content, survey respondents’ most common responses were that they wanted to stay aware of current events or learn about topics of interest.

The online survey included 1,431 Canadians and was conducted between Aug. 28 and Sept. 3, 2025. The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

The researchers defined political influencers as individuals or groups who consistently produce political content and are able to shape public opinion.

An earlier report from the Media Ecosystem Observatory focusing on the 2025 federal election found influencers were the most active in terms of frequency and volume of online posts and received the most engagement.

It used the same definition of influencer cited in the report released Thursday.

Aengus Bridgman, director of the Media Ecosystem Observatory, said in an earlier interview that the report defined political influencers as individuals with at least 10,000 followers whose content was two-thirds politics - mostly Canadian politics.

While he said the line between a journalist or columnist and influencer is “very blurry,” the distinction is in how they use their accounts.

Bridgman said that means a journalist who only used their online presence to talk about their journalistic work wouldn’t be classified as an influencer — but they could be if they went beyond that by, for example, offering broader commentary.

That definition incorporates longtime political columnists and commentators like Andrew Coyne and Chantal Hébert, as well as Warren Kinsella, who worked under former prime minister Jean Chrétien, and pollster Bruce Anderson.

It also includes influencers who post under the handles BertaProudDad and Quick Dick McDick.

Other examples of influencers cited in the report include Keean Bexte — who previously worked at Rebel News — actress Lucie Laurier — who advocated against masks during the COVID-19 pandemic — LGBTQ+ activist Fae Johnstone and Pam Palmater, professor and chair in Indigenous governance at Toronto Metropolitan University.

There is variation within the overall trend, the report outlines. It says that while influencers “led conversation” in the 2024 B.C. election, that wasn’t the case during Ontario’s 2025 campaign.

The report says influencers were also mostly absent from discussion about local politics, which news media outlets dominated.

Influencers get the most engagement on what the report describes as commentary-heavy themes.

“Topics include call-outs and mockery, media and journalism criticism, and Trump and U.S.-Canada relations,” the report says.

News outlets, civil society organizations and government had greater posting shares on topics such as weather events, wildfires and crime and public safety.

But the report adds that “even in these spaces … the engagement panel typically tilts back toward influencers, indicating that audiences still reward commentary layered on top of reported events.”

The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invited personal finance influencers to the media event for the release of a federal budget. A spokesperson for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne confirmed influencers also attended the 2025 budget release last week.

Jessica Eritou — who worked at the finance minister’s office in 2023, when influencers were first invited — said in an interview last month the goal was to spread the word about the federal budget in more than one way.

“You can do a policy announcement on a Tuesday at 11 a.m. hoping it gets picked up on the TV with someone watching it in between their dentist appointment,” Eritou said.

“Or you can share … news with a content creator who people actively search for and watch in their own free time and follow their content naturally.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2025.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press