---
title: Political Creator Map
template: project.html
status: idea
summary: "A self-declared map of podcasts, YouTube channels, and independent commentators showing their stated political/party affiliations — helping audiences read the independent media landscape, without DOD assigning labels itself."
concepts: [tribal-epistemology, isegoria, radical-transparency]
---

An idea raised in DOD discussion: build a map of podcasts, YouTube channels, newsletters, and other independent media creators showing which political parties, movements, or causes they've **declared themselves** aligned with — a "who's who" of the independent political media landscape, in their own words.

## Why it could matter

Many voters now get political information from independent creators rather than legacy outlets, but the affiliations and incentives behind those creators are often unclear. A map that surfaces "this commentator has publicly declared support for Party X" — sourced from the creator's own statements, not DOD's judgement — could improve media literacy without DOD adjudicating who is biased.

## Pros

- Adds transparency to an increasingly influential and under-mapped part of the political information ecosystem
- Largely unaddressed gap: existing media-bias trackers (e.g. AllSides, Ad Fontes Media) focus on legacy outlets, not independent creators
- Self-declared-only sourcing avoids DOD having to make contested calls about who is "really" aligned with whom
- Could double as a directory for researchers and journalists studying the independent media landscape

## Cons / risks

- High ongoing maintenance: creators rebrand, change positions, go quiet, or dispute their listing
- Even self-declared entries invite disputes — a creator may disavow a label while still being functionally aligned, or vice versa
- Sits awkwardly against DOD's existing curation standard, which is built around *organisations working on governance systems*; individual commentators are a different category of subject entirely
- Risk of DOD being perceived as a partisan media-bias arbiter, even with a strict self-declaration-only policy
- Reputational/defamation exposure remains real if a quote is stripped of context or goes stale

## Open questions & potential evolution

- Scope strictly to **self-declaration** — sourced from a creator's own "About" page, stated endorsement, or declared party membership, never a DOD-assigned label
- Could start life as a **concept page** (a discovery aid linking to existing third-party media-landscape trackers) rather than a DOD-built database
- If it matures into structured data, it could plug into the [Federated Voting Guide](federated-voting-guide.md) idea as one type of "feed" — letting a voter tick "creators I trust" alongside orgs and parties
- Worth discussing whether this is better run as an independent community project that DOD links to, rather than something DOD hosts and maintains directly

## Status

This is an idea-stage proposal with no committed owner. If you want to develop it — even just as a literature-review concept page on existing media-landscape trackers — raise it in the [DOD community channels](../community/community.md), then update this page's `status` to `active` and add yourself under `contributors`.

## See also

- [Tribal Epistemology](../concepts/tribal-epistemology.md)
- [Isegoria](../concepts/isegoria.md)
- [Radical Transparency](../concepts/radical-transparency.md)
- [Federated Voting Guide](federated-voting-guide.md)
