🔎 Research Question
Do social influencers change election outcomes? Social influencers can reach millions through platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, yet rigorous research on their electoral impact is scarce. The argument advanced is that influencers act as digital opinion leaders and can shape the public agenda in ways that affect voting.
📺 A Viral Video Eight Days Before the Vote
An influential event during the 2019 European Parliament campaign provides a clear test case. Eight days before the 2019 EP election, the social influencer Rezo published a video that severely attacked the Christian Democratic CDU/CSU. The video was watched by over 11.5 million users before election day.
🧪 How the Effect Was Measured
- Exploits the timing of Rezo's video as a natural experiment in the 2019 EP campaign.
- Employs a differences-in-differences research design to compare changes in vote outcomes across affected and less-affected populations before and after the video.
- Uses election returns as the outcome of interest to capture party-level vote shifts.
📈 Key Findings
- The video had a sizeable, measurable effect on the election.
- Results indicate considerable vote losses for the CDU/CSU that are attributable to the video's publication and diffusion.
💡 Why It Matters
These findings highlight the capacity of social influencers to act as agenda setters and digital opinion leaders with real electoral consequences. The results carry important implications for theories of electoral competition, the role of media in campaigns, and regulatory or strategic responses to influencer-driven political communication.
