Fast Politics: Propaganda in the Age of TikTok (The Language of Politics) 9819951097, 9789819951093

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The Language of Politics

Laura Pérez Rastrilla Pablo Sapag M. Armando Recio García   Editors

Fast Politics Propaganda in the Age of TikTok

The Language of Politics Series Editor Ofer Feldman, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan Editorial Board Christ’l De Landtsheer, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium Catalina Fuentes-Rodríguez, University of Seville, Sevilla, Spain Augusto Gnisci, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Caserta, Italy Michael Hameleers, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Michael Alan Krasner, City University of New York, New York, USA Sam Lehman-Wilzig, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel Hongna Miao, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska, University of Opole, Opole, Poland Gene Segarra Navera, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore Debbita Ai Lin Tan, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia Annemarie Walter, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Ruth Wodak, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK Sonja Zmerli, Sciences Po Grenoble, St. Martin d’Hères, France

The Language of Politics series is an interdisciplinary, critical, and analytical forum for the publication of cutting-edge research regarding the way language is used by political officials. It focuses mainly on empirically-based research aiming to analyze and discuss the role, function, and effects of the vocabulary used by politicians and other officials in Western and non-Western societies. Such language can be broadcast live in venues such as parliamentary debates and deliberations, election campaign assemblies, political party conventions, press conferences, media interviews, and even non-broadcast (but later reported) speeches in front of support groups or during international negotiations – in traditional as well as social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter). It can include polite, respectful, and deferential public speaking, or conversely, impolite verbal discourse, debasing and derisive comments, and the use of crude, vulgar, or abusive terms – including curses and obscenities – through irony, sarcasm, cynicism, ridicule, and mockery, to demean, degrade, humiliate, and insult individuals, the political opposition, or groups in society. The series is located at the intersection of several social science disciplines including communication, linguistics, discourse studies, political sociology, political science, and political psychology. It aims to bring together multiple political and social theories and concepts; qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methodological approaches; and in-depth, empirical, communication- and language-oriented analyses. By addressing critical issues such as the use of words, terms, and expressions in parliamentary debate and political negotiations, and their effect from novel perspectives, it can expose the weaknesses of existing discourse analysis concepts and arguments, or reassess the topic in other ways through the introduction of different ideas, the integration of perspectives from disparate sub-fields or even disciplines. By challenging existing paradigms, authored books in the series will enrich current debates surrounding several complex, discourse relationships: between politicians’ and citizens; between decision-makers and their colleagues; and in general, the way language shapes political culture in an increasingly globalized world. All proposals and books in this series are peer-reviewed by international experts in the aforementioned fields.

Laura Pérez Rastrilla · Pablo Sapag M. · Armando Recio García Editors

Fast Politics Propaganda in the Age of TikTok

Editors Laura Pérez Rastrilla Department of Journalism and Global Communication Complutense University of Madrid Madrid, Spain

Pablo Sapag M. Department of Journalism and Global Communication Complutense University of Madrid Madrid, Spain

Armando Recio García Department of Journalism and Global Communication Complutense University of Madrid Madrid, Spain

The Language of Politics ISBN 978-981-99-5109-3 ISBN 978-981-99-5110-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Paper in this product is recyclable.

Preface

From 2020 to 2022 the social network TikTok was the most downloaded social media app. It went from 54 million active users in 2018 to 1 billion in 2022, a figure that should be added to the 700 million users of the Chinese version, Douyin. TikTok ranks as the 6th largest platform on the internet, already surpassing Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. TikTok has also become the most addictive platform (Zeng, Abidin & Schäfer, 2021; Marengo et al., 2022). During 2022 alone, TikTok was at the top of the apps in which users spend the most time, toppling those that traditionally led this ranking: Facebook and YouTube (We are social and Hootsuite, 2023). Users spend an average of 95 minutes a day and 90% of them access the app daily. Likewise, TikTok is the platform with the highest user participation (Geyser, 2022; Aslam, 2022). Among this social network’s users, 57% affirm that since they downloaded the app they watch less television and content from streaming services (We are social, 2022). TikTok ranks as the second social network with the highest ROI index—Return on Investment (Faria, 2023). This is due to its high frequency of publication and to the fact that it’s the network with the highest registered engagement, still trending upward. These characteristics make it very attractive as a marketing channel (Cucu, 2022). The model of videos that follow one another without any break has dramatically revolutionized the social network landscape. In 2019, Instagram copied TikTok’s formula, adding the “reels” function that offers the possibility of posting short videos. In 2021, YouTube followed suit and incorporated YouTube Shorts. On those same days, Netflix launched Short Laughs, a service that offers short clips— about 30 s—of movies in a series that follow one another in a chain simulating the TikTok screen. The platform, launched worldwide in 2018, was initially oriented towards a young audience between puberty and late adolescence i.e., many (perhaps most) of its users being minors. Young people used the social network to record videos in which they danced in an informal, spontaneous way, pretending to sing or proposing and fulfilling challenges. It was entertaining content, trivial and without continuity, characteristics determined by the platform’s nature. Thus, although this type of content added to the age range of the majority of its users, it did not attract the attention of institutions v

