The Political Influence of Lifestyle Influencers? Examining the Relationship Between Aspirational Social Media Use and Anti-Expert Attitudes and Beliefs

Abstract

As social media are increasingly integrated into our lives, scholars have examined how social media use can inform beliefs about politics and science. This study considers the political implications of following lifestyle influencers and their aspirational content in social media. Aspirational social media use may shape political attitudes and beliefs, even when not explicitly political. Using a two-wave survey of American adults (N = 1,421), this study examines whether aspirational use of social media is associated with anti-expert attitudes and inaccurate beliefs about politicized science. Data indicate that aspirational social media use is associated with anti-intellectualism and holding more inaccurate beliefs, but not with overall distrust of science. These relationships are moderated by political affiliation, so that the attitudes and beliefs of Democrats and Republicans are similar at high levels of aspirational social media use. The results highlight the need to better understand the political implications of different types of social media use, including seemingly apolitical social media.

Keywords

social media social influence aspirational content anti-intellectualism opinion leaders

As social media use has dramatically increased over the last decade, there has been a great deal of research on how social media may shape political beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Most of this research has focused on political news, commentary, and discussion, while less attention has been paid to how ostensibly apolitical lifestyle content on social media may shape political attitudes (although see Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2014 and Settle, 2018). On social media, influencers and opinion leaders creating aspirational lifestyle content are seen as credible and authentic messengers on a range of issues (Johnson et al., 2021; Schouten et al., 2020), yet there is little research on how exposure to such content may affect attitudes related to politics and science. Given the influence of these content creators in other domains, it is worth considering their role in disseminating political information and shaping politically relevant attitudes.

Aspirational social media refers to content featuring inspirational lifestyles that depict idealized food, fashion, wellness, beauty, and parenting, among a range of other topics; when people consume aspirational content, they learn about the preferences and beliefs of elite tastemakers and their followers (Banjac & Hanusch, 2020; Duffy, 2017). Although seemingly apolitical, aspirational lifestyle content is steeped in political messages and values. Recipes calling for organic, non-genetically modified produce may affect beliefs about the morality of agricultural practices and gene-editing. Parenting bloggers expressing concerns about childhood vaccinations may influence vaccine risk perceptions. Wellness influencers sharing “clean” beauty routines may raise concerns about regulating chemicals in everyday products. Lifestyle influencers mostly lack institutional expertise or credentials, but the aspirational content they produce is highly influential among their followers, who view them as trusted opinion leaders. Aspirational lifestyle content on social media varies widely, but there is a common theme of skepticism of expertise in favor of intuition and doing one’s own research (Ballantyne et al., 2022; Zadrozny, 2020). Our study explores the relationship between aspirational social media and attitudes toward expertise in a time of increasing institutional distrust.

Using a two-wave survey of adults in the United States (YouGov), this study finds that aspirational social media use is associated with more inaccurate beliefs about some science issues and more anti-intellectual attitudes. However, it is not associated with overall distrust in science. We further find that these relationships are moderated by political affiliation, such that Republicans and Democrats converge to share anti-intellectual views and inaccurate beliefs at high levels of aspirational social media use. Together, these findings suggest that aspirational social media use is associated with notably different attitudes and beliefs compared to using social media for news and politics or to connect with friends and family, and therefore should be considered when thinking about the relationships between social media and political outcomes.

Aspirational Social Media

People have long utilized media to seek and understand others’ political views (Mutz, 1998). Social media, in particular, provide an abundance of social information—comments, likes, shares, and so on—about what others believe, what others support, and what kind of actions they are taking, all of which can affect an individuals’ preferences and behaviors (Margetts et al., 2016; Neubaum & Krämer, 2017). In some cases, the political influence of social media is the result of highly organized networks (Broniatowski et al., 2018; Kata, 2012). However, more often it is the result of individuals passively influencing their friends and peers through the public expression of their beliefs and values in social media content that is not explicitly political (Settle, 2018).

Research into online political influence has shown that the ways in which people use social media can influence attitudes and behaviors related to science and politics. Using social media to connect with friends and family is associated with differing outcomes compared to using social media for news and political discussion (e.g., Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2014). However, many people also use social media for entertainment, relaxation, or to relieve boredom (Alhabash & Ma, 2017), rather than seeking political content or connecting with friends and family, though little research has examined the political implications of this use (see Matthes et al., 2023).

