More people around the world are accessing news through social media and abandoning direct access to media companies, according to a 2023 Reuters Institute survey.1. News consumption is now done unintentionally, and not about the news, but because of the desire to socialize and pass the time.2
Engagement on social media based on short videos, such as TikTok, increased, followed by a decrease commitment on traditional social media like Facebook. Currently, Indonesia has become the country with the second largest number of TikTok users in the world, with 126,8 million users below the United States with 148,9 million users, according to Statista.
As many as 39 percent of TikTok users in Indonesia are Gen Z (born between 1997-2012) and 47 percent are Millennials (born between 1981-1996). Audiences surveyed by the Reuters Institute said they pay more attention to celebrities, influencers and social media celebrities than journalists, on social media such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.
The role of journalism on TikTok
Journalism has a vital role to play on TikTok in bringing important, accurate and digestible news to young audiences.3. TikTok's popularity has led media companies to open accounts on the app and publish their content on TikTok. What does TikTok's popularity and its algorithm mean for mass media and journalism?
Research conducted by Vázquez-Herrero in 20224 examined 234 organizations, including TV, media and news programs. The media adapted TikTok content and used TikTok's distinctive character in terms of its language and aesthetics, its elements (text, transitions, filters, stickers, GIFs and visual effects) and video editing applications.
Journalism has a vital role to play on TikTok in bringing important, accurate and digestible news to young audiences.
- Famemega Syafira
The study looked at practices that are not commonly found in media content, but are adapted by the media in their TikTok content, such as funny videos, daily videos and challenge videos. These adaptations are interspersed with classic media formats such as news, or interview clips. Sometimes, the content deviates slightly from journalism in order to remain relevant to young people.
Without changing the principles of journalism, the media positions its brand and what happens behind the scenes in a casual way, which suits the TikTok audience. This is done in a relaxed and fun way, and tries to find a balance between presenting facts, with positive emotions and being on trend.
Algorithms play an important role
Even though each media has its own account on TikTok, users report5 that they don't usually follow these accounts, and only consume videos that appear in the comments section. For You Page. The content recommendation algorithm plays an important role in TikTok as an actor that determines when content reaches the application's users.
The media understands this dynamic and adapts by participating in viral trends, in order to make their content more popular. Trending hashtags are used to market content to get more views, and popular music clips are also used as background sounds. Seeing this, researchers6 concludes that media responses are heavily influenced by technology and its use, and media are trying to get their content integrated into TikTok's network system with these very specific features.
The adaptation of mass media on TikTok is also very special because the same treatment cannot be used on the main website or on other social media. Research finds7 There are four types of media content on TikTok that are distinguished according to their function, namely information, distribution of strange and funny videos, promotion, and participating in viral challenges. 58,2 percent of posts are meant to provide information and 48,9 percent are related to current events. There are also media outlets that try to provide daily news, but TikTok does not prioritize the latest content.
Cross-country study8 found that in general, mass media tend to choose light news in their TikTok uploads. When presenting more serious news, they use humorous language, full of tricks, and contain elements of comedy according to the structure of the TikTok platform. Journalists then have to adapt to the way TikTok distributes its content.
Other research9 with a sample of 63 journalists who have accounts on TikTok provides an overview of the presence of journalists on the platform. The main reason journalists join TikTok is to meet new audiences (50,8 percent), and a quarter (23,8 percent) are on TikTok for fun. There are also journalists who use TikTok as a channel to report news (12,7 percent) and 9,5 percent answered to see what's on this new platform.
Challenges for journalists and media on TikTok: it's hard to get a platform
Having and being active on social media is very time-consuming, and these journalists spend between 1-3 hours a day managing their TikTok accounts (42,6%). On TikTok, journalists face the challenge of having difficulty getting the attention of users who mostly come to find entertainment. A persona is more appealing to users than mainstream news, making journalists less noticed on TikTok than on other social media such as X or Facebook.
