Political and social unrest has swept across the globe as military conflicts, political alliances and new cases of COVID-19 flood the news.
We do not have a shortage of reliable news outlets sending anchors to cover breaking news and complex conflicts. For instance, Andrew E. Kramer being sent to Sumy, Ukraine by The New York Times to cover the uncertain stalemate between Russia. Or, CNN anchor Sara Sidner in Israel explaining how the Iron Dome protects the city amidst military conflict with Hamas. Despite this, celebrities and influencers play a major role for the younger generation on social media as they continuously post opinions and thoughts about political and social issues.
According to Pew Research Center, adults under 30 are 40% as likely to trust information from social media sites as they are to trust information from national news outlets.
In this new age of technology, people are gaining knowledge of events from social media, which can be damaging if news is exaggerated or completely fabricated. Because certain celebrities or influencers hold zero responsibility to post true or reliable information, much of the information they feed their followers has the possibility of being fabricated.
A study in 2021 by researchers at the Reuters Institute in March, found that 20% of misinformation about the coronavirus was spread by celebrity influencers and 69% of viewers shared or interacted with these posts.
According to the Journal of Global Health, Nicki Minaj, a famous and influential rapper, with 228 million followers on Instagram tweeted about the harmful effects of COVID-19 vaccines by sharing a fabricated story about a family member experiencing side effects after taking the vaccine. Her words were only proven false after authorities posted a statement backing up the vaccine with no evidence of Minaj’s claims. But that didn’t stop the 26,000 retweets or 150,000 likes that flurried after her statement.
Spreading misinformation is highly alarming when dealing with topics asvdangerous as a deadly virus, putting public health and safety at risk.
This phenomenon has found its way again — misinformation runs rampant in the midst of a tense Israel-Gaza war, espeically as many celebrities have personal connections to the region.
For instance, according to the Washington Post, many celebrities reposted a 2013 photo of dead Syrian children that was falsely described in a post as being recently killed Palestinians.
Celebrities have immense power through their media platforms, but when they choose to spread information without checking for its validity, it often ends up spreading division and hate.
As teenagers scroll through Instagram or Twitter and stumble across celebrity’s posts about their opinion on a world conflict, the possibility of teens believing the information is high.
A survey done in 2022 by CNN with the non-profit organization Common Sense Media found that 39%of teens said they prefer to get their news from social media.
Instead of taking time to read news outlets or research events and form their own opinions, the media has attitude-shaping power over teens. Through celebrities posting their views and biases against world conflicts, teens fall victim to the mindset that celebrities push.
“Even if celebrities aren’t doing anything to help the conflict, when they post about world issues people feel more inclined to look into and respond to them,” junior Sanjana Adatrao said.
And while I agree that bringing awareness to injustices committed around the world is helpful, celebrities who have built a parasocial relationship with their followers have a lot of influence over people’s opinions, and when they feed these people a constant stream of their thoughts they have the power to tweak and change the opinions of their followers.
Many students don’t have the time or the desire to read articles or watch channels from credible news sources. So instead of forming their own opinions with the facts in front of them, their perception or views of the conflict can be easily influenced by celebrities’ opinions and thoughts.
This has the potential to cause harm and create specifically strong impressions on young audiences, who, when exposed to these conflicts learn to accept and follow celebrities’ views instead of their own and one they might have kept had they not been influenced.
If celebrities posted unbiased information to educate their followers on certain topics leading to a bigger and more just impact. Then, as teenagers are fed this information, they would be motivated to dig deeper and form their own opinions.