Influence and Information: The Media Habits of Westminster 2026

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Capturing the attention of your stakeholders has never been more difficult. Messages collide, information moves at speed, and audiences are fragmented. Having a clear story about who you are, what you stand for, and the value you create matters more than ever - but a story alone isn't enough. It must be told creatively, consistently, and on the channels your stakeholders use.

Influence and Information, now in its second year, exists to track how MPs consume media, which platforms they use, and where their attention genuinely goes, as opposed to where conventional wisdom assumes it does.

The findings this year are striking.

Social media has overtaken every other channel as MPs' primary source of news - cited by 83% of respondents, up from 61% just twelve months ago. That is not an incremental shift, it is a fundamental restructuring of the parliamentary information diet, and it demands a change in how organisations approach Westminster communications. It isn’t that the old ways of campaigning and advocacy don’t matter, but they are no longer sufficient if executed in isolation. 

Equally significant is what the data reveals about fragmentation. There is no single platform, no single publication, no single format that reaches Parliament as a whole. Labour MPs lean towards The Guardian, Instagram and Politico; Conservative MPs cluster around X, The Times and Guido Fawkes; LibDem MPs over-index on WhatsApp and YouTube. Reaching Westminster in 2026 requires a layered, platform-literate strategy - one that understands not just where MPs are, but which MPs are where.

The emergence of AI as a genuine working tool for MPs adds a further dimension. 61% of MPs now use at least one AI tool weekly. As that number grows, so too does the question of what those tools surface when an MP searches for information about your organisation, your sector, or your policy position.

MPs are sophisticated, multi-platform digital users who engage with substantive content. Today, success belongs to the organisations that combine a compelling message with creative storytelling and smart use of channels - the ones that turn attention into understanding, and understanding into meaningful support.

Daniel Rice, Director of Digital, 5654 & Company

Sam Cooper, Managing Director, Message Space