The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces
A new Media Matters analysis found 9 out of the 10 top online shows assessed are right-leaning
As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, the influence of this media ecosystem becomes more prominent — and Media Matters has found that the most popular of this content is overwhelmingly right-leaning.
In a new study, Media Matters assessed the audience size of popular online shows — podcasts, streams, and other long-form audio and video content regularly posted online. To do so, we gathered data on the number of followers, subscribers, and views across streaming platforms (YouTube, Spotify, Rumble, Twitch, and Kick) and social media platforms that are used to amplify and promote these shows (Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok). Apple Podcasts does not publicly provide follower counts on its platform, so it was not included in the audience data.
This analysis was based on 320 online shows with a right-leaning or left-leaning ideological bent. We found that right-leaning online shows dominate the ecosystem, with substantially larger audiences on both politics/news shows and supposedly nonpolitical shows that we determined often platformed ideological content or guests.
this is an interesting problem: let’s say that there’s 50 right leaning viewers and 50 left leaning viewers. let’s also say that the 50 left leaning viewers are spoiled for choice and get 50 different YouTubers they’re into, while the to right leaning viewers don’t get as many quality options and settle on 5 YouTubers. each of the 5 YouTubers that appeals to the right now dominate the rankings specifically because the field is weak
It’s not really a problem. Authoritarians need a few daddy figures while leftists prefer a variety of opinions.
The “society and culture” and “comedy” topics are only slightly right-skewed, which seems representative of the US voting behavior with Republicans winning more elections but not by much.
The non-political topics with political sprinkles are interesting, and where the right overwhelms the left. People don’t listen to these shows because of the politics - they are there for the sports talk, or the discussion on getting and staying healthy, or for some inspiration and spiritual reflection - but the political sprinkles aren’t enough to drive them away. Does anyone see a path to a left-leaning host attracting significant audiences for mainly sports or wellness or spirituality, with occasional progressive sprinkles?
Not really, left leaning people always have the same problem: something that could reasonably called a set of morals (other than might makes right).
Your examples are toxic masculinity, diet grifters, and metaphysical grifters. It’s hard to square a sense of right and wrong with grifting.
I think you might be able to make inroads with women’s sports but…you need already toxic men to care.
You could make a diet show that does actual medicine, but the advice would be eat less, especially less meat and less alcohol. Eat green stuff instead. Go outside every day. Can’t make a long lasting show on this because it’s stable advice…this is why you need a grifter to make the show last, the content just doesn’t support the show.
Not gonna bother with metaphysical grifting, we get it.
I have gotten a lot of social connections and philosophy learning through my congregation, consumed a variety of exercise safety and effectiveness tips, enjoyed discovering recipes that fit with my lifestyle and dietary preferences (many of which contribute healthy variety to my food intake), and get positive feelings finding spaces that share experiences and tips around specific health conditions I have. It’s sad to see all of those experiences cast as me being a victim of grifting.
Asmongold
Never seen a person say that they’re a centrist like 50 times, then go on to exclusively feature republicans, right wing channels, elon twitter simps, gamergate and just other clearly biased personalities. Wish he’d be more honest and say that he’s clearly aligned with the right
I thought we all agreed ages ago “centrist” means frothing at the mouth racist who insists on the free market above all aka a 90s republican.
LOL that always seems to be the way centrist roll.
They’re conservatives but don’t like the stink of conservative politics.
Oof that h3 blue marker i hope it stays but I feel like he will begin his grift to the right soon
Since they are full on Zionists and they basically use their community as a brigading attack dog I had a laugh when I saw them blue.
