10th International Congress on Information and Communication Technology

Authors - Mafalda Reis, Lidia Oliveira, Catarina Feio
Abstract - The main objective of this research is to study the role of online influencers in the information consumption of young people in Portugal. It studies the information consumption habits of young people aged between 18 and 30, as well as their views on the role of influencers in transmitting information on social media and their relationship with the concept of opinion leadership. A literature review was conducted since 2018 to generate a view of the state of the art on the issue under study. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire survey, obtained using an interpretative methodology, through a quantitative analysis of the data. From the analysis of the 322 respondents to the questionnaire, it was concluded that: young people consume more information on social networks; women and students are the ones who follow influencers the most; the relationship between influencers and followers is not one of friendship; young people are mainly interested in health issues and national news; young people have already learned about a current issue because an influencer talked about it; young people consider influencers to be active members of a given online community.