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TikTok’s rapid growth in the past few years, especially in the younger demographic, may signal a market shift. With children, teens, and young adults reportedly making up 40% to 60% of its user base, the platform is becoming the strongest challenger to YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. The most followed TikTok celebrities are mostly young people who have either grown up with the platform or recently extended their popularity from other platforms to reach new audiences. This research investigates the discursive strategies and persona performances employed by the top 25 TikTok celebrities under the age of 25 in both popular content and content marked as advertising. A large sample of TikTok content metadata was collected using API interrogation. From each of the 25 young TikTok celebrities, up to 1,000 videos per user (N = 22,650) are explored using quantitative approaches. Two subsamples are analysed using visual, rhetorical, and narrative analysis to evaluate the most popular content (Np = 226) and content marked as advertising using the TikTok ad flagging (Na = 213). The findings include the identification of seven persona performance types and a significant difference in terms of performed ordinariness in content marked as advertising.

Legacy media outlets, especially newspapers, have confronted significant challenges this century due to the shift of advertising revenues to digital platforms like Facebook and Google. Major events like the Global Financial Crisis (2007–2009) and Covid-19 pandemic intensified the financial strain, resulting in further downsizing and newsroom closures. Despite these difficulties, digital-native journalism has experienced widespread growth globally. This article explores funding models of selected digital-native journalism in Australia, drawing on platform dependency theory to address questions of what role digital technology platforms and nascent regulation have played in shaping the state of digital-native journalism in Australia. Australia’s concentrated media ownership landscape and its introduction of the world-first News Media Bargaining Code (NMBC), provide a unique backdrop to examine the economic and regulatory environment that impacts Australia’s digital-native journalism. Using a case-study approach, the research explores seven diverse digital-native news outlets over six years across three time periods: several years after the Global Financial Crisis (2017), just prior to the Covid-19 pandemic (2020–), and after the introduction of the NMBC (2023). Expert interviews provide insights into the role of digital platforms in shaping digital-only media. The digital native fail rate in this study is high (>40%). But we also find that of those that endure, the most successful placed a premium on building a distinctive brand (often through specialized reporting), adopting a diversified (hybrid) funding model, and growing audience share through trust. Most benefited from regulation in the form of the NMBC to increase newsroom resources, yet were also cautious of platform dependency.

In the context of “pop politics” and “politainment,” the irruption of TikTok has changed the landscape of social media and become the fastest-growing application among young people. Based on the peculiarities of the social platform’s affordances and the political personalization approach, we explore the differences between political parties and political leaders in terms of digital persuasion on TikTok in Spain and Poland. This work contributes to the scarce knowledge about the strategic use of TikTok for political purposes. It also attempts to fill the gap in the comparative research into the practical uses of TikTok in different political contexts. The study explores the three classical persuasion appeals—pathos, ethos, and logos—based on a visual, quantitative analysis of N = 372 videos posted on the official TikTok profiles of the main political parties and leaders from January 1st to March 31st, 2022. Differences were found in how political parties and political leaders used TikTok’s affordances as well as in the main rhetorical resource they use to persuade. We noted the use of more rational resources (logos) in the case of political parties and more emotional resources (pathos) for political leaders. Further, the rare presence of the personality in the videos of the political actors (ethos), along with their unusual privatization role, indicate that personalization on TikTok is far from being considered as part of their digital persuasion strategy.

Populist parties use social media as a fundamental element of their online communication strategies. This article aims to identify the strategies of right-wing populist parties and politicians on TikTok by measuring a set of features of their videos: It evaluates the presence of hate speech in these messages and the identification of certain groups as “enemies” of “the people,” and also pays special attention to the differences in engagement according to the presence of hate speech and entertaining or humoristic features. We apply a content analysis to a transnational sample (N = 293) of videos posted by the following populist right-wing parties and politicians on TikTok: Vox and Santiago Abascal (Spain), José Antonio Kast (Chile), and the UK Independence Party (UK). Findings show that while Vox and UKIP use TikTok to convey their ideology and values and to target the state as the main enemy of “the common person,” Kast used the same platform to build and project his image of leadership and to broadcast humoristic and entertaining content. Only 19% of the analyzed videos included hate speech elements. Not only was hate speech uncommon; it deterred engagement in terms of the number of comments as well. Contrarily, humour and entertainment favoured engagement. We conclude that TikTok might downplay the most controversial issues of the populist right.

