Opinion makers

As in other Western countries, the ranking of the most followed Spaniards on the Internet is led by celebrities. According to a study published at end of 2016 by a social media consultancy company, the most followed Spaniards on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were well-known names of sports ―football mainly―, as well as the show business (Apple Tree, 2016). Another sphere with a significant number of influential users was the fashion business.

Although also quite popular and very active in networks, journalists generally did not reach popularity level of celebrities. According to the ranking of another social media monitoring company, at the end of the first quarter of 2017 only one Spanish journalist accumulated more than one million followers in Twitter: the television reporter and interviewer Ana Pastor, with 1.8 million followers. At that moment, just eight other Spanish journalists had more than half a million followers in that same network (Twitter-Spain, 2017).

As for blogs, the leadership corresponded to those specialised in technology. According to another known ranking of popularity on social networks, Xataka, which specialises in digital devices and consumer technology, was the most-read blog in Spain, with more than 150,000 subscribers by the end of the first quarter of 2017 (Alianzo, 2017). Many digital news media outlets keep publishing specialised blogs in their pages. However, their presence within traditional media has declined significantly in recent years, as the blog phenomenon has been losing its aura of novelty in favor of other emerging platforms, such as social networks.