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or political parties. In other words, it seemed to be a superficial and irrelevant social network, useless as a tool to achieve political goals… or maybe not. The global COVID-19 pandemic was decisive in increasing its user base thanks to TikTok’s initial appeal as an entertainment platform ready to fill up the additional spare time as a result of the health emergency. However, the 2022 data show that TikTok has been more than able to take advantage of that momentum to continue growing in a normal context. This unexpected development has been a key consideration in its current positive assessment by institutions and political actors, who finally followed those business corporations that have been present on it since the very birth of the platform. In a clear break with the initial trend when the highest percentage of users were underage adolescents, currently 43% are between 18 and 24 years of age, followed by an extraordinary and still growing 32% of users between 25 and 34 years old (We are social and Hootsuite, 2023). The addition of hundreds of millions of new users and its extension to a young-adult audience, have forced political leaders, parties, and institutions to focus their attention on TikTok. Its particularities, that initially led to contempt, are perceived today as its greatest strengths when compared to other social networks. Thus TikTok, that continues to be the most popular network among adolescents and young adults, has become an excellent channel to reach an age group characterized by demobilization, mistrust, and a lack of interest in politics. Accordingly, no other platform offers the possibility for political actors to target potential voters like TikTok does. Among the first accounts from official institutions was that of the International Federation of the Red Cross (May 29, 2019), the WHO (February 28, 2020), UNICEF (May 8, 2020), and some Chinese state institutions (2018). They quickly realized its potential and began to use the network with the aim of launching social awareness campaigns, especially health content during the pandemic, mainly to reach young audiences not overly worried about the virus. Although it is especially popular in Latin America and Asia, there are currently countless TikTok accounts of political figures from all around the world: the President of France, Emmanuel Macron; the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni; the president of El Salvador, Najib Bukele; the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador; his chancellor, Marcelo Ebrard; the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum; Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel; and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Prime Minister of Nepal; among many others. Little by little, TikTok is overcoming its initial stigma, something that is also noticeable in the profiles of content creators and in the interest it arouses in academia. However, its sudden and unexpected growth means that research on this social network, and especially on the political content that is distributed within it, is still very scarce. This book is intended to be one of the first steps towards studying a platform that has broken all the forecasts, becoming one of the most popular social networks. The first part of the book presents a general approach to this TikTok phenomenon from three different but complementary points of views. In the Chap. 1,

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Pablo Sapag M., Laura Pérez Rastrilla, and Armando Recio García present the state of the art, analysing scientific studies about TikTok published up to December 2022, identifying trends in the consideration of the platform as a political communication tool. The results show how the attention of academics has been focused on three different dimensions. The first one is the use of TikTok as a new platform to promote candidates in the framework of electoral campaigns. Second, TikTok as a platform exploited by social movements searching for new adhesions or as a uniting vehicle and instrument to coordinate activists’ concrete actions. Finally, there is concern about the use of TikTok as a disruptive device on the international scene and how its growing use in hegemonic states’ narratives is leading to increasing tensions. A shared characteristic in the case studies is the general absence, at least until now, of political actors’ adaptation to the new codes of use that characterize TikTok as a singular platform. The authors encourage paying attention not only to its evolution to find out if this usage transformation actually occurs, but also to analyse how it affects the way political communication is done, and therefore political action itself. Paolo Gerbaudo and Iago Moreno venture precisely into the latter field. In the Chap. 2 they reflect on the way in which the use of TikTok’s specific codes can influence political communication. In this still young social network, the body in motion forms the core of disseminated content, placing it at the centre of the political battlefield. This corporeality is read as a reflection of Generation Z’s spirit, especially identified with TikTok. Despite the declared intention of the platform to position itself as a mere resource for entertainment, political actors have not ignored its potential and thus their presence in the network has steadily grown. With this added factor, the body appears as the articulator of political messages, as a means to reproduce memes and as the vehicle to establish an emotional bond between political figures and their followers. Gerbaudo and Moreno stress that unlike other social networks, TikTok displays the body from a double dimension. On the one hand, as an intentional act. On the other, as the result of a spontaneous and authentic performance. These two characteristics could reshape political communication at a time of alienation, detachment, and distrust towards traditional politics. In the Chap. 3 of this first part, political communication analyst and advisor Ana Salazar dissects the TikTok phenomenon in a context in which social networks have become accepted media for the consumption of information. In this sense, the platform is the most extreme example of those two concepts of “politainment” and scrolling politics. In social networks, the ease of creating content and distributing a message virally entails the difficulty of standing out among torrents of information. TikTok, however, makes numerous communication tools easily available to political actors, such as narrative techniques or emotional elements to attract users’ attention in a highly competitive arena. Knowing the technical aspects of TikTok and the profile of users, the author unravels some of the keys to success, warning, however, that the malleability of social networks facilitating communication also explains why they are also so easily exploited for manipulative purposes. Four years after its global launch, TikTok’s effects as a disruptor of the political arena have exceeded expectations. As shown in the case studies analysed in the following sections, the platform is playing a central role in the configuration of new

