- The 2024 election may have shown the mainstream media is losing its grip on political commentary.
- Podcasts and social media platforms offered politicians authenticity and a wider audience reach.
- There are downsides to the rise of alternative media, particularly with fake news and bias.
The campaigns in this year’s presidential election have shone a light on the waning influence of mainstream media.
From podcasts and gaming streams to Substacks and TikTok debates, politicians have moved their fight to new media battlegrounds.
The shift has been ongoing for nearly a decade, but legacy outlets are now facing a fresh wake-up call.
“No longer the gatekeepers, their days of controlling the news and information flow are over,” said Brett Spencer, a senior lecturer in podcasting at City St George’s, University of London.
Trump vs. Harris online
This election cycle, Trump familiarized himself with streamers’ fanbases, particularly in the community known as the Manosphere, which is made up of creators who share anti-feminist and right-wing beliefs.
He appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and talked with him for three hours.
The interview, which aired on October 26, gained 26 million views within 24 hours, Newsweek reported. It has reached 45.9 million views at the time of writing.
The figures would have exceeded “the reach of any sit-down interview with a news anchor on any of the main news networks,” said Paul Reilly, a senior lecturer in communications, media, and democracy at the University of Glasgow.
Rogan also endorsed Trump on X on November 5 with a video featuring Elon Musk making “the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear,” he said while lamenting a perceived suppression of free speech by the mainstream media. It amassed 47 million views.
In the other camp, Harris appeared on Alex Cooper’s podcast, “Call Her Daddy,” and Kamala HQ leaned into the memes and trends on TikTok and Instagram, such as “Kamala IS brat.”
Brandon Harris, a professor at the Journalism and Creative Media department at the University of Alabama, told BI that “there is a sense of synchronous interaction” with podcasts and platforms such as Twitch, which gives them an air of authenticity.
“You’re seeing much more of a full conversation than in a lot of other media formats, especially for politicians who are typically kept in very controlled media environments,” Harris said.
A fragmented media landscape
Trump and Harris’ campaigns reflected a media landscape that has never been more fragmented.
Fourteen percent of US adults in a September 2023 survey from the Pew Research Center said they regularly get news from TikTok, up from 3% in 2020.
Among 18- to 29-year-olds, that number jumped from 9% to 32%.
Meanwhile, Edison Research’s Infinite Dial Report found that 59% of Americans between the ages of 12 and 34 listened to podcasts in January 2024, up 4% from the previous year.
While mainstream media outlets are establishing growing audiences on apps like TikTok, young people still tend to get their news from influencers and non-legacy media accounts.
Many of these accounts were providing entertaining and confident commentary during the election, while some mainstream media outlets wrestled with their endorsements, sparking controversy over journalistic integrity and ownership.
The risk
The podcast and stream appearances made Trump “relatable” to voters — more so than in legacy media appearances such as televised debates. In other words, what worked in Trump’s favor was knowing his audience.
However, with the rise in alternative media comes the danger of audiences falling into a bubble and becoming more extreme in their beliefs. There’s also a risk of a rise in fake news and partisan commentary.
“It means fewer debates, it means fewer big-ticket interviews with qualified journalists who push back,” said Jessica Coen, the senior vice president of content at the Gen Z-focused media company The News Movement. “You can argue that there’s a public cost to that.”
Jess Rauchberg, a researcher on digital media cultures, agreed that mobilizing in this way has its downsides.
“It makes me a little bit nervous about what this says about American media literacy and global media literacy,” she said. “We are turning to creators who are maybe not trained as journalists or don’t have a background in politics.”
Doug Eldridge, founder of Achilles PR agency, told BI that legacy media outlets will use the election to reassess their next steps.
“Reputation is the hardest thing to build and the easiest thing to destroy,” Eldridge said.
“The days of scripted, edited, three-minute interviews are over; long-form, unedited, three-hour conversations are the future,” he added. “Much like the dinosaurs, the legacy media will either adapt or become extinct.”
