<\/p>\n
Your favorite celebrity can often influence parts of your life through the music you listen to or even the outfits you wear but could a celebrity also influence who you vote for in an election?<\/p>\n
That’s a question\u00a0many researchers, including University of New Mexico Political Science Professor Jessica Feezell,\u00a0have been trying to figure out. While she says a celebrity endorsement of a political candidate is not necessarily new, it’s increasingly more common today.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnecdotally, I would chalk it up to just how prevalent and easily observable our political orientations are in a world dominated by social media where our\u00a0personal and political lives overlap a lot,” Feezell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1960,\u00a0singer\/actor\u00a0Frank Sinatra endorsed\u00a0John F. Kennedy, according to the History Channel<\/a>. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Oprah Winfrey endorsed Former President Barack Obama.\u00a0Rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye\u00a0West, has supported\u00a0Former President Donald Trump in recent years. In 2024,\u00a0Elon Musk, publicly announced he was backing Trump, the owner of X (the social media app once known as Twitter), and CEO of Tesla Motors.\u00a0Most recently, pop star Taylor Swift took her endorsement for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz\u00a0to her social media page moments after the first presidential debate between Harris and Trump. In her September Instagram post, she encouraged\u00a0fans to research the candidate’s views and\u00a0posted a link to help people\u00a0register to vote. According to news sources, more than 400,000 users clicked that link which led them to\u00a0vote.org<\/a>\u00a0for voter registration information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cQues from celebrities on how to vote are not my favorite way for people to decide who their preferred candidate is going to be, but I do like efforts to promote voter registration and to encourage people to be informed on the candidates and the issues,” Feezell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n While she believes celebrities can move public opinion,\u00a0whether an endorsement\u00a0could change\u00a0an election is debatable.\u00a0Research shows people with low levels of political interest are more susceptible to political messaging and are most easily persuadable in an election.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who are highly politically interested, deeply politically engaged already know their viewpoints and know how to vote, they are what we call ‘crystallized’\u00a0in terms of their public opinion and political view,” Feezell\u00a0said. “People who are not deeply politically engaged, are less \u2018crystallized\u2019 so they are more susceptible to information they receive from\u00a0ques or\u00a0endorsements.\u201d<\/p>\n The actual impact a celebrity has on an election is a question researchers have struggled to put a number on, instead, she says the best method to approximate what impact a celebrity endorsement might have is through experimental design.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhile it\u2019s\u00a0hard to look at the election and be like, oh 3% of the total voters turned out because Taylor Swift told them to, we just can\u2019t do that,” she said.\u00a0“But what we can do through experimental designs is\u00a0randomize people to receive a treatment or not and then figure out what effect that treatment has had on them.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Feezell, there are several key points, in terms of mechanisms, for a celebrity endorsement to sway a specific voter. First, the person backing a candidate needs to be familiar with the public, we need to know who this person is. Second, they need to be viewed favorably. We have to like or respect their opinion.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTaylor Swift’s influence really hinges on her familiarity and favorability, and in my opinion, her ability to access a segment of the electorate that is just coming into politics, which is young first-time voters who need to get registered,” she said. “Now, someone they\u2019re familiar with and like is telling them where and how to register and how important it is.\u201d<\/p>\n While some voters celebrate a celebrity endorsement, others\u00a0believe their favorite singer\u00a0or sports star shouldn’t weigh in on politics.\u00a0Feezell says anytime a big name backs a political candidate, there seems to be a similar response.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cSome people don\u2019t like the convergence of their entertainment with their politics and in a world that is increasingly politicized, I can sympathize with that viewpoint. However, celebrities are under much more pressure today\u00a0to pick a side because of the increased polarization in America,” Feezell said.\u00a0\u201cMost are using their platform to advocate their views and support their candidates, which is their First Amendment right.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Feezell, research doesn’t show a difference in\u00a0celebrity influence between Democrats or Republicans,\u00a0she says it strictly comes down to whether people are politically interested or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n Feezell’s previous research shows\u00a0a significant\u00a0correlation between one’s preference for a genre of music\u00a0and public opinion.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe know through a lot of political communication research that messages are most effective on people with low levels of political interest and so in this experiment, I tried to get at that by asking people, hey if you had an hour of free time and you were in your car, would you\u00a0listen to politics or music? Among those\u00a0who prefer to listen to music, when presented with political endorsements by musicians, respondents become more supportive of that issue as a result.”<\/p>\n The takeaway? Political information does not just come from traditional media, it\u00a0comes from many\u00a0non-political sources too.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s one piece (of research) in particular that looks at people who used to watch OPRAH\u00a0and finds people who did\u00a0are better able to represent their political self-interest on a survey than people who don\u2019t,” Feezell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source news.unm.edu \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Your favorite celebrity can often influence parts of your life through the music you listen to or even the outfits you wear but could a celebrity also influence who you vote for in an election? That’s a question\u00a0many researchers, including University of New Mexico Political Science Professor Jessica Feezell,\u00a0have been trying to figure out. 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