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ways of doing political communication as well as in the political decision-making process itself. Among others, it can be observed in the political practices of India, Bangladesh, the United States, Ecuador, and various European countries. In Chap. 4, Ratan Kumar Roy and Ahana Choudhury decipher the flow of political messages on the platform that oscillate between the redefinition of politics, resistance, subversion, and its instrumentalization when reproducing the real world. Through case studies of India and Bangladesh, the authors examine the phenomenon of digitized politics, in which TikTok plays an important role and from which some political actors obtain benefits even without participating in the network themselves. Roy and Choudhury reflect on how political discourses cross the platform, where and when they go viral and become relevant factors for increasing the popularity of some politicians, and how they themselves are also transformed. Given the affordability and uses of TikTok, humour, music, satire, and the TikTokers’ own bodies are presented as resources to exercise power in new forms of participation and political criticism from what have become spaces of virtual populism. This face of the social network coexists with the business dimension of the platform and with the risk that the performative simply passes from the physical world to the digital one, as has happened in other media and social networks. Thus, the platform can end up being a mere reproduction of power structures or even aggravate and reaffirm conflicts, a point where we can situate measures such as restricting or banning the network. In Chap. 5, Young Joon Lim and Lynse Larance Guerra address the problems of misinformation and disinformation associated with TikTok’s contents. They do so by analysing the case of the United States, paying special attention to the 2020 presidential elections. Virtually since its launch, the use of the network has been classified in the United States as a matter of internal security. In the debate that has arisen, positions have oscillated between considering it as a Trojan horse inside the United States political model or prioritizing the freedom of users to consume and of the company to carry out its business. The authors also discuss the changing positions and contradictory use of the internet by US politicians. The TikTok algorithm generates addictive behaviour, in addition to creating a sophisticated echo chamber. Thus, this network has become part of the US public agenda, giving rise to a debate in which politicians move between fear of the effect that the intrusion of propaganda messages by foreign powers could generate, and exasperation at the possibility of losing the opportunity to exploit it for their own purposes. María Claudia Rivera Prado and Kevin Lupiciano Barreto Coello examine in Chap. 6 the TikTok communication strategies of both presidential candidates during the 2021 Ecuadorian elections: Andrés Arauz and Guillermo Lasso. The timing of the presidential contest took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a key factor in understanding the efforts of both communication teams to stand out online. The study is carried out through a combined methodology. The authors take into account a series of numerical indicators such as the frequency of publication, engagement, the number of followers, and the duration of the videos, among others. Textual indicators such as hashtags or narrative axes have also been considered in order to perform content analysis. The results indicate that Guillermo Lasso’s trust in TikTok for the second round of the elections was decisive for his victory. His

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message reached voters that the candidate could not have disseminated in other ways, especially to the younger cohorts. He did it through emotional and humorous narratives, two elements inherent in the platform’s codes. The possibility of targeting groups that do not use other social networks nor consume traditional media is one of the most powerful characteristics of TikTok as an instrument for political communication. However, the platform also emerges as an alternative medium in which to distribute a message that would be difficult to spread through other channels. Along these lines, some authors suggest that there is a close relationship between social networks and populism (Engesser et al., 2017; Gerbaudo, 2018). Data shows that populist movements and parties not only obtain more successful results in the use of social networks than other parties, but also that among the populist parties themselves the benefits are greater when communication campaigns are supported by social networks than when traditional channels are used (Ernst, Esser, Blassing & Engesser, 2018; Aruguete, Calvo & Ventura, 2021; Bracciale, Andretta & Martella, 2021). In addition, the success of the messages does not depend so much on the opening of an (apparent) dialogue with the audience, but on the possibility of polarizing the debate, the presence of hyper-leadership, and/ or simplifying the message. Towards that end, analysis of the accounts of parties or far-right political figures in Italy, Germany, and Spain are presented in three distinct chapters. In Chap. 7, Laura Cervi and Santiago Tejedor assess the effectiveness of TikTok for far-right movements by examining the case of Matteo Salvini, vice president of the Italian Council of Ministers and leader of the far-right party La Lega. They reach interesting conclusions by analysing the comments to the content he published. The researchers discover that a majority of users rejected the politician. Surprisingly, however, these results do not negate some benefits in the use of social networks to spread the message of the extreme right. In the first place, the comments reveal the absence of political debate, even discussion among users, who are limited to individually expressing their love or hatred towards the politician in a fandom style reaction, without referring to any specific political issue. Thus, the results of the innovative research by Cervi and Tejedor indicate a tendency to trivialize political issues, giving rise to forms of political information consumption known as pop politics or “politainment.” In addition to the superficial approach to the political debate associated with TikTok, a second outstanding contribution of this study is the reason for the rejection of the far-right politician. The repudiation, as manifested in comments, is not due to his political ideology, but rather involves intergenerational tension, as the bulk of users who comment consider that a space intended for younger users and for purposes other than political communication has been invaded. In the Chap. 8 of the book Marcus Bösch examines the advantages that German political parties obtain by incorporating TikTok into their communication strategies. He does so through a comparative analysis between the accounts of three wellknown political figures belonging to the liberal FDP party, the socialist SPD, and the far-right AfD party. The accounts of the first two are characterized by an effort to adhere to TikTok codes and by following what are considered to be the formulae

