No tuning out as influencers reshape political campaign

Young people are turning to social media influencers and commentators to get their news, with politicians warned to either adapt or face irrelevancy.

The federal Liberals largely ignored influencers and it stopped them from reaching a large cohort of female voters, Cheek Media CEO and host of the Big Small Talk podcast Hannah Ferguson said.

Ms Ferguson, whose channel reached four million individuals during the election campaign, said media giant News Corp had weaponised the word 'influencer' to target progressive young women as part of a culture war.

"The agenda is clear - to undermine our intelligence, to paint us as untrustworthy, and to conflate us with green juice and a discount code," she told the National Press Club on Wednesday.

"There is nothing wrong with being an influencer, but the label is intended to cause significant reputational damage. The impact is deeply misogynistic."

Large media corporations "want to invalidate and undermine a group of powerful young women who developed the ability to communicate with audiences in a way that traditional media can't", she said.

Painting every female podcaster with the same brush, depicting them as "friendly, unserious and surface level", sought to delegitimise what they were doing, she added.

While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese used podcast appearances to humanise himself, former opposition leader Peter Dutton had refused to engage, particularly with platforms run by women, she said.

"(It) was one small, yet huge, decision in a series of reckless refusals to attempt to communicate with the voter base that would eventually end his political career," she said.

People paid for endorsements on social media needed to ensure this was made abundantly clear in all their posts, she said, adding she had turned down political parties offering payments.

Ms Ferguson intends to run as an independent for a Senate spot in 2028.

Influencers were invited to the federal budget lockup at Parliament House for the first time in 2025.

This helped the government get its message out to people who otherwise wouldn't have paid attention, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said.

"It's really clear that new media are going to feature in politics ... and they have a legitimate place at the table."

Ms Ferguson agreed, adding her audience was less concerned about the gritty details of a budget that traditional media would focus on and wanted to know what was in it for them in a digestible way they understood.