Young media users increasingly engage with public affairs via social media such as YouTube, where content is increasingly produced by influencers who neither represent established professional news media nor political parties. Although the audience of these channels is already substantial in absolute terms and still growing enormously—making alternative influencers serious competitors to professional journalism—we still know little about their ways of attracting and monetizing audiences, the topics they emphasize, or the specific content they provide. To address this void, the present study examines political videos and their producers on YouTube in an explorative and comparative way for English- and German-speaking YouTube channels. We conducted a content analysis of the five most popular YouTube videos for each of the 20 most successful English- and German-speaking political influencers in 2020. Our analyses show that, although English YouTubers already appear to be more professionalized, similar patterns emerge in both language regions, particularly with regards to increasing efforts to manage microcelebrity status. In terms of content, two main types of political YouTube videos were identified: “partisan mockery” and “engaging education.” Results will be discussed in terms of their implications for political discourse, youth participation, and established journalistic media.

中文翻译：

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YouTube 上的政治影响者：商业策略和内容特征

年轻媒体用户越来越多地通过 YouTube 等社交媒体参与公共事务，其中内容越来越多地由既不代表成熟的专业新闻媒体也不代表政党的影响者制作。尽管这些频道的观众在绝对数量上已经相当庞大并且仍在不断增长——使另类影响者成为专业新闻业的有力竞争者——但我们仍然对他们吸引和货币化观众的方式、他们强调的主题或他们提供的具体内容知之甚少. 为了解决这一空白，本研究以探索和比较的方式检查了 YouTube 上的政治视频及其制作者，用于英语和德语的 YouTube 频道。我们针对 2020 年最成功的 20 位讲英语和德语的政治影响者中的每一个，对五个最受欢迎的 YouTube 视频进行了内容分析。我们的分析表明，尽管英语 YouTube 主播似乎已经更加专业化，但两者都出现了类似的模式语言地区，特别是在加大力度管理微名人地位方面。在内容方面，YouTube 政治视频主要分为两种类型：“党派嘲弄”和“参与教育”。将根据其对政治话语、青年参与和已建立的新闻媒体的影响来讨论结果。特别是在加大力度管理微名人地位方面。在内容方面，YouTube 政治视频主要分为两种类型：“党派嘲弄”和“参与教育”。将根据其对政治话语、青年参与和已建立的新闻媒体的影响来讨论结果。特别是在加大力度管理微名人地位方面。在内容方面，YouTube 政治视频主要分为两种类型：“党派嘲弄”和“参与教育”。将根据其对政治话语、青年参与和已建立的新闻媒体的影响来讨论结果。