When the Influencers set the Agenda

Digital media transformation has fundamentally altered how Germans consume news—and consequently, who contributes to public opinion formation. Beyond traditional media companies, influencers and content creators now distribute information through social platforms, reaching substantial audiences.

This development creates new forms of diversity and new dependencies: platform operators control content visibility through algorithms and policies; networks and media companies consolidate resources and control, while influencers interact directly with their communities.

These shifts present new challenges for monitoring media ownership and opinion power. The Media Ownership Monitor Germany addresses this by incorporating selected influencer profiles alongside traditional media, mapping how media power has shifted in the digital sphere.

The selection process for MOM Germany employed an exploratory approach. In key aspects, the case selection relied on publicly available data and basic statistical analysis.

In a first step, eight platforms were selected as the universe of analysis based on reach and relevance to the German market: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, Spotify, X (formerly Twitter), and Telegram.

In a second step, a preliminary selection of 38 accounts was made comprising the accounts with the strongest reach on their respective platforms, operating in German, and with explicit connections to news or current events. Following expert consultation from the Hans-Bredow-Institut, three additional accounts were added to this preliminary selection.

Subsequently, the relevance of each account was confirmed through in-depth field research, and relevant reach metrics were compiled for each account across all platforms. Based on these reach metrics, a weighted ranking of accounts was created (for detailed explanation see FAQ section).

The highest-ranking accounts from this ranking constitute the selection for MOM Germany.

A significant challenge for systematic monitoring of opinion power on social media is the lack of comparable data on the reach and influence of individual accounts.

This is not accidental but structurally determined. Each platform defines central metrics such as "impressions," "reach," or "engagement" differently and sometimes changes these definitions without public documentation. Similar opacity applies to external analytical tools, which typically do not publicly disclose the methodology underlying their data collection and reporting.

This opacity complicates independent monitoring, obscures the influence of platform operators through algorithmic prioritization, and creates dependence on platform-proprietary analytical tools. Academic research demonstrates that identical content spreads substantially differently across networks due to algorithmic prioritization. This creates a deliberate degree of ambiguity that secures platform operators' control over how their metrics are perceived.

On social media, the distinction between journalistic information and entertainment-driven presentation increasingly dissolves. From social media personalities who occasionally comment on current events, to professional media companies seeking viability in digital markets, all compete for identical user attention.

A 2025 study by the North Rhine-Westphalia Media Authority (Landesanstalt für Medien NRW) examined the content of political influencers and found that "the mixing of opinion and information is a central characteristic: in 59 percent of posts these cannot be clearly separated from one another."

A contemporary approach to systematic monitoring must therefore ask what still constitutes news, or whether—following USC Professor Robert Kozinets' principle that "news is anything that's new"—opinion power today rests on different pillars entirely.

The limited insight MOM's current methodology provides already reveals egregious transparency deficits among influencers: legal disclosure obligations (Impressumspflicht) are neglected; individuals behind content often cannot be identified; and content is sometimes published from abroad—rendering tracking of ownership and financing nearly impossible. For offline journalism, this would be unthinkable.

New approaches are needed to make ownership relationships and influence structures on social media transparent. The shift of media power is already underway—but its traceability for the public remains limited.