TikTok is without any doubt the most popular social media among Gen Zers. Originally born as a lip-syncing app, it can be exploited in different ways; as such, it represents a new fertile space for political communication. In this vein, previous studies have shown that politicians all over the planet are joining the platform as a tool to connect with younger audiences. This study examines the use of TikTok in the last presidential elections in Peru. Following an affordance-based approach, we analyze all the TikToks published by the main candidates (Pedro Castillo, Keiko Fujimori, Rafael Lopez Aliaga, Hernando de Soto, and George Forsyth) during the electoral campaign, to understand if and how candidates have integrated this platform as part of their electoral strategy and what kind of content they publish and share. Through a content analysis that combines quantitative and qualitative elements, we demonstrate that, although all the analyzed politicians have opened TikTok accounts, they do not seem to take full advantage of the platform’s affordances displaying a top-down communication style with almost no deliberative nor participative intentions. Political issues are almost absent since the platform is mostly used to display their personal life and enhance their political persona, with most of the content displaying a clear entertaining dimension. Some differences are discussed but, in general, results reveal that Peruvian candidates use TikTok almost uniquely for politainment.

Digitalization challenges science communication in theoretical as well as methodological ways. It raises questions on how scientists, organizations, and institutions, as well as citizens and actors from other fields communicate about science and how science communication affects politics and the public. This thematic issue presents a collection of articles attempting to tackle digitalization’s challenge for science communication research. In this editorial, we provide a short overview of the included articles. Additionally, we outline some future avenues that research could follow to examine further the implications that digital channels could have for science communication.

Today, women scientists are still underrepresented in media coverage and confronted with gender stereotypes. However, social media might have the potential to challenge current gender stereotypes of scientists, foster diversity in science communication, and open new ways of becoming visible. We explore this potential by analyzing TikTok accounts of female scholars (n = 50 accounts). Results from content analysis (n = 150 videos) indicate that female scientists from a wide range of different disciplines and at different career stages are visible on TikTok. Building on previous research, we show that female scholars use TikTok mainly to explain scientific facts and concepts and to discuss what being a (female) scholar is like. Moreover, female scholars talk about private life events, give expert advice, and show science in the making. Finally, some of the videos analyzed address gender stereotypes by, for example, challenging assumptions on how a female professor should dress. Implications for science communication in the digital age are discussed.

Media literacy has become a key concept for understanding how different citizens develop the capacity to participate in the mediatized society. One key question here is how media literacy education can support people of diverse backgrounds to have equal chances of benefiting from the media. Furthermore, as many schools are characterized by superdiversity, especially in bigger cities (Crul et al., 2013), there is also a need for research on media education and diversity. This article presents the findings of the research project INCLUDED, a participatory action research about media education in a secondary school in Germany. The project aims to analyse the everyday media use of young people with diverse cultural backgrounds living in a socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhood and co-develop teaching modules on media literacy education integrating an intercultural perspective. The fieldwork of the project (January 2020–April 2021) included participatory observations (online and offline), teacher interviews, and focus groups with the students (13–15 years). The article will particularly focus on one teaching module that focused on TikTok and Instagram influencers. The students’ presentations in the classroom demonstrated how the diverse cultural backgrounds of the students also shaped the content that they consumed on social media. Analysing this teaching module as an example, this article discusses the benefits and challenges of designing a more inclusive and participatory approach to media education in the context of culturally diverse schools as an alternative to culture-blindness and over-emphasis of cultural differences.