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for succeeding on the platform. They published entertaining content, resorting to humour, dancing, and participating in challenges. In contrast to this strategy, the AfD politician intentionally resisted adopting the platform’s own formats. However, he is this one who managed to dominate the political debate and place the party on the public agenda as a regular topic. Among the factors of success, Bösch identifies first of all the massive presence of AfD supporters, militants, and members on the platform who do not always identify themselves as such and who echo the party’s speeches and proposals. Second, the refusal to follow the specific codes of TikTok has the purpose of projecting themselves as more pure, authentic, and genuine politicians compared to those who pay communication consultants or PR agencies. Last, the author refers to false accounts, some of them identified by Bösch during his investigation, dedicated to amplifying the party’s narratives. The book’s last research chapter by Andrea Castro-Martínez, José Luis TorresMartín, and Pablo Díaz-Morilla, analyses the TikTok account of Vox, a far-right, Spanish political party. The results of their investigation indicate that the party managed to obtain positive results from its activity on the platform. The communication experts interviewed for their study provided interesting reflections on the functions of social networks. In addition to the aforementioned possibility of reaching a young audience, normally indifferent to conventional media, social networks serve as a strategy to overcome the filters of other media. The flexibility of these networks makes it possible to circulate certain messages, residual or initially rejected by conventional media, to magnify them and exaggerate their importance. Thus, these media end up including political personalities and messages in their agenda. Regarding the analysis of Vox’s account, despite identifying some successes in the definition of its target audience and form of the messages, the party does not show a planned, coherent strategy or one adapted to the environment of social networks to take advantage of their full potential. Overall, then, the success of TikTok is indisputable and consequently political actors continue to explore its possibilities as a vehicle for political propaganda. The continuous upward trend of the platform demands of communication professionals and academics to closely follow its evolution, observe users’ behaviour, and study the effects on public affairs. This young social platform synthesizes specific characteristics of the rest of the social networks, thus posing challenges from the point of view of communication and issues related to the impact on user’s behaviour. On TikTok’s videos the body is central. It is also a body in continuous movement, where the vibrating image is usually accompanied by text, sound, emoticons, and hashtags—in short, an excess of stimuli condensed in seconds. TikTok perfectly capitalizes on the Goldfish effect, in reference to the term that describes the continued decline in the attention span of humans and which, according to a popular study (Microsoft Attention Spanns, 2015), stands at eight seconds, one below the one with a Goldfish. It is illustrative of the meaning of this data that although the platform allows videos of up to ten minutes, the recipe for success prescribes not exceeding 30 s.

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Based on these data and the initial consequences exposed in the chapters of this book regarding the use of the social network in the political field, several questions arise that entail broadening the research field. To what degree will politics projected through an explosively growing network like TikTok be influenced and transformed by the platform’s own characteristics: extreme brevity, simplification, spectacularization, multiple stimuli, and superficiality? Precisely to avoid all of the above, would politicians and politics itself be able to shape TikTok so that the videos move closer to the ten minutes that the platform allows in order to enlarge the public debate, including all the nuances of a discussion that by its essence does not admit for simple answers? The chapters of this book focusing on the history of the making of a new but also unexpected political and media communication tool, offer some preliminary conclusions that further research can deepen. The close relationship between political communication and TikTok is already a fact, but the evolution of that alliance and its consequences remains unknown. Words of thanks are due to the contributors of this volume. Without their ideas, timely completion of chapters, and their patience in considering the editors suggestions, this project would not have materialized. We also appreciate and are thankful for the interest of Professor Ofer Feldman, the editor of the book series The Language of Politics, for this publication project. In addition, we are grateful to Professor Sam Lehman-Wilzig and the team at Springer, for their help, advice, and availability through all the process. Finally, the editors wish to thank their institution for the support received—Complutense University of Madrid—and especially the Research Group Estrategias persuasivas: Propaganda política y de guerra. Madrid, Spain June 2023

Laura Pérez Rastrilla Armando Recio García Pablo Sapag M.

References Aruguete, N., Calvo, E., & Ventura, T. (2021). News sharing, gatekeeping, and polarization: A study of the #Bolsonaro election. Digital Journalism, 9(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811. 2020.1852094 Aslam, S. (2023, February 27). TikTok by the numbers. Omnicore. https://www.omnicoreagency. com/tiktok-statistics/ Bracciale, R., Andreatta, M., & Martella, A. (2021). Does populism go viral? How Italian leaders engage citizens through social media. Information, Communication & Society, 24(10), 1477– 1494. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1874472 Cucu, E. (2022, September 21). TikTok benchmarks: Performance data and stats based on the analysis of 616, 409 TikTok videos. Social Insider. https://www.socialinsider.io/blog/tiktokbenchmarks/ Engesser, S., Ernst, N., Esser, F., & Büchel, F. (2017) Populism and social media: How politicians spread a fragmented ideology. Information, Communication & Society 20, 1109–1126. https:// doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1207697 Ernst, N., Esser, F., Blassing, S., & Engesser, S. (2018). Favorable opportunity structures for populist communication: Comparing different types of politicians and issues in social media, television

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and the press. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 24(2), 165–188. https://doi.org/10. 1177/1940161218819430 Faria, J. (2023, February 21). Social media platforms with highest ROI worldwide 2022. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1284484/social-media-platforms-highest-ret urn-on-investment/ Gerbaudo, P. (2018). Social media and populism: An elective affinity? Media, Culture & Society, 40(5), 745–753. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443718772192 Geyser, W. (2022). What is TikTok? Influencer Marketing Hub. https://influencermarketinghub. com/what-is-tiktok/ Marengo, D., Fabris, M. A., Longobardi, C., & Settanni, M. (2022) Smartphone and social media use contributed to individual tendencies towards social media addiction in Italian adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Addictive Behaviours, 16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh. 2021.107204 Microsoft. (2015). Attention spans. Consumer insights. Microsoft Canada. https://es.scribd.com/ document/265348695/Microsoft-Attention-Spans-Research-Report We are social. (2022). Think forward 2022. Special report. https://wearesocial.com/es/blog/2021/ 12/think-forward-2022/ We are social & Hootsuite. (2022). Digital 2022. Global overview report. https://wearesocial.com/ es/blog/2022/01/digital-2022/ We are social & Hootsuite. (2023). Digital 2023. Global overview report. https://wearesocial.com/ es/blog/2023/01/digital-2023/ Zeng, J., Abidin, C., & Schäfer, M. S. (2021) Research perspectives on TikTok & its legacy apps. International Journal of Communication, 15, 3161–3172. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/ view/14539

