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Mapping news creators and influencers

Mapping news creators and influencers

How this trend is developing in 24 countries around the world

Overview

This report, authored by Nic Newman, Amy Ross Arguedas, Mitali Mukherjee and Richard Fletcher and published in October 2025, shows how the trend towards news influencers is developing in 24 countries. Using an audience-based approach, we identify countries where influencers are having the biggest (and smallest) impact as well as some of the most important individuals.

We also provide an emerging typology or categorisation of news creators, while recognising the inherent difficulties in this process given the diversity of styles, overlapping approaches, and broad range of content. | Start reading the report

How we approached our research

A brief explanation of how we approached this piece of research and how we measured news creators and influencers for this report. 

An overview of the news creator space

Check out our typology of news influencers and how this phenomenon compares across different countries. 

One important finding

The vast majority (85%) of the top 15 individuals mentioned in each country are men. This is especially true for political commentary.

Our country-based analysis

Read our country pages, which include tables of the top individuals mentioned as well as context on them. 

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The picture at the top of this page features Filipino journalist Christian Esguerra, number 12 in the list of individuals people pay attention to in the Philippines.