During times of crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic, digital platforms are under public scrutiny to guarantee users’ online safety and wellbeing. Following inconsistencies in how platforms moderate online content and behavior, governments around the world are putting pressure on them to curb the spread of illegal and lawful harmful content and behavior (e.g., UK’s Draft Online Safety Bill). These efforts, though, mainly focus on overt abuse and false information, which misses more mundane social media practices such as racial stereotyping that are equally popular and can be inadvertently harmful. Building on Stoever’s (2016) work on the “sonic color line,” this article problematizes sound, specifically, as a key element in racializing memetic practices on the popular short-video platform TikTok. We examine how humorous audio-visual memes about Covid-19 on TikTok contribute to social inequality by normalizing racial stereotyping, as facilitated through TikTok’s “Use This Sound” feature. We found that users’ appropriations of sounds and visuals on TikTok, in combination with the platform’s lack of clear and transparent moderation processes for humorous content, reinforce and (re)produce systems of advantage based on race. Our article contributes to remediating the consistent downplaying of humor that negatively stereotypes historically marginalized communities. It also advances work on race and racism on social media by foregrounding the sonification of race as means for racism’s evolving persistence, which represents a threat to social cohesion.

Media convergence is generating many collective performances on social media, where the rise of short-form videos has created a new opportunity for the empowerment of society on online platforms. In this context, TikTok appears as an application for creative expression through music clips and lip-syncs. Through the #ThisIsMeChallenge hashtag, which introduces the musical theme of The Greatest Showman film, we analyze a new online practice within messages from traditionally marginalized groups throughout individual and collective life events. In order to understand TikTok as a music venue for social empowerment, we conducted a quantitative content analysis of 100 TikTok posts under the hashtag, and an artificial intelligence sentiment analysis across 8,877 comments. The results show a wide range of performance work that addresses issues of gender, sexual orientation, racial discrimination, and other types of current hate speech. In short, we conclude that TikTok has become a platform that seems to motivate activism and empowerment of marginalized groups through music frameworks that challenge social discrimination.

In recent years, media has adapted to the logic of each new social network to respond to renewed consumption habits and journalists have developed new roles on these platforms. TikTok is an emerging platform with its own influencer culture and in which the main audiences are the millennial and centennial generations. The main objective of this study is to analyze the presence of journalists on TikTok through the type of content and strategies used in adapting to this platform. The research is based on methodological triangulation. First, a database of journalists on TikTok (n1 = 212) was developed and the profiles were reviewed. Second, a questionnaire survey (n2 = 63) was developed. Finally, a content analysis (n3 = 520) of profiles exceeding 100,000 followers was conducted. This research provides a first description of the activity of journalists on TikTok, where a variety of roles, usages, and strategies are identified, beyond those of their profession. They join the of-the-moment platform with different purposes (to inform, entertain, or introduce themselves) and targets (new audiences, young people, fans). Journalists adapt their presence to the TikTok social media logic, seeking a space of influence on a platform that is the natural habitat of younger generations.

The popularization of new interaction spaces brings new narratives and social phenomena that merit attention from the scientific community. Based on the existing literature on the new challenges facing the communication discipline with these emerging narratives, this editorial summarizes the empirical and theoretical contributions of the thematic issue entitled “New Narratives for New Consumers: Influencers and the Millennial and Centennial Generations.” The authors emphasize that the studies selected for this thematic issue explore the innovative features and opportunities of the emerging scenarios and offer a cautionary account of their structural problems and the urgency of a new media literacy.

While some social networks like Facebook are losing interest among digital influencers, TikTok continues to grow, capturing and impacting centennials and millennials alike. This situation highlights the new generations’ increasing interest in short video formats, which are also becoming a new window of communication between companies and consumers. TikTok allows users to create, share, and discover short, user-generated videos in hopes of attracting viewers. But it is necessary to understand the variables that attract and engage users of these particular social networks. This article analyses the variables of continuance motivation, video sharing behaviour, and video creation capabilities, which allow users to enjoy such networks, and service providers and companies to obtain results from them. The aim is to understand how these variables motivate social media users to return to and spend more time on this video-sharing platform. This is measured through the stickiness variable. In this context—and due to the particular relevance of the topic—the authors also aim to reveal any potential differences in the behaviour of centennials and millennials when using TikTok. Therefore, a cross-sectional study was conducted through a questionnaire answered by 2,301 millennials and centennials who use TikTok. The data were analysed through a structural equation model to measure the relevance of each of the variables to stickiness. The results provide guidelines for improving research on video social media platforms, as well as an opportunity to explore the importance of the selected variables to the stickiness variable across different user segments.