Contents

Part I

Research on the Making: New Codes for Political Communication

1 TikTok: New Media, Old Propaganda—State of the Art and Possibilities for Political Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pablo Sapag M., Laura Pérez Rastrilla, and Armando Recio García

3

2 The Moving Body as the Articulator, Meme and Affective Link in Political Communication on TikTok . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paolo Gerbaudo and Iago Moreno

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3 Scrolling Politics in the Politainment Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ana Salazar Part II

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Leaping from Lip-Sync to Politics: Redefining Public Debate through an App

4 From Popular Culture to Popular Politics: TikToking in India and Bangladesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ratan Kumar Roy and Ahana Choudhury 5 The Dangerous but Efficacious Potency of the Social Media Behemoth TikTok on U.S. Politics with Gen Z: Conceptualizing Mis-, Disinformation and Propaganda on TikTok . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Young Joon Lim and Lynse Larance Guerra

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6 Communication Strategies on TikTok During the 2021 Ecuadorian Presidential Election . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 María Claudia Rivera Prado and Kevin Lupiciano Barreto Coello

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Part III Europe’s Far Right Plays TikTok: Parties’ Strategies and Users’ Reactions 7 OK Boomer: “Political” Discussion and User Reactions to Political Communication in Matteo Salvini’s TikTok . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Laura Cervi and Santiago Tejedor 8 Alternative TikTok Tactics: How the German Right-Wing Populist Party AfD Plays the Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Marcus Bösch 9 The Spanish Far Right’s Use of TikTok: The Case of Vox in the 2022 Regional Andalusian Election Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Andrea Castro-Martínez, José Luis Torres-Martín, and Pablo Díaz-Morilla Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Laura Pérez Rastrilla works as Lecturer in History of Mass Communication at Complutense University of Madrid. Her main research interests focus on the study of propaganda, the media’s coverage during armed conflicts, and the representation of political campaigns in the media. She has held visiting fellowships in Rjeka, Moscow, Brussels, and Ljubljana. Dr. Pablo Sapag M. is an Associate Professor at Complutense University of Madrid. He is the author of Syria in Perspective and other books and articles on the Syrian crisis. He has published on the media and propaganda, and is also a contributor to the Sage Encyclopaedia of War. He has lectured in British, European, and Latin American universities, regularly contributing to international media. Armando Recio García Ph.D. in Information Sciences. He graduated in Journalism and is a specialist in Communication and Political Management. He works as Lecturer in History of Propaganda, History of Social Communication, and Political Communication and Propaganda at the Complutense University of Madrid. He co-leads the course “Political Communication and Electoral Campaigns” at the Complutense Summer School.

Contributors Marcus Bösch HAW Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany Andrea Castro-Martínez University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain Laura Cervi Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

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Editors and Contributors

Ahana Choudhury Department of Sociology, Tezpur University, Tezpur, India Kevin Lupiciano Barreto Coello Lay University Eloy Alfaro of Manabí, Manabí, Ecuador Pablo Díaz-Morilla University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain; EADE University and University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Málaga, Spain Armando Recio García Department of Journalism and Global Communication, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain Paolo Gerbaudo Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy Lynse Larance Guerra SGR Law Firm, Texas, USA Young Joon Lim Department of Communication, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Texas, USA Pablo Sapag M. Department of Journalism and Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Global

Communication,

Iago Moreno Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain María Claudia Rivera Prado Pontifical Portoviejo, Ecuador

Catholic

University

of

Ecuador,

Laura Pérez Rastrilla Department of Journalism and Global Communication, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain Ratan Kumar Roy School of General Education, BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh Ana Salazar Head Manager of Idus3 Estrategia Política, Tomares (Sevilla), CP, Spain Santiago Tejedor Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain José Luis Torres-Martín University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain

Part I

Research on the Making: New Codes for Political Communication

Chapter 1

TikTok: New Media, Old Propaganda—State of the Art and Possibilities for Political Communication Pablo Sapag M., Laura Pérez Rastrilla , and Armando Recio García

1.1 Introduction The use of TikTok as a political communication tool is a recent phenomenon with research on the issue emerging. The potential of TikTok as an institutional communication tool started to become apparent in 2020. Although some international organisations, such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies or the FAO, had accounts since 2019, the shift in perception towards the platform and its widespread use in the field was triggered by the COVID pandemic crisis. On the one hand, it prompted the search for any channel that would be useful to reach the greatest number of people to provide vital information. Thus, in February and March respectively, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations launched their TikTok accounts with videos explaining measures to prevent infection. On the other hand, periods of lockdown boosted the use of entertainment platforms and TikTok became the most downloaded app globally during this period, with 82 million downloads (Bellan, 2020). It has continued to top the rankings in subsequent years (Koetsier, 2023) and has grown from 800 million users in 2019 to 2.5 billion (including Douyin) in 2022 (We are social & Hootsuite, 2021, 2023. From 2020, when it was the fourth platform in the number of hours users spent on it—13.3 h per month—it has moved to first place in 2022, with 23 h and 28 min P. Sapag M. · L. P. Rastrilla (B) · A. R. García Department of Journalism and Global Communication, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] P. Sapag M. e-mail: [email protected] A. R. García e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9_1