Much of this content can be categorized as aspirational, depicting meals one would like to eat, places one would like to travel, relationships one would like to have, and clothes one would like to wear (Duffy, 2017; Young et al., 2021). These aspirational qualities are repeated across the major lifestyle genres—fashion, fitness, food, technology, beauty, wellness, parenting, and home design (Hanusch & Hanitzsch, 2013). Aspirational content is associated with pleasant and hedonic experiences that can shift users’ affective states to encourage engagement with content creators and increase the influence of their beliefs and preferences (Casaló et al., 2017). This is well documented in work concerning consumer attitudes from advertising and marketing research (e.g., Casaló et al., 2020), but recent work also suggests that exposure to such content can influence political preferences and mobilize politically relevant behaviors (e.g., Dekoninck & Schmuck, 2022).

Although often devoid of explicit political messages, aspirational content is imbued with political values. For example, wellness content on Instagram, known for depicting happy people adhering to western beauty ideals and neutral toned home goods (Monks et al., 2021; Trillò et al., 2021), promotes positive thinking and natural products as solutions to a wide range of physical and mental ailments, framing health as a personal responsibility while ignoring socio-economic systems that affect health outcomes (Chinn, Hasell & Hiaeshutter-Rice, 2023). Some aspirational content is explicitly political, actively attempting to persuade and mobilize (e.g., Harris et al., 2023). However, in much of this content, the political implications are not explicit and unlikely to be perceived as political except to those who are already deeply involved in politics (e.g., Eliasoph, 1998; Krupnikov & Ryan, 2022). Yet, the visibility of the preferences of elite opinion leaders can signal what values and practices indicate high social and cultural status (Duffy, 2017; Friedland et al., 2007). Aspirational social media enable users to see how “high status” individuals live—what news they read, where they go, what they buy, and so on—which may have political implications.

Trust in Social Media Influencers

Elite opinion leaders have long been known to influence public attitudes and beliefs, especially among those who are less attentive to political and civic information (Zaller, 1992). Opinion leaders tend to be more politically knowledgeable, engaged, and consume more news and political information, amplifying their views and opinions to their less engaged peers (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955; Lazarsfeld et al., 1948). As individuals are increasingly avoiding news in favor of entertainment-oriented content (Prior, 2007; Villi et al., 2022), people have come to rely on trusted opinion leaders to convey political information (Turcotte et al., 2015; Weeks et al., 2017; Wojcieszak et al., 2023). Social media facilitate connection to and the visibility of opinion leaders, making it easy to see the beliefs and preferences of those with whom we have affinity and find credible, who can then influence exposure to political information, attitudes, and behaviors (Carlson, 2019; Margetts et al., 2016; Thorson & Wells, 2016). However, social media have also blurred the definition of opinion leader such that social media opinion leaders, known as influencers, are no longer necessarily more politically knowledgeable or engaged.

In social media, lifestyle influencers offer tips and advice, review products and services, advertise products and brands, and promote lifestyle practices. Lifestyle influencers are aspirational figures who are highly trusted sources of information (Johnson et al., 2021; Schouten et al., 2020). They essentially function as opinion leaders (Casaló et al., 2020; Lin et al., 2018) and their followers perceive them as both regular people, similar to themselves, and as elite experts, more trusted than celebrities, athletes, or other traditional media figures (Schouten et al., 2020; Turcotte et al., 2015). Influencers are often evaluated by the number of their followers, the quality of comments, and the perceived community created by those followers, who grant influencers epistemic authority on a variety of topics, regardless of actual knowledge or expertise (Lin et al., 2018; Utz, 2010). Some individuals also develop strong parasocial relationships with social media influencers, which can then increase the perceived credibility of the influencer, as well as the adoption of attitudes and behaviors consistent with that influencer (Casaló et al., 2020; Dekoninck & Schmuck, 2023; Reinikainen et al., 2020). Because they are perceived as trusted experts, lifestyle influencers creating aspirational content may affect the way people think about issues related to politics and science when they share messages that have direct or indirect political relevance to their followers.

