Is this the first post-mainstream-media election? The Guardian asked six volunteers to record their phone screens for three days – and the results provide a glimpse of what news, if any, the British public is consuming as they go to the polls.
Zoya*, 28, a British-Pakistani woman in Birmingham, used to be a loyal Labour voter who knew nothing about Palestine. After watching TikTok videos and AI-generated Instagram posts, she is now a Green supporter who feels Gaza is her top issue.
Stacey, 36, who lives in the Clacton constituency where Nigel Farage is standing for election, rarely engages with mainstream news outlets, but may vote Labour for the first time after the party paid to push adverts into her Facebook feed.
Finley, 19, a student in Buckinghamshire, has almost zero connection with mainstream news and forms his political opinions by reading the angry comments left below Instagram videos.
Working with the research agency Revealing Reality, the Guardian was allowed to monitor the phone activity of these and three other volunteers and interviewed them about their media consumption.
Although the sample is just a snapshot, several trends were clear: voters are seeing less political content on their social media feeds, traditional news outlets are less prominent in their lives, and influencers have an ever greater role in shaping political opinions.
Most notably, compared with elections that took place in the 2010s, people are less willing to share their political views on social media. Conversations about politics are instead taking place in private chat groups on Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Damon De Ionno, of Revealing Reality, who ran the research programme, said this reflected rapid changes in online behaviour since the last general election. “Social media went through a period where it was fun to put stuff out there and it was a lighthearted playground. People are now just much more wary about putting views out there, or stories about themselves.”
There is a generational divide. Older voters are still seeking out mainstream broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV and viewing it as a civic duty to be aware of the broad national news agenda.
From the research group, Peter, 60, in Wigan, has stuck to his habit of watching a news bulletin every evening. Ava, 67, in Lowestoft, chose to block Facebook friends who posted about politics in the wake of the 2019 election.
Simon, 45, an SNP supporter in Dundee, spends five hours a day scrolling through Facebook and views the BBC with suspicion, but still relies on the broadcaster for an overview of what is going on while picking up headlines from Radio 2.
The younger participants tended to have some trust in the BBC, but they didn’t feel the same deep connection to it – and didn’t feel the need to be across the broader Westminster-centric news agenda. Instead, they cared deeply about certain key issues that they deemed directly relevant to their lives, such as the war in Gaza, gender issues and housing.
As a result, the sources they relied on tended to be influencers or friends rather than mainstream news outlets. Finley, a first-time voter, knew little about Keir Starmer, but said his friendship group was talking about how the Labour leader “went back on a policy about giving trans people better rights”.
Watching the phone activity of the younger participants revealed how they often encounter news stories through other people’s reaction posts – such as learning about Rishi Sunak’s D-day absence by reverse-engineering memes and jokes that float across their social media feeds. They may see election-related videos on TikTok, but when interviewed later they would barely remember viewing them.
Maeve Garner, one of the researchers, said political content on social media feeds had changed a lot since the 2019 election. “Back then it was still mainstream news sources or headlines being shared. Now you see memes and videos. Memes mean there’s less conversation and debate compared to a news headline.”
While there has been an enormous amount of media attention on whether the Sun will endorse a particular candidate in the election, none of the participants read a print newspaper. They relied on news aggregation services such as Apple News or Google’s Discover, which gave them a variety of headlines from a number of mainstream news websites. They were rarely aware of which particular outlet they were reading, although many turned to the BBC News website for a brief overview of what was going on.
De Ionno said this could reflect the nature of the contest between Sunak and Starmer. “The personalities are very weak on both sides. It doesn’t have that human story. Boris [Johnson] was worth talking about; same with [Jeremy] Corbyn. People are is quite disengaged from the national picture.”
He said a general shift in online media was under way, including in politics. “More content is being produced by influencers and people who want to be influencers. Social media has become less social – there’s a lot less sharing and nearly all the content is professionally produced.”
* Names have been changed.
• This article was amended on 24 June 2024. An earlier version called Simon “Peter”.