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per month, ahead of YouTube that until 2021 had led all platforms (We are social & Hootsuite, 2022, 2023). The earlier dismissal of TikTok as a social medium for the distribution of political propaganda (Vijay & Gekker, 2021) changed with its unexpected exponential rise. The increased political and institutional activity occurred at the same time as the platform began to promote itself in spaces aimed at broad audiences, such as sporting events or as the sponsorship of sports celebrities (Sciba, 2022; Su et al., 2020). Such events include the Eurovision music contest or major sporting tournaments widely followed on television, such as the women’s European Football Championship or the Six Nations rugby tournament (Short Thoughts, 2022). It thus broadened its sphere of visibility and influence, leaving behind its initial association with mainly youth audiences. Around the same time, well-known commercial brands targeting broad, adult audiences started to use TikTok to diversify their advertising campaigns (Guarda, et al., 2021; Winzer et al., 2022). From that moment on, it was only a matter of time before political actors stepped up their use for persuasive purposes, as had previously happened with YouTube, Facebook or Instagram (Enli & Skogerbø, 2013; Ricke, 2014; Lalancette & Raynauld, 2019). A different case is Twitter that from the start was conceived as a social medium for adults to participate in political discussion (López Abellán, 2013). In addition to international organisations which used the platform for institutional communication, other purely political actors, such as political parties, public officials and candidates opened their accounts on TikTok. The institutional use of the platform contributed to legitimising it as a respected communication channel for dealing with public issues, thus softening the initial label of a social medium for leisure-oriented purposes and limited to young people and influencers (Jennings, 2019). One of the first to join was the Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who has participated on the platform since late 2019. French President Emmanuel Macron and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele have had accounts since 2020. In 2023, political actors on TikTok is no longer perceived as an exception: presidents, ministers, parliamentarians, political parties, as well as embassies or state institutions, have accounts on TikTok. The platform has also been a key player in some political campaigns, as in the case of the 2022 presidential elections in Colombia. A candidate virtually unknown to Colombians, Rodolfo Fernández, managed to get through to the second round after a campaign run exclusively on social media, in which TikTok played a leading role (Castro & EFE, 2022). That same year, the Italian general elections were partly played out on TikTok. The current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, made some of her most controversial but popular appearances there to ask for votes (Agenzia VISTA/ Jakhnagiev/Corriere Tv, 2022). Also in 2022 during Brazil’s presidential elections, social media were so ubiquitous that some media outlets opened sections dedicated to analysing the election campaign from a social media perspective (Estadão, 2022). TikTok became an accurate barometer of the election outcome (Furtado, 2022; Lima, 2022).

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In light of the emerging but growing use of TikTok as a tool for political communication, it is imperative to provide a state-of-the-art survey that identifies the opportunities and risks that the platform offers in this field. Furthermore, this chapter explores future research possibilities regarding the social medium TikTok within the field of political and institutional communication.

1.2 Goal, Questions and Methodology The aim of this study is to discover the current state of TikTok’s use by actors and institutions as a political communication tool. The research questions arising from this purpose are the following: Q1. To what extent do political actors and institutions rely on TikTok as a communication channel? Q2. What political communication techniques are adopted on this platform? Q3. Can a relationship be identified between the use of TikTok and more effective communication? Q4. What are the risks of adopting a social medium not intended for political communication? In the course of this project, a systematic review of the available scientific literature was carried out in order to identify, contrast and evaluate the research on the issue and to be able to answer the research questions (Kitchenham, 2004, p. 1). A review of publications in English and Spanish was conducted. The Spanish language was included due to the relevance of TikTok for political communication purposes in Latin America. The steady growth of TikTok and the involvement of an increasing number of political actors in the platform are progressively raising academic interest in its use and consolidation as a channel for political communication. These necessitates outlining the state of the art in real time, first with a quantitative review of existing publications. To this end, tools such as Google Alerts have been used to report on the publication of works on TikTok in the political communication field. Likewise, the most comprehensive databases in English and Spanish, specialised in scientific aggregators Google Scholar and Dialnet, were consulted. Second, a qualitative review was carried out in order to identify the works that effectively address the dimensions under review and to select those that are strictly scientific and academic. Quantitative search has been systematised through keywords in English and Spanish, for the period encompassing the full years from 2018 to 2022. These years represent the evolution of TikTok from a platform exclusively oriented to a playful and youthful use to one suitable for adults and for political and institutional communication. To identify the publications, the following nine terms and expressions have been combined: TikTok, political communication, political propaganda, political

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party, communication strategy, political campaign, elections, political discourse, and political marketing. In the first qualitative screening round, publications were checked to ensure that they addressed the use and practice of TikTok as a political communication tool. In the second qualitative screening round, publications were divided into two groups: those dealing with general aspects of TikTok for political propaganda purposes and case studies on the same issue. Finally, the papers were categorised according to content labels. Based on the keywords, a total of 872 publications were reviewed: 800 in Google Scholar and 72 in Dialnet. Out of these, 101 publications on political communication were identified and collected in a chart. They were organised according to language, year of publication, authors, title, type of publication, content labels, country of the case study, journal, and access.