There is increasing research on the role political influencers have in engaging people, especially young people, in politics. Political influencers can build meaningful communities, effectively simplify political information, mobilize political participation, and can even increase interest in politics (Dekoninck & Schmuck, 2022, 2023; Harff, 2022; Harris et al., 2023; Schmuck et al., 2022). There is less research on how lifestyle influencers and their aspirational content might shape attitudes about politics, but extant research suggests they do contribute meaningfully to the political information environment. Lifestyle influencers often think of themselves as opinion leaders who engage in journalism or journalistic practices, despite lacking expertise on political or scientific topics (Maares & Hanusch, 2020; Wellman, 2023), and their audiences often consider them to be sources of news (Wunderlich et al., 2022). Although lifestyle influencers may avoid discussions of politics to avoid alienating segments of their audience (Suuronen et al., 2022), young people often have positive views toward influencers who discuss politics, seeing their political expression as driven by genuine interest and concern, compared to politicians perceived to be seeking to curry public favor or journalists who may be biased (Manning et al., 2017; Zimmermann et al., 2022). Furthermore, many lifestyle influencers, whether purposefully or inadvertently, make their political values visible by documenting their daily habits, consumer preferences, and personal values (Trillò et al., 2021). Cultural consumption habits frequently correspond with political ideologies and civic behaviors (Friedland et al., 2007; Mutz & Rao, 2018), and consumer lifestyle choices can serve as instigators for collective action and social change (Haenfler et al., 2012), especially among people who feel traditional political processes are unresponsive or do not serve their interests (Eliasoph, 1998). In other words, when lifestyle influencers create aspirational content, they are often connecting lifestyle and consumer choices to political values (Banjac & Hanusch, 2020; Hanitzsch & Vos, 2018). In this way, aspirational social media can be seen as a form of politically relevant media because they influence the way people understand and “act on the conditions of one’s everyday life” (Delli Carpini, 2019, p. 860), including what citizens believe and value concerning important issues like politics and science.

Aspirational Social Media and Anti-Expert Views

One way in which aspirational content on social media may shape political attitudes is by encouraging mistrust of institutional or scientific expertise. On one hand, trust in science is generally high among the American public and has been relatively consistent over time (Krause et al., 2019). It is true that select topics like stem cell research, evolution, and climate change are politically polarizing and often associated with distrust of expertise, in part due to how these issues have been used as wedges by political elites (Green et al., 2020; Hart et al., 2020; Nisbet et al., 2015). In general, however, the American public is supportive of the scientific community and values the research and expertise of scientists (Krause et al., 2019). On the other hand, the United States also has a well-established tradition of anti-intellectualism which has deep roots in American civic culture (Hofstadter, 1963). There are groups and subpopulations that deeply mistrust experts, scientists, and other public thinkers (e.g., Chinn, Hasell, Roden, et al., 2023) and many citizens are highly skeptical of mainstream information sources, preferring information that they find themselves (Nelson & Lewis, 2021; Strömbäck et al., 2020).

Individuals may become distrustful of experts through engagement with content on social media that implicitly or explicitly expresses these views. For example, many have been persuaded to distrust medical institutions and reject medical advice through parenting blogs and message boards (Carrion, 2018; Dickson, 2020; Zadrozny, 2020). In these cases, individuals are seeking advice, support, and community—not political information—but come to hold intense suspicions toward experts and institutions. Aspirational content varies widely, but much of it is laden with messages that encourage skepticism of doctors, scientists, and government, all while advocating trust in one’s own instincts over the advice of credentialed experts on a range of topics from health to public policy (Ballantyne et al., 2022; Carrion, 2018; Kata, 2012). The dismissal of expertise is often an aspiration in itself; skepticism of expert information is often perceived as a marker of intelligence or sophistication (Hofstadter, 1963; Nelson & Lewis, 2021; Nichols, 2017). Furthermore, social media influencers often build their brand by positioning themselves as having insider access and knowledge by casting doubt on traditional experts (Carrion, 2018; Dickson, 2020). When doing this, lifestyle influencers model suspicion and distrust of expertise as indicative of good sense and good taste.

Of course, anti-expert messages and themes are not universal, but they are pervasive in contemporary aspirational social media content. Research done by platforms like Facebook and Twitter themselves have found that their platforms amplify content that is anti-expert, anti-institutional, and in many cases, anti-science (Milmo, 2021; Zadrozny, 2020). Thus, people who spend more time consuming aspirational social media are likely to be exposed to more anti-expert messaging in ways that may shape their attitudes and beliefs. Indeed, some research has found that people who use aspirational social media are more likely to see scientists as a social threat (Chinn, Hasell, Roden, et al., 2023). We therefore argue that use of social media for aspirational purposes is likely to associate with anti-expert attitudes, including anti-intellectualism and distrust of science, and fewer accurate beliefs about science. Stated formally as follows:

H1. People who more frequently use social media for aspirational purposes will be more likely to hold anti-intellectual attitudes than those who less frequently use social media for aspirational purposes.

H2. People who more frequently use social media for aspirational purposes will be more likely to be distrustful of scientific institutions than those who less frequently use social media for aspirational purposes.

H3. People who more frequently use social media for aspirational purposes will be more likely to hold beliefs that are inconsistent with scientific evidence than those who less frequently use social media for aspirational purposes.

