It’s Not Just Politics. MAGA Dominates Culture, Too.
I have some ideas for how to fix it.
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Recently, Media Matters published research mapping out the online media ecosystem and how the Right completely dominates it. You’ve probably seen this graphic from the study all over the Internet because, understandably, it’s freaked politically engaged people out. (And because it makes for a great fundraising and/or marketing hook for a lot of organizations.)
The asymmetry is staggering. According to the research, among the most popular video and audio platforms, “right-leaning online shows accounted for roughly 82% of the total following of the online shows.” Additionally, “Nine out of the 10 online shows with the largest followings across platforms were right-leaning, with a total following of more than 197 million.”
The most interesting piece for me was how much of this right-leaning content isn’t primarily political. A third of the shows identify as non-political, even though 72% are right-leaning per MMFA’s rigorous standards. (Full disclosure: I was a visiting Fellow at Media Matters in 2018, participated in similar research, and I’ve seen firsthand the cumbersome process they use to vet whether the content is left or right-leaning. Media Matters is the only organization whose work on this topic I trust. If they say an outlet is left or right-leaning, it is.) This graphic hasn’t made the rounds online, but for me, it was the more interesting one.
Since last year’s election, there’s been a lot of talk about how the lefty media ecosystem is lacking, but I think what’s key is that we’re not just talking about political content here. The Right has been driving conversation around lifestyle and entertainment topics for some time. During the last Trump Administration, my general view was that the Right dominated the political discourse while the Left had the culture on our side. This second graphic illustrates how that is no longer the case.
It’s not accidental. The Right has been gunning for the culture for a while now. Everything from targeted harassment campaigns of female celebrities to companies like The Daily Wire investing heavily in becoming an entertainment company. Ilyse Hogue has a piece up in the Bulwark talking about Candace Owens’ most recent pivot to targeted harassment as celebrity gossip. And though I’m guessing a lot of people who regularly listen to podcasters like Joe Rogan or Theo Von aren’t coming for political content but a broader cultural conversation, that conversation absolutely turned political as we moved closer to Election Day.
Investing in explicitly political content isn't enough to build a lefty online ecosystem that can compete with the Right or at least reduce the asymmetry. We need shows on entertainment, parenting, sports, business, and health, just to name a few. One recent example of the kind of content we need more of is Kylie Kelce’s podcast, Not Gonna Lie. Kelce, whose debut podcast reached #1 on the Spotify Charts, dethroning Joe Rogan for a short time, described her politics to the NY Times as aggressively leaning left. She’s had Michelle Obama on as a guest, but that’s as political as it gets. Most of Kelce’s content is about parenting, sports, and related lifestyle topics. (Mercifully, she also caps her episodes at 45 minutes, something this fellow Mom and listener appreciates.)
If there’s an opportunity here, I think it’s that investors who aren’t necessarily comfortable with the idea of building out a lefty ecosystem might be more open to finding the next Kylie Kelce. Or creating lifestyle content for an audience that’s currently underserved. Content with crossover appeal that just happens to have a lefty bent to it. Speaking as someone whose consumption of non-political content has increased substantially since November, I hope some smart folks in the media business (and the investors who back them!) can see the opportunity here and pounce on it.