1.3 Overview of TikTok as a Political Tool Interest in the use of TikTok for political communication purposes has experienced a progressive rise over the period studied. Although the first publication identified was dated 2018, it appears to be an isolated case as it’s the only one in that year. TikTok does not become a matter of interest again until 2020, when eleven publications are recorded. In 2021, 41 publications were identified, and in 2022, 48. In the search engines employed, only two books on the subject were found. Most of the publications have been published as articles in scientific journals (N = 88) and the rest as chapters in books (N = 11) (Fig. 1.1). Of all publications, more than three quarters (N = 78) are in English and 23 in Spanish. The geographical scope of the studies is relatively varied; however, it can be concluded that it reflects the trend in geographical concentration of interest in Fig. 1.1 Evolution of political Communication Research on TikTok for the Period 2018 to 2022 (Authors)

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studies of other social media. Thus, with regard to the location of the object of study, the United States is in the lead (N = 19), followed by China (N = 13). Spain in third place (N = 12) is probably explained by the bias resulting from the search for studies in Spanish, although four of them have also been published in English. As a whole, Latin America is the most significant region after the United States (N = 16), with studies focused on Ecuador (N = 10), Peru (N = 3), Argentina (N = 2) and Colombia (N = 1). Apart from research on China, there are eleven studies in Asian states, with Indonesia (N = 5) standing out, followed by India (N = 3), Palestine and Israel (N = 2), Malaysia (N = 1) and Vietnam (N = 1). Aside from Spain, only three other studies are located in Europe, namely Russia (N = 2) and Ukraine (N = 1). One study on Uganda and one on Australia have been identified as well. In addition to these publications in which the object of research can be associated with a single state, there are seven comparative or multi-country studies involving the United States, China, India, several Latin American countries, and Europe (Figs. 1.2 and 1.3). It is noteworthy that despite the early involvement of several international organisations active on TikTok, only two publications involving such institutions were found. Finally, a category called “universal” was created (N = 15). It includes discussion of theoretical questions: general topics or issues in which no specific organisation or state can be identified.

Fig. 1.2 Geographical scope of case studies per country (Authors)

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Fig. 1.3 Geographical scope of case studies per region (Authors)

1.4 TikTok’s Political Content: Election Campaigning, Activism and Geopolitics Research on the use of TikTok is concentrated most frequently on specific moments of special relevance for political course such as electoral campaigns. Particular attention is given to presidential campaigns, a topic that is found in a large part of research studies on Latin America. The most remarkable cases are those located in Ecuador. All papers there (N = 10) dealt with the 2021 presidential elections. These can be divided in two. On the one hand, the study of the personal accounts of candidates from different political parties, such as Guillermo Lasso, Xavier Hervás, and Andrés Arauz, in which communicative techniques are investigated (Barreto & Rivera Prado, 2021; Cusot-Cerda & Palacios Arias, 2021). On the other hand, there are analyses regarding the impact use TikTok use on the electoral scene. Much attention has been directed to the search for a relationship between the use of this platform and the increasing turnout among all voter ages (Obando Muñoz, 2021; Ochoa Lucas, 2022), but also its influence on other types of young voters’ participation (Hidelgo Bustillos et al., 2022). Research on Peru (Fernández et al., 2022; Montúfar-Calle, AtaramaRojas & Saavedra-Chau, 2022) and Colombia (Niño Pantoja & Gálvis Ardila, 2022) is also framed within electoral campaigns. It is no coincidence that Latin America attracts studies of presidential candidates’ personal accounts (Figuereo-Benítez et al., 2022), as it is one region where a significant number of politicians can be found with very active accounts on TikTok and where this social medium was first used for political purposes. Some examples of politicians currently in power are Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, with 5.6 M followers; Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, president of Brazil, with 4.3 M; Gustavo Petro, with 1.6 M, and Guillermo Lasso, with 1.3 M followers. Although he doesn’t have the largest number of followers, Lula da Silva tops the list with the highest number of likes: 47.9 M.

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Some other Latin American presidents who have TikTok accounts with a large number of followers but below one million are Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela; Gabriel Boric, president of Chile; Andrés Manuel López Obrador, president of Mexico; and Alberto Fernández, president of Argentina. Also, in this chapter’s period of review, currently former presidents were in office, such as Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil, who accumulated the largest number of followers with 5.2 M, Sebastián Piñera, former president of Chile, and Pedro Castillo, former president of Peru.1 It is noticeable that with the exception of Bukele and Boric, all of them are male politicians in late middle age, possibly pointing to greater adaptability of this age profile to the political use of a channel that when it began was especially popular among girls and teenage women. In the political campaign scenario, Hung’s (2022) research of the Malaysian general election concludes that the use of TikTok can grant a significant political advantage through the mobilisation of youth. The engagement of new voters, particularly young people, as a result of political communication strategies promoted through TikTok is mentioned in some of the research on election campaigns. However, with some exceptions (Fernández et al., 2022; Seppälä, 2022) it is not the main focus as youth mobilisation has been studied mainly in relation to political activism. In the field of political campaigns, some research explores new communication techniques such as celebrity endorsement (Becker, 2021) or the payment of influencers (Goodwin, Joseff, & Wooley, 2020). In order to deepen our understanding of transformations brought about by the incorporation of TikTok into political communication strategies, Dewi Swastika and Al Qotrunnada (2021) present the Indonesian elections, held during the pandemic, as a case study to examine innovations in communication and the construction of national identity in cyberspace. As a critical actor in electoral campaigns, political parties also play a certain role in TikTok research, although largely limited to the Spanish cases. Studies on the use that political parties make of this social medium have reached a consensus: at least in the Spanish case, political parties do not make professional use of TikTok (López-Fernández, 2022), nor do they adapt to its narrative codes (Gamir-Ríos & Sánchez-Castillo, 2022). A further consideration in this group of studies is the use of TikTok by radical parties, as the platform and other social media allow them to distribute messages that would not be possible to disseminate through other channels (Castro Martínez & Díaz Morilla, 2021; Cuevas-Calderón et al., 2022). A second notion found in the TikTok literature from a political communication perspective is that of political activism. As noted above, research analysing how the platform has been used to mobilise and politicise young people is common. Examples include the role of TikTok in protests in Palestine against the Israeli occupation (Abbas et al., 2022; Cervi & Marín-Lladó, 2022) and in mobilisations in Russia (Brodovskaya et al., 2022). The campaign of the anti-racist movement Black Lives Matter has used TikTok as a platform for criticising mainstream media (Literat et al.,