We also expect that these associations may differ between individuals at different ends of the political spectrum. While anti-intellectual beliefs are distinct from political partisanship, in contemporary US politics individuals who identify as conservative tend to be more anti-intellectual (Motta, 2018; Oliver & Rahn, 2016), more distrustful of institutions like the federal government and the news media (Gottfried & Liedke, 2021), and are more likely to have beliefs that are inconsistent with scientific consensus on issues like climate change and evolution (e.g., Nisbet et al., 2015). Conservatives also tend to have more distrust of scientific expertise and more negative affective responses to scientific research that disconfirms their world views (Hart et al., 2020; Nisbet et al., 2015). However, such views are not a proxy for or extension of conservatism (Merkley & Loewen, 2021; Uscinski et al., 2021). Those who are ideologically liberal can also hold anti-expert attitudes and research has found that anti-establishment views¹ tend to be orthogonal to partisanship rather than inherently aligning with one political party (Hofstadter, 1963; Uscinski et al., 2021). Liberals also tend to distrust or reject expertise that counters their beliefs or world views (Motta, 2018; Nisbet et al., 2015). For example, liberals involved in wellness communities tend to be particularly distrustful of medical science, often advocating for untested, and sometimes bizarre, medical interventions and promoting “natural” products and medicines (Carrion, 2018; Zadrozny, 2020). In many of these communities, individuals feel empowered to “do their own research” and trust their own knowledge and intuition above the recommendations of scientists and experts (Ballantyne et al., 2022; Carrion, 2018; Chinn & Hasell, 2023).

However, as expression of these views tends to be more prevalent among those who identify as politically conservative or Republican, Republicans receive more anti-expert messaging from party elites and conservative partisan media than Democrats. Conservative strategists often cast doubt on scientific expertise to achieve policy goals and have amplified messages of skepticism and rejection of expert positions in conservative media (McCright & Dunlap, 2010; Motta et al., 2020). Given exposure to anti-expert messaging from other sources, it is possible that Republicans hold more anti-expert views regardless of their use of social media. Indeed, recent work shows that Republicans’ views of scientists remain consistent across levels of social media use, while Democrats’ attitudes toward experts become more skeptical and similar to those of Republicans at high levels of social media use (Hawkins & Chinn, 2023). Because of this, we posit that the relationships in the prior hypotheses are likely to be moderated by political party affiliation.

H4. The relationships between aspirational social media use and (a) anti-intellectual attitudes, (b) distrust in scientific institutions, and (c) beliefs inconsistent with scientific evidence will be moderated by political party affiliation such that differences between Democrats and Republicans will be smaller at higher levels of aspirational social media use compared to lower levels of aspirational social media use.

Method

Sample

To examine these hypotheses, we use data collected through a two-wave national online survey collected in the United States in December 2020 and March 2021. The survey was fielded by YouGov using their panel of adult respondents in the United States, which uses a matching approach to generate a sample that is reflective of the general demographic of the US population in terms of age, gender, race, education, and income. The first wave of the survey was collected between 16 and 23 December 2020; 2,680 participants were invited take the survey and 1,760 completed the first wave of the survey (65.7% completion rate). After matching participants, the final data set had 1,500 participants. The second wave of the survey was collected between 2 and 8 March 2021; all participants in Wave 1 were invited take the survey in Wave 2 and 1,015 completed the second wave of the survey (67.66% retention rate). After removing participants who failed an attention check, the final sample included 1,421 participants in Wave 1 and in 975 Wave 2.

The Wave 1 sample was 54% women and had an average age of 48.9 years old. In total, 65.5% of the sample identified as White, 14.8% identified as Hispanic, 11.9% identified as Black, and 2.7% identified as Asian. The remaining 5% identified as mixed race or as a different race. The median household income was between US$50,000 and US$59,000 and the median level of education included some college; 30.7% of the sample had at least a 4-year college degree. We additionally measured religious attendance on a six-point scale with 1 being “never” and 6 being “more than once a week” (M_W1 = 2.73, SD_W1 = 1.68) and political affiliation on a seven-point scale with 1 being “strong Democrat” and 7 being “strong Republican” (M_W1 = 3.57, SD_W1 = 2.14). In total, 3.7% of the sample were not sure of their political affiliation and were subsequently coded as missing and removed from the analyses. Finally, political interest was measured by taking the mean of two items asking about interest in and attention to news and politics on five-point scale, with 5 being “extremely interested” (M_W1 = 3.50, SD_W1 = 1.0,1 r_W1 = .76; see the Supplemental Information File for the demographic information of Wave 2).

