The third presenter in this session at the 2026 International Communication Association conference in Cape Town is Nuppu Pelevina, whose focus is on the democratic participation of social media influencers in Nordic countries. The focus here is on commercial lifestyle influencers who go political; these may have impact on their often young followers’ political views, and possibly also increase their political and democratic participation; they may increase awareness of political issues, but also cynicism towards formal politics.
Such influencers may not directly seek to influence their followers’ political views, but may shape it towards the imagined interests and positions of their audiences; during election periods, they may also be roped into formal political campaigns, willingly or not. The focus here is on the 2023 Finnish parliamentary elections, focussing on 19 influencers producing some 2,200 Instagram stories.
Finland is a high-trust political society with a well-functioning multi-party representative democracy; its democracy has broadly deliberative and participatory traits. Finland has high gender equality, though some political spheres remain strongly male-dominated, and women perceive their democratic efficacy to remain lower.
The most popular influencer topics were environment and minority rights, while foreign and security politics were les discussed; left-leaning influencers often downplayed their expertise in the latter topics, while right-learning influencers presented themselves as experts in them.
Roles taken here included endorser, advocate, informative expert, interlocutor, and intimate inspirer. Endorsers actively endorsed specific candidates and worked similarly to celebrity endorsements; they emphasised personal connections, the candidate’s expertise or character, and the influencer’s topical expertise, and often promoted candidates from multiple parties. Advocates promoted causes rather than candidates, and called for participation in demonstrations, referenda, and other political activities; this was also intertwined with issue-based endorsements and sometimes went against personal endorsements.
Interlocutors discussed political issues and topics by sharing and answering their followers’ comments, but without taking a stance of their own. Informative experts were a typical role, which focussed especially on explaining the political system and possible tactical voting strategies. Intimate inspirers discussed the influencers’ own personal political journeys, highlighting their vulnerability, ignorance, and lack of expertise at earlier stages and their pathway towards greater political knowledge.
So, influencers are something new: not politicians, journalists, lobbyists, activists, or opinion leaders, but something in between these positions; they were also strong advocates for democracy itself, and are therefore relevant actors in the political system. They make candidate- and issue-based endorsements, which often emphasise their personal connections to these candidates and issues. This makes political involvement a great deal more intimate.
