Ebrahim Mohseni Ahooei - PhD Student, Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Austria and Senior Researcher, Cyberspace Research Policy Center, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
Saied Reza Ameli - Professor, Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

This paper focuses on the role of influencers as an element of modern governance. As the fields of media, entertainment industry, and politics become increasingly interconnected, the phenomenon of influencer potentially affects many aspects of political life, such as campaigning and voting, policymaking, and international affairs. Using the network analysis method and applying a triple typification of influencers consists of media influencers, influencer politicians in power, and influencer opposition politicians out of power, and selecting ۲۴۵ nodes on Instagram accounts, the article focuses on how do influencers interact within communication networks? Based on the triple typification, the article tries to find the pattern of networked political communications between influencers in the social network. The results prove that all three types of influencers are more interested in intra-group communication. However, both influencer politicians in power and influencer opposition politicians out of power have relatively similar tendencies to associate with media influencers.

Influencer, Media, politician, Social network