Measures

Social Media Use

This study conceptualized three different types of social media use: informational, connection, and aspirational. Informational use of social media was measured by averaging three items asking how often in the last 2 weeks the participant used social media to get information about news and politics, science, and health. Responses were indicated on a seven-point scale with 1 being “never” and 7 being “several times a day” (M_W1 = 3.29, SD_W1 = 1.79, α_W1 = .86; M_W2 = 2.90, SD_W2 = 1.68, α_W2 = .83). Connection use of social media was measured in the same manner using two items asking about how often in the last 2 weeks participants used social media to connect with friends and family and to connect with people or communities that share their interests (M_W1 = 4.26, SD_W1 = 1.80, r_W1 = .58; M_W2 = 4.07, SD_W2 = 1.72, r_W2 = .48). Aspirational use of social media was again measured in the same manner with two items asking about how often people used social media to get inspiration from brands, celebrities, artists, or influencers and to get tips, advice, or ideas on topics like fitness, fashion, parenting, hobbies, or other interests (M_W1 = 2.72, SD_W1 = 1.62, r_W1 = .48; M_W2 = 2.48, SD_W2 = 1.49, r_W2 = .47). Individuals using aspirational social media are significantly more likely to be younger, female, non-White, identify as Democrats, attend religious services, and be less interested in politics. The Supplemental Information File has complete question wording for all variables used and demographic information related to social media uses.

Anti-Intellectual Attitudes

Participants responded to a three-item measure of anti-intellectualism used by Oliver and Rahn (2016) and Merkley (2020) asking participants to agree or disagree with statements like “When it comes to solving important problems, scientific facts don’t help that much” and “Experts can help ordinary people understand complicated issues related to health and science,” which was reverse coded (M_W1 = 2.93, SD_W1 = 1.30, α_W1 = .76; M_W2 = 2.95, SD_W2 = 1.35, α_W2 = .78).

Distrust in Scientific Institutions

Distrust in scientific institutions was measured by asking participants how trustworthy the following groups are when it comes to looking out for the best interests of the American people: scientists, doctors and medical scientists, the center for disease control, and colleges and universities. Each item was measured on a seven-point scale with 1 being “extremely untrustworthy” and 7 being “extremely trustworthy.” The items were reverse coded, and then averaged to create a measure of distrust in scientific institutions (M_W1 = 3.21, SD_W1 = 1.39, α_W1 = .86; M_W2 = 3.26, SD_W2 = 1.42, α_W2 = .87).

Scientific Beliefs

To measure the extent to which participants held scientific beliefs that are inconsistent with scientific evidence, this study used three measures of scientific beliefs consisting of the average of five belief statements each. All items were coded so that higher values indicate more beliefs inconsistent with scientific evidence. The first was a measure of politically controversial science beliefs, which included beliefs about scientific issues that are controversial among the public despite the scientific community having a clear consensus. These include issues like climate change, vaccines, and genetically modified foods. Participants were given five statements and asked to indicate their belief about the statements on five-point scale with 1 being “definitely true,” 2 being “probably true,” 3 being “unsure,” 4 being “probably false” and 5 being “definitely false” (M_W1 = 3.67, SD_W1 = 0.86, α_W1 = .71; M_W2 = 3.69, SD_W2 = 0.87, α_W2 = .74). The second was a measure of medical folk wisdom beliefs developed by Motta and Callaghan (2020), which included commonly held medical beliefs which are not supported by scientific research. This set of beliefs was measured in the same manner as the controversial beliefs (M_W1 = 2.81, SD_W1 = 0.58, α_W1 = .52; M_W2 = 2.78, SD_W2 = 0.58, α_W2 = .54). The final measure included five social media promoted unevidenced wellness beliefs. These are beliefs regarding claims frequently promoted in social media lifestyle content as beneficial to one’s health and wellness, but which have little to no scientific research to back them. These include claims about the healing properties of celery juice and alkalized water, and the benefits of natural products over conventional ones. Again, these items were measured in the same manner as the other two sets of beliefs (M_W1 = 3.03, SD_W1 = 0.75, α_W1 = .77; M_W2 = 2.93, SD_W2 = 0.75, α_W2 = .77).

Results

The first two hypotheses examine the relationship between aspirational social media use and anti-intellectualism and distrust of scientific institutions. To test these, we ran a series of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses with aspirational social media use as the main independent variable, while controlling for age, gender, race, education, political affiliation, religious attendance, and political interest. We also controlled for other types of social media use. The analyses reported here use independent variables from Wave 1 and dependent variables from Wave 2. Similar cross-sectional analyses from each wave can be found in the Supplemental Information File, in addition to lagged analyses that control for prior levels of the dependent variables. The results showed that aspirational social media use was significantly associated with greater anti-intellectualism, b = .07 (.03), p < .05; supporting H1. However, aspirational social media use had no significant relationship with distrust of science, b = 0.03 (.04), p = .93; H2 was not supported (see Table 1 for full results).

