The Shift in Media Power Dynamics
In Morocco, the landscape of public opinion has undergone a significant transformation, transitioning from a focus on who controls media platforms to a more pressing question: who truly possesses the audience and can engage them directly through their mobile screens? This shift is evident in the rise of YouTube and other social media platforms, which are no longer merely venues for content consumption but have evolved into spaces for news production, interpretation, commentary, and mobilization. By the end of 2025, Morocco boasted approximately 35.5 million internet users, equating to 92.2% of the population, with social media user identities reaching 22.8 million. Google advertising data revealed that potential reach for YouTube ads hit 21.6 million users, representing 60.8% of the country's internet user base.
Crucially, this is not a mere entertainment phenomenon. An academic study covering the Moroccan elections of 2016 concluded that digital media and vloggers were more central to political discourse on YouTube than political elites and official media, who were conspicuously absent from the ranks of the most influential voices. Therefore, what we are witnessing today is not the birth of a new phenomenon but its migration from the periphery into competition for shaping the public sphere.
From Journalists to Content Creators: Blurring Boundaries
In the Moroccan political arena, the case of journalist Tawfik Bouachrine exemplifies this shift remarkably. Bouachrine is not a newcomer from traditional influencer circles; he is a journalist and writer who founded a renowned print and digital news outlet. However, his transition to YouTube has created a new model: a journalist who no longer relies on a media institution to reach his audience. His YouTube channel, launched in 2022, has evolved into a standalone political platform, with viewership numbers in July and August 2026 surpassing hundreds of thousands per video, and audience tracking tools indicating the channel is nearing hundreds of thousands of subscribers and tens of millions of views.
The paradox here lies in the fact that a journalist who once needed a printing press, capital, an editorial institution, and distribution networks can now build a 'personal media institution' using merely a camera, a video editor, a global platform, and a loyal audience. This transformation becomes even more significant when considering the topics Bouachrine covers: elections, the political system, the economy, monarchy, Moroccan-Algerian relations, international politics, and government affairs. Thus, his platform has transcended being merely a personal channel to become a legitimate competitor for some of the roles traditionally held by political journalism.
Similarly, Hamid Mahdaoui's case exemplifies the transformation of individuals into media institutions. Mahdaoui not only presents himself as a journalist producing media content but has also become a media brand in his own right. His channel merges news, political commentary, dialogue, and live debates, allowing him to host political, human rights, and media figures beyond the traditional constraints of television programming. The transformation is evident in the channel's statistics, which have surpassed one million subscribers, with some episodes garnering hundreds of thousands of views. Mahdaoui's influence extends beyond his channel; his interviews and materials are reshared across social networks, entering broader political discussions.
Crucially, Mahdaoui embodies the shift from institutional journalism to personal journalism, where followers do not necessarily seek out a 'site' or 'newspaper' but rather gravitate towards 'Mahdaoui.' This illustrates a significant characteristic of the influencer economy: trust, loyalty, or even animosity is now more closely associated with the individual than with the media brand.
Other figures such as Nour El Din El Shehb and Younes Mskine represent another facet of this phenomenon. El Shehb has built a long journalistic and intellectual career, appearing frequently in Moroccan and Arab media discussing political and intellectual debates. Mskine, also a journalist from a professional media background, has entered the conversation about the new relationship between journalism and YouTube. In an article from late 2025, he articulated a critical paradox: media institutions that criticize YouTube or position it against journalism are themselves partially or entirely reliant on revenues from digital platforms.
It is essential to note that Bouachrine, Mahdaoui, El Shehb, and Mskine do not neatly fit into the commercial definition of 'influencers.' More accurately, they represent a migration of a portion of the media and cultural elite to platforms where the individual becomes a distribution channel, editorial institution, and community of followers. This migration is one of the key elements in understanding the 'YouTube revolution' in Morocco.
However, the true revolution has emerged from outside traditional journalism. If we focus solely on journalists, we will fail to grasp the full scope of the phenomenon. A significant aspect of the digital revolution is that individuals who did not originate from journalism are now capable of cultivating audiences that sometimes surpass those of journalists and media institutions.