I fucking hate Joe rogan, man
people who prefer to form their own opinions instead of having it spoonfed to them tend to not idolize the flapping faceholes on tv the way republican incels do
Glad other people see it so obviously. They claim to be independent thinkers immune to brainwashing but all they do is listen to and repeat any drivel they already agree with. And if you bring their “alpha male” rhetoric into it it’s even funnier because they’re nothing but sheep who drool over any man who seems powerful. They are the opposite of everything they claim to be.
we need laws globally to force all news organization to print corrections of equal scale for iterms that are proved to be incorrect
We all want accountability and authenticity, but if you are going to suggest something like that, you at least have to consider the mechanism needed, and how difficult it would be to get it right.
true, let’s give it a go anyway as the media is completely out of control in the name of free speech which is bullshit
we also tend to cite our sources rather than say “do your own research”
What they mean: “Look up an article supporting your position on the web.”
What it should mean: “Test your hypothesis and get your findings peer reviewed and replicated.”
The main reason I don’t follow much left-leaning content online is because a lot of it is utterly depressing.
I’m sure there is a way to change the presentation of things to stop fueling doomerism without needing to outright sweep bad things under the rug.
Put more focus on the solutions than the issues, for a start. When covering the opposition, always do so by rightfully making fun of them as the clowns they indeed are. Picturing them as competent in any way indirectly gives them more power.
I personally don’t want another source of sadness and anger in my life, but I do want to be connected to other leftists and leftist ideas.
The in-your-face topics of “society and culture” and “comedy” are close to evenly split.
The shows the right is dominating in are things like sports and wellness and spirituality with political sprinkles. The left didn’t even have one show in the article’s survey of those topics.
It’s been a while since I was into podcasts but Srsly Wrong used to be one of my favorites for a more optimistic discussion of leftist theory.
Last week tonight with John oliver hits the right spot for me.
There’s only so much of that show I can watch because it’s “Here’s how fucking godawful this thing is, but it gets worse”
There’s just so much of that shit you can handle before you start digging a hole in the backyard.
if you only watch the main segment that gets posted to YouTube, that’s definitely how it goes. The full show does a good job of sandwiching it between light-hearted, palatable goofs.
Oliver is a pretty good entry point. Then again so is Sam cedar. Although the recent episode of Jubilee He was on is enough to drive any sane person mad. He pretty well owned everyone he spoke against. But they were so smug and ignorant they thought they were winning the whole time. But the majority report is generally fairly upbeat and informative. Sam and his co-host pretty well know what they’re talking about and are decent presenters
Sam Seder
Most of the left wing comedy I listen to or watch helps me stay sane, if anything. As your other commenter mentioned, John Oliver is pretty good, but even daily Colbert or Daily Show is ok TV-wise.
The podcast sphere is mixed as a ton of it is rage bait although I fell in more with the atheist crowd thanks to Citation Needed and God Awful Movies, but those folks have news shows I’m partial to that is the right level of funny to outrage balance for me.
They used subscriber count as a metric which is really stupid.
Peterson for example shows up with 23M for his total social media presence. His YT channel has 8.64M subscribers but he has become completely irrelevant and his videos average around 200k views with some exceptions.
View count is all that matters here if we are talking about political influence.
Not only that but we know for a fact subscriber count can be bought. X uses hundreds of thousands of bot accounts to fuel whatever they are in the mood for. It doesn’t really mean much.
Also Rogan more than likely has a fucking ton of idle left wing subs. Dudes show was fucking great before he moved to Texas.
Trevor Noah has his own show?
He sure does! And he’s left-leaning because he was born half-White half-Black during Apartheid. His autobiography is literally titled “Born a Crime”, and it talks about how utterly fucked and dystopian apartheid South Africa was. How he spent his life not only becoming a master of code-switching and comedy to survive, but fight back.
He’s a badass. The man has my respect for life.
This chart includes Youtube, Spotify, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
Maybe the left is just less terminally online than the right.
Also not as heavily funded by the right-wing sponsors. Tim Pool is funded by Russia.
the city is back up, it’s a must, we outside
Is Lex Friedman right leaning? I haven’t listened a ton, but I got a neutral impression.
There’s a good piece on him here if you want all the details: https://www.businessinsider.com/lex-fridman-podcast-anti-woke-elon-musk-ai
Ah, that makes sense. It’s more recent.