Table 1.

The Relationships Between Aspirational Social Media Use^W1 and Anti-Intellectualism^W2 and Distrust of Science^W2.

	Anti-intellectuallism^W2		Distrust of science institutions^W2
	b	SE	b	SE
Age^W1	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Gender (women)^W1	−0.04	0.08	−0.14	0.09
Race (White)^W1	−0.39	0.09***	−0.29	0.10**
Education^W1	−0.15	0.03***	−0.11	0.03***
Party affiliation (Republican)^W1	0.26	0.02***	0.30	0.02***
Religious attendance^W1	0.11	0.02***	0.05	0.03^#
Political interest^W1	−0.03	0.04	0.06	0.05
Informational use of social media^W1	−0.07	0.03*	−0.04	0.03
Connection use of social media^W1	0.00	0.03	−0.05	0.03^#
Aspirational use of social media^W1	0.07	0.03*	0.00	0.04
Constant	2.44	0.22***	3.05	0.25***
	R² = 0.29		R² = 0.26

Note. Unstandardized coefficients reported (N = 906).

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001; ^#p < .10.

The third hypothesis examined the relationship between aspirational social media use and beliefs about science. Again, to test these we ran a series of OLS regression analyses with the same independent and control variables as above, with the three sets of scientific beliefs the dependent variables. The results show there was no significant relationship between aspirational social media use and controversial beliefs, b = .01 (.02), p = .41. However, aspirational social media use was associated with more medical folk wisdom beliefs, b = .06 (.02), p < .001, and more unevidenced wellness beliefs, b = .11 (.02), p < .001. H3 was partially supported (see Table 2 for full results).

Table 2.

The Relationships Between Aspirational Social Media Use^W1 and Inaccurate Beliefs About Science^W2.

	Controversial science beliefs^W2		Medical folk wisdom beliefs^W2		Unevidenced wellness beliefs^W2
	b	SE	b	SE	b	SE
Age^W1	0.00	0.00**	0.00	0.00**	0.00	0.00**
Gender (women)^W1	0.06	0.04	−0.04	0.04	−0.01	0.05
Race (White)^W1	−0.26	0.05***	−0.25	0.04***	−0.26	0.05***
Education^W1	−0.10	0.01***	−0.06	0.01***	−0.09	0.02***
Party affiliation (Republican)^W1	0.17	0.01***	0.03	0.01**	0.02	0.01*
Religious attendance^W1	0.12	0.01***	0.04	0.01***	0.07	0.01***
Political interest^W1	−0.03	0.02	−0.04	0.02*	−0.11	0.03***
Informational use of social media^W1	−0.04	0.02)^#	−0.01	0.01	−0.03	0.02^#
Connection use of social media^W1	0.00	0.01	0.03	0.01*	0.02	0.02
Aspirational use of social media^W1	0.01	0.02	0.06	0.02***	0.11	0.02***
Constant	1.86	0.12***	2.70	0.11***	3.04	0.14***
	R² = 0.37		R² = 0.14		R² = 0.19

Note. Unstandardized coefficients reported (N = 906).

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001; ^#p < .10.

The final hypothesis examined how political affiliation might moderate the relationships between aspirational social media use and the dependent variables. To test this, we ran the same regressions as above but included an interaction between aspirational social media use and political affiliation. The results showed that political affiliation moderated the relationship between aspirational social media use and anti-intellectualism, b = −.03 (.01), p < .01, such that Democrats’ anti-intellectual attitudes increased as they used more aspirational social media, b = .14 (.04), 95% CI = [.0588, .2241], though the conditional effects were not significant for Republicans (see Figure 1). Political affiliation also moderated the relationship between aspirational social media use and distrust of science, b = −.04 (.01), p < .01, such that Democrats reported more distrust, b = .10 (.05), 95% CI = [.0072, .1828], and Republicans reported less distrust, b = −.15 (.06), 95% CI = [−.2630, −.0340], when they used more aspirational social media (see Figure 2). Similarly, with regard to controversial science beliefs, political affiliation moderated the relationship between aspirational use of social media and controversial science beliefs, b = .02 (.01), p < .01, such that Democrats had more inaccurate controversial science beliefs, b = .07 (.03), 95% CI = [.0202, .1198], and Republicans had fewer, b = −.07 (.03), 95% CI = [−.1369, −.0071], when they used more aspirational social media (see Figure 3). There was no significant interaction between political affiliation and aspirational social media use on medical folk wisdom beliefs, b = −.00 (.01), p = .46, or on unevidenced wellness beliefs, b = −.00 (.01), p = .39. H4 was partially supported. Overall, the results of the moderation analyses suggested that Democrats held more anti-expert views, while Republicans held less anti-expert views when using more aspirational social media.

