The impact of influencers on Generation Z news awareness on Social media (on the example of Covid-19 pandemic)

This bachelor's thesis examines the role of influencers on generation Z's news awareness of current events and the covid-19 pandemic. In addition, the thesis aims to understand the attitude generation Z has towards influencers spreading information on social media, especially in connection with the relevance and authenticity of this information. The main topics include social media, influencers and generation Z, which are presented in greater detail in the theoretical part. Research was carried out in a form of six semi-structured in-depth interviews with generation Z. Implementation of the interviews and data analysis followed by the grounded theory method. Results indicate that the participants still prefer traditional media sources, not only when seeking verified information. The participants are aware of the existing impact which influencers can have on information. Nonetheless, they approach influencers rather negatively, despite the fact that they drew information from at least one influencer during the covid-19 pandemic. Main limitation of the research was primarily small number and gender imbalanced selection of interviewed participants and partial decline of interest in the topic of covid-19