Internet celebrity has become a phenomenon of great interest for scholars in the last few years. This is partly due to its impact in contemporary media ecosystems, and its influence in political, social, cultural, and commercial behaviors around the world. Meanwhile, some segments of the population continue to be marginalized by sociotechnical configurations that perpetuate structures of dominance in the digital sphere and on social media platforms. This is the case of immigrants, who often face diverse digital, symbolic, and physical borders that neglect their voice and agency. Thus, the present study aims to explore the creative practices of immigrant tiktokers who have achieved a significant following on this platform. Using a case study approach, we explore four immigrant creator profiles with a following of 17,000 to 500,000 through in-depth interviews and a multimodal content analysis of 252 of their videos to delve into their platformed practices on TikTok. The participants are Latin American immigrant creators living in the US and Spain, identified as part of a larger study on the uses of TikTok by Latinx immigrants in these two countries exploring 53 immigrant creator profiles with more than 10,000 followers. Their practices related to algorithmic (in)visibility, and their unfolding identities including their digital, creative, political, activist, cultural, and national personas are noteworthy, and suggest unique pathways to reclaim agency through social media influence and construct multi-dimensional microcelebrity identities beyond migratory status.

It is rather contradictory that there is a high demand for authenticity in today’s virtual space, where some platforms encourage the proliferation of idealized images, the products of digital alteration. Previous studies have examined how social media users perceive the authenticity and credibility of new digital celebrities—influencers—and the impacts on advertising outcomes. Authenticity in media communication has been defined in many ways, but most definitions include factors such as sincerity, trustworthiness, accuracy, originality, and spontaneity. Prior research on authenticity in computer-mediated communication emphasized the importance of three levels of authenticity, that of the source, of the message, and of the interaction. How social media influencers (SMIs) perceive their own authenticity is an understudied topic. SMIs are simultaneously perceived by their audiences as celebrities, experts, and consumers. Expanding their audiences is one of their goals. Being authentic at the beginning of one’s SMI career as a content creator might be simple, but it becomes much more challenging after one’s audience has grown significantly. Sponsorship can pose a challenge to an SMI’s authenticity. The present study aims to explore the role that authenticity plays for SMIs and develop a theoretical framework for understanding the self-perceived authenticity of SMIs. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with SMIs that have both national and international audiences (N = 20). Sincerity, expertise, uniqueness, commitment to values, mediated realness, visibility, communication style, spontaneity, transparent and creative brand endorsement, commitment to followers, and frequency of interaction are the components of the proposed model.

Protest has long been associated with left-wing actors and left-wing causes. However, right-wing actors also engage in protest. Are right-wing actors mobilized by the same factors as those actors on the left? This article uses cross-national survey data (i.e., US, UK, France, and Canada) gathered in February 2021 to assess the role of misinformation, conspiracy beliefs, and the use of different social media platforms in explaining participation in marches or demonstrations. We find that those who use Twitch or TikTok are twice as likely to participate in marches or demonstrations, compared to non-users, but the uses of these platforms are more highly related to participation in right-wing protests than left-wing protests. Exposure to misinformation on social media and beliefs in conspiracy theories also increase the likelihood of participating in protests. Our research makes several important contributions. First, we separate right-wing protest participation from left-wing protest participation, whereas existing scholarship tends to lump these together. Second, we offer new insights into the effects of conspiracy beliefs and misinformation on participation using cross-national data. Third, we examine the roles of emerging social media platforms such as Twitch and TikTok (as well as legacy platforms such as YouTube and Facebook) to better understand the differential roles that social media platforms play in protest participation.