Notable examples in the religious and social sphere include Yassine Ammari, whose official channel has transformed into a massive audience platform, boasting more than 1.1 million subscribers and around 70 million views as of August 2026. In the fields of technology and entrepreneurship, Amine Raghid has established a presence centered on technology, online work, digital security, e-commerce, and more, with one of his current channels featuring over 156,000 subscribers and approximately 15.5 million views, alongside various other digital projects associated with his name. Additionally, the late Sofiane Bahri presented a completely different model: building a digital influence around images and news related to the king and the royal family, achieving wide engagement across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, with his YouTube channel nearing one million followers and certain clips amassing millions of views.
In the early days of Moroccan YouTube, 'Moulin Kaskita' exemplified a more confrontational model: an individual outside conventional media who became an active participant in political discourse to the extent that his 2019 arrest following a video criticizing the king and the regime became a matter that transcended the channel owner himself, raising questions about the limits of digital expression. These examples illustrate that the phenomenon does not operate in a singular direction. Some journalists become YouTubers, while others evolve from YouTubers into journalists. Furthermore, there are individuals who are neither journalists nor politicians nor academics but gain political or social influence simply because they have captured an audience.
The term 'influencer' has evolved from a mere media role to a social position. In the old model, symbolic power was distributed among: the newspaper and the journalist; the party and the politician; the university and the professor; the religious institution and the clergy; the television and the broadcaster. In the new model, a platform can bestow symbolic authority upon a single individual that transcends these institutions. Consequently, the rise of influencers in Morocco should not be reduced to the 'trivialities of TikTok' or a mere advertising phenomenon pursued by companies to sell their products. Economically, this sector has indeed grown significantly; a study by DJ Trendz indicated that the number of influencers in Morocco surged from around 1,400 in 2018 to 60,000 in 2022, with reports estimating the influencer marketing market in Morocco to be around 4.2 billion dirhams by 2024. However, the economy is just one facet of the phenomenon. Another aspect is the redistribution of power in discourse, and a third is the redefinition of who is entitled to lead public opinion.
The deeper transformation is that audiences are no longer seeking information alone; they are looking for the individuals who interpret that information. This explains why political videos presented by a single individual achieve hundreds of thousands of views. Audiences do not merely consume news; they consume: perspective + personality + language + emotion + narrative. This is where YouTube can surpass traditional journalistic articles in certain respects. A journalist might write, "The government is facing a political crisis," while an influencer engages the viewer by saying, "Let me explain to you why the crisis will happen, who stands to benefit from it, and who will suffer." This shift from merely conveying news to crafting a personal interpretation of news is at the core of the influencer phenomenon.
So, can this phenomenon grow outside traditional media and communication circles? Yes, and with vigor; however, not to the same extent across all fields. In entertainment, social, and commercial sectors, the phenomenon has long since left the confines of traditional media. In the political realm, there remains a strong reliance on individuals who already possess professional, cultural, or media capital. This indicates that we are presented with two parallel paths: the first involves journalists migrating to platforms—Bouachrine, Mahdaoui, Mskine, and El Shehb belong to varying degrees to this path. The second path sees the rise of influencers from outside journalism—these individuals emerge from technology, religion, entertainment, sports, fashion, cooking, entrepreneurship, and daily life, with some gradually moving towards expressing opinions on public issues. An academic study on Moroccan content suggests that the discourse produced by content creators oscillates between news and self-promotion, which is crucial for understanding that an influencer is not necessarily a journalist but rather a person with a personal identity and a public project simultaneously.
The youth represent the crucial link in this equation. Why does this model succeed? Because the platform does not wait for citizens to come to it—it goes to them. Morocco has a highly digital society, with over 90% of the population connected to the internet and approximately 22.8 million social media user identities, while YouTube reaches tens of millions of potential users. Moreover, previous academic research in Morocco has demonstrated how marginalized youth have utilized YouTube to produce counter-narratives to prevailing discourses, establishing a model of storytelling that resonates with their experiences.
As reported by arabi21.com.