Although media and journalists have tried to adapt, news content still has a hard time getting a stage on TikTok. The system that does curation and recommendations seems inconsistent in recommending news, while the algorithm in the For You Page (FYP) section also seems reluctant to display news content.10.
Research on 120 news accounts11 found that TikTok’s algorithmic recommendations deter users from news content produced by media companies. News site accounts on TikTok receive very low engagement compared to other content. The average news site video is watched 4.703 times, while the average non-news account video is watched 198.800 times.
The combination of personalized recommendations and virtually unlimited content has made news consumption shrink as people choose to watch more entertaining things. Bubble because the algorithm confines a person to only seeing the content that the algorithm suggests, a concern many people have when it comes to algorithmic recommendations.
While news outlets have been actively producing content specifically for TikTok, most have only received a small audience. The median account in the news sample in the study had 256.500 followers; 78% of accounts had fewer than 1 million followers; and five accounts—Bleacher Report, NBC News, Complex, E! News, and NowThis Politics—had more than 3 million followers. However, the data shows that regular videos from trending accounts on TikTok were 42 times more popular than videos published by the hundreds of news accounts in the study.
Although mass media has been actively producing content specifically for TikTok, most of it only gets a small audience.
It's unclear whether this lack of engagement stems from user disinterest, or whether TikTok as a platform is simply reluctant to push news content. The FYP algorithm doesn't surface news content, and there are very few topics 'hard news' that appear in trending hashtags. Entertainment and pop culture content dominates. The study found that only 18% of TikTok recommendations were related to journalistic products.
The study targeted videos that met one of these criteria: they were created by a news account on the list, or their content was about current news. Of the 6.568 videos, not a single recommendation on the FYP came from an official news site. Only 6 videos met the second requirement, and those six videos were actually two different videos that appeared multiple times. What appeared was content that looked like journalistic products, but was not. The study also found that news and entertainment hashtags on TikTok were dominated by entertainment hashtags.
Nevertheless, With 126,8 million TikTok users in Indonesia, the mass media can no longer ignore TikTok as one of its channels of presence on social media. Media, journalists, and verification platforms must engage with new platforms like TikTok, even though mass media cannot attract readers to their websites directly from these social media platforms.
TikTok can be used to expand the reach of messages to new audience segments and increase the presence of media brands among young people. Also as an innovative step to address the phenomenon of disinformation, such as fake news and speculation that is increasingly spread through digital channels.12.
Need a special strategy
TikTok will still be a part of the social media treasury for some time to come, so the media must be willing to be a part of it, in order to remain relevant and not be left behind by the times.
To stay relevant on TikTok, media outlets must have a specific strategy, allocating specific resources to create content for TikTok that may differ from the media outlets’ usual journalism practices.
The challenge for media is how they can change their content and journalistic tasks to follow TikTok’s way of working in order to build the loyalty of future media audiences, without sacrificing the quality of journalism and the reputation of the media.
Journalists must also find new ways to stay relevant and present on TikTok by adapting to the ways that are common on TikTok, but maintaining a balance to maintain the basic principles of journalism.
This opinion article was written by Famemega Syafira, a postgraduate student of Communication Science, University of Indonesia.
Reference:
- 1. Reuters Institute: Digital News Report 2023 ↩︎
- 2. Sage Journals: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817750396 ↩︎
- 3. Taylor & Francis: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2023.2293829 ↩︎
- 4. Cogitation Media & Communication: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/4699 ↩︎
- 5. Icono14: https://icono14.net/ojs/index.php/icono14/article/view/1770 ↩︎
- 6. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i1.4699 ↩︎
- 7. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i1.4699 ↩︎
- 8. https://doi.org/10.55609/yenimedya.1089436 ↩︎
- 9. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i1.4699 ↩︎
- 10. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231192964 ↩︎
- 11. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231192964 ↩︎
- 12. https://doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2021-1522 ↩︎
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