Your favorite celebrities often influence some parts of your life through the music you listen to and the clothes you wear, but can celebrities also influence who you vote for in elections? ?
That’s a question many researchers, including University of New Mexico political science professor Jessica Feasel, are trying to answer. Celebrities endorsing political candidates isn’t necessarily new, she says, but it’s increasingly common today.
“Anecdotally, it’s how pervasive and easily observable our political orientation is in a world dominated by social media, where our personal and political lives overlap. ” Feasel said.
According to the History Channel, singer and actor Frank Sinatra endorsed John F. Kennedy in 1960. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Oprah Winfrey supported former President Barack Obama. Rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has supported former President Donald Trump in recent years. In 2024, Elon Musk publicly announced his support for Trump, owner of X (the social media app formerly known as Twitter) and CEO of Tesla Motors. Most recently, pop star Taylor Swift announced her support for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on her social media pages shortly after the first presidential debate between Harris and Trump. In an Instagram post in September, she encouraged fans to research candidates’ views and posted links to help them register to vote. More than 400,000 users clicked on that link and went to vote.org for voter registration information, according to news sources.
“I don’t really like asking celebrities how they vote, but I do like efforts to encourage voter registration and educate people about candidates and issues.” ” Feasel said.
She believes celebrities can sway public opinion, but whether endorsements can change elections is debatable. Research shows that people with low levels of political interest are more susceptible to political messages and are more likely to be persuaded in elections.
“People who are highly interested in politics and deeply involved in politics already know their points of view and how to vote; they are so-called ‘crystallized’ in terms of public opinion and political views.” Feasel said. Enthusiastic people are less “crystallized” and therefore more susceptible to the information they receive from questions and acknowledgments. ”
The actual influence that celebrities have on elections is a problem that researchers have struggled to quantify, but instead, the best way to approximate the impact of celebrity endorsements is to design an experiment. She says it’s true.
“It’s hard to look at an election and think that 3% of all voters voted because Taylor Swift told them to, but we can’t do that,” she said. It involves randomly assigning people to receive treatment or not, and then finding out how the treatment affected them. ”
According to Feasel, there are several key points from a mechanical perspective in how celebrity endorsements sway specific voters. First, the person supporting the candidate must be well known to the public, and we need to know who that person is. Second, you need to be viewed favorably. We have to like or respect their opinion.
“Taylor Swift’s influence stems from her approachability and likeability and, in my opinion, her ability to access a demographic of voters who are new to the political scene: young, first-time voters who need to register. “It depends,” she said. “Now someone they know and love is telling them where and how to register and how important it is.”
While some voters enjoy celebrity endorsements, others believe their favorite singers and athletes should not be involved in politics. Feasel says there seems to be a similar reaction whenever a big name supports a political candidate.
“Some people don’t like the merging of entertainment and politics, and I can relate to that view in an increasingly politicized world. Celebrities are under even more pressure to choose sides,” Feasel said, adding, “Most people use their platforms to advocate for their opinions. “I’m supporting the candidate. This is my First Amendment right.”
Feasel said research shows there is no difference in celebrity influence between Democrats and Republicans, and she says it comes down to whether people care about politics or not.
Feezell’s previous research has shown that there is a significant correlation between individual preferences for musical genres and public opinion.
“Through many studies of political communication, we know that messages are most effective with people who are less politically interested. So in this experiment, we asked people, “If you have an hour of free time, you I tried to find out by asking, “What do you think? When you’re in the car, do you listen to politics or music? Among people who like to listen to music, when a musician shows political support, respondents are more likely to support an issue. It will be. ”
What about take-home? Political information comes not only from traditional media, but also from many non-political sources.
“In particular, we studied people who watched OPRAH and found that those who watched OPRAH were better able to express their political self-interest in surveys than those who did not watch OPRAH.” said Feasel.
