Japan
Japan has a relatively low adoption of social media and partly as a result we find a low number of mentions for individuals such as creators and journalists (less than 250) and limited follower counts. The biggest news brands, such as the public broadcaster NHK, NTV, and Yahoo!, are well followed in social media, but they face competition from a diverse and eclectic range of voices. Our list of most mentioned individuals has a strong representation from populist and right-wing politicians as well as maverick tech titans. Japan also has a large number of influencer accounts that specialise in celebrity scoops and news about crime, often with little substance. X still plays an important role in Japan when it comes to news, with YouTube the other major distribution channel. In a recent poll Japanese elementary schoolchildren, being a YouTuber was the top dream job followed by manga artist and entertainer.
Hiroyuki Nishimura, the current owner of 4chan, has amassed millions of followers on social media, where he regularly expresses outspoken and contrarian views. He appeals in particular to young Japanese who feel oppressed by the country’s often rigid rules, and he has become so famous that many people refer to him simply as Hiroyuki. In a national poll, high-school students said he was their top pick for prime minister. Takafumi Horie (better known as Horiemon) is another tech entrepreneur, who founded the portal Livedoor. He continues to make an impact as a media personality after serving prison time for securities fraud, linked to how he grew the company.
The use of social media by populist politicians has become a hot topic in Japan following a July 2024 election where an outspoken but little-known banker, Ishimaru Shinji, almost won the race to become the governor of Tokyo. Several right-wing politicians feature in our list including Takashi Tachibana, who is best known for founding an anti-NHK party, which targets the country's public broadcaster. His political speeches have been criticised for containing controversial and discriminatory comments.
Elsewhere, Takizawa Gareso is a social media influencer who became popular on X (formerly Twitter) for aggregating and commenting on trending news stories. Known for his speed and humour he frames complex topics in a way that resonates with younger audiences. Z Li is another ‘anonymous’ account on X, which has a reputation for breaking news related to crime.
Another popular site with young people is a YouTube channel NKToffcial (5m subscribers) run by Japanese comedian Atsuhiko Nakata. Self-styled as an educational channel (Nakata University) it provides videos that summarise and explain complex topics in an accessible format about Japanese history, science, politics, and much more.
Proportion that regularly pay attention to creators/influencers in social and video networks
11%
(22/24)
Proportion that regularly pay attention to news brands/journalists in social and video networks
14%
(24/24)
Gender balance
13
of the top 15 individuals are men
These lists represent the individuals most mentioned by respondents to our 2025 and 2024 Digital News Report surveys in the context of news and social media and video networks. Respondents who used Facebook, YouTube, X, Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok for news were asked where they paid most attention – including options for traditional news media/journalists, digital-first news outlets not associated with traditional media, creators/personalities who mostly focus on the news, creators/personalities who occasionally focus on the news. For each type, we asked respondents to name up to three examples of who they paid attention to. We then counted the individuals mostly using a tool called OpenRefine to help us use a semi-automated approach to clean the data (e.g. resolve misspellings or alternative names, remove duplicates etc.). In parallel, we also used ChatGPT5 to process and recode the original data, and to identify the most mentioned individuals to give us a way of comparing results. Further details on the tools we used and on small differences in methodology between 2024 and 2025 are provided in our methodology section (link).
Why did you use open fields rather than closed lists to collect the data?
We used open text response boxes, first, because in many countries the most popular news creators and influencers have not yet been identified by previous research. Second, because it would likely not be possible to fully capture the broad and fragmented nature of this ecosystem using a fixed listed of response options. And third, because we wanted to adopt an audience-centric approach whereby respondents could enter names that they considered news sources to them, even if they did not meet accepted standards or definitions within academia or the journalistic profession. This means that many of the names we list here would perhaps have been excluded under a more top-down approach.
How definitive is the order of the named individuals in each country?
In some cases, especially near the bottom the list, differences in the number of mentions for individuals are very small. Given our survey methodology, and the associated margin of error, the precise rank order should be read as indicative rather than definitive. Many other individuals were mentioned by respondents in the context of news, even if they do not make the top 15 using our approach. The lists should therefore be seen as indicative of some of the top news individuals in each country.
Why are some popular individuals with high follower counts lower down the list than individuals with high follower counts?
There are a number of possible reasons for this. First, some popular creators such as musicians and comedians are known more for entertainment than for news and their follower counts are often higher as a result. This means that even if they do occasionally talk about news related issues, not all of their followers will be aware of it. Second, some individuals working for traditional media may have relatively low personal followings but are widely distributed via social accounts of news brands. Third, there is a margin of error in surveys such as this (see previous answer) that needs to be borne in mind.
Did you exclude any individuals or other entries as part of the process?
Our lists are inclusive in terms of being faithful to the individual names mentioned by respondents. We removed just a handful of actors, sports stars, and celebrities if we were sure they did not post on any news-related issues. In most cases this did not affect the top 15 names that are published in this report for each country.
Many creators operate as part of collectives or use pseudonyms. How did you deal with these categorisation issues?
In terms of creator collectives or social-first brands, such as the Daily Wire (US) or TLDR News (UK) we followed the lead of our respondents. Where audiences have identified them as individuals, we have tended to categorise these as creators rather than news brands, but where they have mentioned a brand, we included them in our list of news brands. Where it was clear, however, that the brand is the work of one individual (e.g. Es.decirdiario/Sheila Hernández in Spain) we categorised them as an individual and made the connection clear in the description. Many creators use pseudonyms and, in these cases, we combined mentions of these with the real names. Again, we tried to make the connection clear in the description.
How did you deal with politicians and the overlap between politicians and political commentary?
Politicians and businesspeople are also frequently mentioned by survey respondents in the context of news sources on social media, and often have significant followings (e.g. on X, Donald Trump has 109m, Narendra Modi 109m, and Elon Musk 225m). Many politicians are also content creators and commentators who shape public debates. Some content creators have become politicians, and vice versa. We chose to include politicians if they were named by respondents in the context of news, but we have also shaded serving (or recently serving) politicians in grey to make clear the different relationship they often have with news consumers.