Social media influencers and politics

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when social media influencers join forces with politicians to promote their messages? Around the world political parties are switching from mainstream media to influencers to amplify their voices, in some cases even putting them on the official government payrolls. To find out what impact this is having on politics we've brought together Luis Fajardo from BBC Monitoring in Miami, who's examined the impact in Latin America, Famega Syavira, head of social media for BBC Indonesian, and Adline Okere, Igbo News Editor in Lagos, Nigeria.

The ‘Jerdon’s Courser’ is a critically endangered bird. It's only officially been sighted in the scrub forests of Eastern Ghats mountain range in Andra Pradesh in the Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary, although recently there was great excitement when its call was recorded in a different location in southern India. BBC Telugu recently joined the nightly efforts by forest watchers to track down the bird last seen 16 years ago, as Satheesh Urugonda reports.

This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.

Presented by Faranak Amidi

Produced by Rebecca Moore and Caroline Ferguson

This is an EcoAudio certified production.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:06.0	Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
0:13.8	You're listening The Fifth Floor.
0:17.6	The Fifth Floor, you know you, listen.
0:20.0	The Fifth Floor, Farnak, Amid, Isobat. The fifth floor is You're listening. This is the fifth floor
0:23.2	Farnak Amidi, Sobath.
0:26.7	This is the fifth floor
0:28.5	at the heart of global storytelling
0:31.2	with BBC journalists from all around the world.
0:35.0	I'm your host, Faranak, Amidi. These are the times of social media and
0:44.0	social media influencers. From gaming and fashion to food, travel and culture, influencers are doing
0:50.8	what they are known for, influencing and creating trends. The most successful
0:55.3	ones have millions of followers. So maybe it's no surprise that political parties globally
1:00.7	have started getting them on board to amplify their messages to people who are turned off by
1:06.4	traditional media and in some cases even putting them on the government payroll.
1:16.4	It's a global trend, so to find out more about it, we've brought together our colleagues from around the world.
1:18.2	Famega Siavera is head of social media for BBC Indonesia.
1:22.5	Adeline O'Kare is Ebo News Editor in Lagos, Nigeria, and Luis Verhardo is with BBC monitoring based in
1:30.1	Miami and covering the Spanish-speaking news across Latin America. So before we get into the whole
1:37.4	thing, just I want to get a sense of how important influencers and social media is in the part of the world that you are from.
1:47.9	I'll start with you, Famika.
1:49.4	Yeah, nowadays, I think trust to news in Indonesia is decreasing, and most people in
	...

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