Figure 1.

The relationship between aspirational social media use^W1 and anti-intellectualism^W2 by political affiliation^W1.

Figure 2.

The relationship between aspirational social media use^W1 and distrust of science^W2 by political affiliation^W1.

Figure 3.

The relationship between aspirational social media use^W1 and controversial beliefs^W2 by political affiliation^W1.

Further analyses show that cross-sectional data from both Waves 1 and 2 had substantively similar results. However, analyses that used Wave 2 dependent variables as outcomes while controlling for Wave 1 measures of the dependent variables showed no significant relationships between aspirational social media use and anti-intellectualism and distrust of science, meaning that aspirational social media was not associated with change in either variable over the time period. These lagged and cross-lagged models are reported in the Supplemental Information File. The relationships between aspirational social media and controversial science and unevidenced wellness beliefs were marginally significant, but the relationship with folk wisdom beliefs remained significant even when accounting for prior levels of those variables. Together, these analyses suggest that there is a relationship between aspirational social media and anti-expert attitudes and beliefs, but the analyses do not provide any evidence as to the directionality. More research is needed to understand the nature of the relationship and causal direction.

Discussion

Our study is among the first to explore the relationship between aspirational social media and political attitudes and beliefs in the United States. Most research in political communication focuses on the impact of news exposure or political social media use on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. However, as use of news media and dependence on professional journalism declines and use of social media increases (Auxier & Anderson, 2021; Wojcieszak et al., 2023), it becomes vital to consider how the social media information environment as a whole may affect politically relevant attitudes and policy preferences. Our results showed that aspirational use of social media was positively associated with anti-intellectualism but had no association with distrust of science. Republicans had more anti-intellectual attitudes overall, but at high levels of aspirational social media use, Democrats also held similar anti-intellectual views. This is consistent with reports of anti-expert attitudes in liberal communities and with research demonstrating that anti-science and anti-establishment views do not run parallel to party identification (Nisbet et al., 2015; Uscinski et al., 2021).

We also found that aspirational use of social media was associated with more inaccurate beliefs about some scientific issues. Specifically, it was associated with more inaccurate beliefs about medical folk wisdom and wellness trends, but had no association with beliefs related to controversial science topics. This last relationship was moderated by political affiliation such that Democrats held more inaccurate beliefs about controversial science at higher levels of aspirational social media use compared to lower levels. This suggests that Democrats are either exposed to or seek more inaccurate information about controversial science when using aspirational social media. The positive association between aspirational social media use and medical folk wisdom beliefs and unevidenced wellness beliefs is concerning because such beliefs often inherently challenge the credibility of scientific expertise. Individuals with stronger belief in medical folk wisdom are less likely to value medical expertise and less likely to value expert input into health policy (Motta & Callaghan, 2020). If aspirational content influences individuals to hold unsupported beliefs about medicine, this may have important implications for how these individuals think about science and health care related practices, institutions, and policies.

However, aspirational social media use had no association with distrust in scientific institutions, though this relationship was also moderated by political affiliation such that Republicans had less distrust and Democrats had more distrust when using more aspirational social media. One explanation for this may be that aspirational content contains fewer explicit partisan cues so those who spend more time using aspirational social media are less likely to have views consistent with their party affiliation; this may be especially true for those who are less interested or involved with politics (Krupnikov & Ryan, 2022; Zaller, 1992). Another potential explanation is that science and scientists are perceived as conceptually distinct from experts and elites. People may view scientists as trusted people working behind the scenes to solve problems, while perceiving experts as elite figures attempting to guide public opinion. We cannot speak to this perception with our data, but future research should explore how everyday citizens conceptualize expert versus scientist. It also suggests that trust in science is not good proxy for anti-intellectual attitudes as it has sometimes been used.

Importantly, the results demonstrate that associations with aspirational use of social media follow a markedly different pattern compared to using social media for news and information or to connect with others. Generally, using social media for news and information was associated with less anti-intellectualism and more beliefs consistent with scientific evidence, while using social media to connect with others had few significant associations. These results were not the focus of our analyses, but they highlight how aspirational social media use operates differently compared to other social media uses and emphasizes the need to examine the role of aspirational social media in the larger context of relationships between social media and attitudes about politics and science (e.g., Matthes et al., 2023). We see these results as evidence for the need for further research on how patterns of social media use and entertainment content on social media may be associated with political attitudes and social norms (Delli Carpini, 2019; Gerbner & Gross, 1976; Matthes et al., 2023). This work is increasingly important as people now tend to receive more political messages from non-political sources than from political sources online (Wojcieszak et al., 2023). As fewer people regularly consume news media, lifestyle influencers creating aspirational content have the potential to reach a broad range of individuals, particularly younger and less politically engaged audiences who are often overwhelmed by news media and rely on trusted influencers for political information (Cotter & Thorson, 2022; Harff, 2022; Schmuck et al., 2022).

This study synthesizes theoretical perspectives across disciplines related to anti-expert attitudes in the United States and offers novel insight to the potential political role of aspirational social media, but we must note several limitations. Importantly, these analyses do not provide evidence of causality. Aspirational content may influence these attitudes, but it is also possible that anti-expert attitudes lead some to seek out aspirational social media that reinforces existing views in a process of selective exposure (e.g., Garrett, 2009). People who hold anti-expert views may be drawn to content produced by influencers, outside of institutional oversight, specifically because of their anti-expert views (e.g., Strömbäck et al., 2020). The associations we find also have small-effect sizes, with social media use only explaining about 1% of the variance in the outcome variables. Given this, it is unclear how these relationships may hold over longer periods of time, as platforms, trends, and political contexts can quickly change. However, we show that aspirational social media use has notably different associations from other forms of social media use, suggesting there are unique implications related to these differing uses.

Second, previous work on social influence in digital spaces suggests that factors like situational context and individual personality are important when it comes to who is influenced, though we did not measure these individual-level traits (Diehl et al., 2021; Margetts et al., 2016). It may be that there are specific types of individuals who seek out aspirational content in ways that make them susceptible to messages about inaccurate science or anti-expert views. As people tend to use aspirational media for entertainment and relaxation, some may be more susceptible to influence because they are not paying much attention and are not motivated to elaborate on the information presented, especially those who are less involved in politics (Krupnikov & Ryan, 2022; Pennycook & Rand, 2019; Scheufele & Krause, 2019).

Finally, our data cannot speak to the specific content to which people are exposed and rely on self-report measures. This study considers high-level, general trends that have been previously identified by scholars and journalists, but aspirational social media is not homogeneous across all lifestyle content or platforms. For example, aspirational content is popular on both Instagram and TikTok, but Instagram typically presents more polished and curated content, while TikTok content often aims to be more authentic, and this difference in platform norms could shape both the content and reception of that content (North, 2023). The associations found here do not explore the many varied messages people are exposed to or how the affordances of differing platforms might affect the production and reception of aspirational social media. Furthermore, people tend to not be very accurate when reporting their media exposure. Although self-report measures are usually correlated with tracking data, they have inherent biases (e.g., Jürgens et al., 2020). Our measures of social media use reflect patterns of usage, but they do not provide precise information about time spent using social media or engagement with content.

Conclusion

The purpose of our study was to consider how aspirational social media may be amplifying or contributing to political values and attitudes, specifically those that may have implications for politics and civic life. Most people do not use social media primarily for political purposes, instead they tend to use social media to relax and entertain themselves, often seeking out aspirational lifestyle content. This content tends to be visually compelling and oriented ways that allow people to connect to communities and shared identities that are frequently devoid of explicit political messages. However, we present evidence that aspirational social media use is associated with differing political attitudes and beliefs about science compared with other types of social media use. Because creators of aspirational content tend to be seen as trustworthy, credible, and authentic, they have the potential to be highly influential opinion leaders and may play an important role in political socialization, even if their content is not explicitly political.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-sms-10.1177_20563051231211945 – Supplemental material for The Political Influence of Lifestyle Influencers? Examining the Relationship Between Aspirational Social Media Use and Anti-Expert Attitudes and Beliefs

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-sms-10.1177_20563051231211945 for The Political Influence of Lifestyle Influencers? Examining the Relationship Between Aspirational Social Media Use and Anti-Expert Attitudes and Beliefs by Ariel Hasell and Sedona Chinn in Social Media + Society

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Brian Weeks, Michael Xenos, and the three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and generous feedback.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Ariel Hasell

Sedona Chinn

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biographies

Ariel Hasell (PhD, University of California-Santa Barbara) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Michigan. Her research examines the effects of the contemporary media environment on public engagement with science and politics.

Sedona Chinn (PhD, University of Michigan) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research investigates how people make sense of competing claims about science and public perceptions of expertise.

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