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Data is updated as of April 2023.

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2022) and to identify shifts in the protest paradigm (Boccia Artieri et al., 2022), albeit with poor audience reception (Jiang et al., 2022). TikTok enables users to create spaces of resistance, as with the women’s movement in the USA (Knight Steele, 2021) and India (Subramanian, 2021). Social activists point out that through the platform they can more easily build communities for discussion and recruit new activists than on other social media (Le Compte & Klug, 2021), as in the case of climate change activism (Basch et al., 2022; Hautea et al., 2021). Other reasons for choosing TikTok over alternative platforms include the social network’s ability to provide a voice for victims and to create safer spaces for interaction (Fatimatizzahro & Achmad, 2022). However, activists’ motivations may be at odds with practice. One of the studies on Black Lives Matter draws attention to the replication of trends generated on other social media, with the predominance of white-produced content and narratives (Krutrök & Åkerlund, 2022), leading to information flows in which victims’ experiences are ultimately diluted. Regarding TikTok’s ability to mobilise broader segments of the population, especially youth, research findings are not unanimous. In a comparison of political polarisation among Ugandan youth, Kasirye (2021) considers TikTok’s reach for political communication to be insignificant. In contrast, most studies recognise that this platform has succeeded in generating greater interest among users in political and public agenda events that would not have been reached through other means (MedinaSerrano et al., 2020; Bandy & Diakopoulos, 2020; Vijay & Gekker, 2021). Keys to success are the most viral videos shared on different topics: emotional content, comedy, creativity (Brown et al., 2022; del Rosso, 2021), and storytelling with references to popular culture (Literat & Kligler, 2021). Thus, the extent of political engagement remains to be further explored, as available research suggests that it is limited to entertainment interactions, without being transformed into active political action (Lin, 2022). This phenomenon would be consistent with the limited transformative capacity of other social media (Sapag M. & Pérez Rastrilla, 2022). The third concept that stands out in TikTok publications is that of geopolitics. They are dominated by thematic locations in the United States, India, and China. Until now, the owners and major shareholders of the most popular social media networks in the West, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, have either originated from a NATO member or partner country, primarily the United States, or have had their headquarters in one of these countries. TikTok, belonging to the Chinese company ByteDance, has broken this territorial monopoly, giving rise to tensions that have been reflected on the international stage and in domestic politics (Stokel-Walker, 2021). In the United States during Donald Trump’s presidency, TikTok became a battleground between Republicans, supporters of its ban, and Democrats, defenders of the platform (Allyn, 2021). However, in the last two years, the Democratic party has been moving closer to the Trump administration’s position, warning that TikTok endangers the country’s national security (Chen, 2022; Morrison, 2022; Q.ai, 2022). TikTok’s competitive position vis-a-vis other platforms, its potential as a political tool, and doubts about the company’s handling of its users’ data, have justified measures in some states to constrain its use. With different arguments ranging from curbing

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cyberbullying to distrust of the platform being abused as an instrument of espionage, TikTok has been banned or restricted in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and even China, which has a version of TikTok—Douyin—independent from the platform in the rest of the world (Aslam, 2022; Pahwa, 2020). In research on this issue, the focus of interest is not the content that circulates on it, but rather the use of the channel itself for political purposes, regardless of the content that flows through it. Thus, for example, TikTok appears in political discourse in India as an enhancer of nationalism (Mishra et al., 2022). According to Poon (2022), TikTok’s capacity to increase political participation seems very limited; however, it is emerging as a more relevant instrument to dramatize international tensions, especially between the United States and China and their respective allies (Manantan, 2021). These findings are echoed by Miao et al. (2023), who analyse media narratives between 2017 and 2020 in the United States, China, and India. The results show that until 2020, TikTok was stripped of any politicisation, merely portrayed in its business dimension, and depicted as an economic miracle. However, from that date onwards TikTok began to be represented in the media as a political object, critical to the preservation of national security and embedded in international challenges. In this sense, the platform’s role has not only been presented as a political weapon in the reshaping the international balance of power, but has in turn served as a justification for changing domestic policies (Jia & Liang, 2021) in response or resistance to external realignments (Supak, 2021). In terms of TikTok’s use by government bodies or state institutions, it is not surprising that one of the most frequently analysed dimensions is the platform as a communication channel during the pandemic. Thus, we found research that addresses how health institutions incorporated TikTok into their communication strategies during this period. The pioneering country with the largest number of studies on this issue is China. These studies analyse account activity, content, and citizen engagement (Che, Zhang, & Kim, 2022; Chen et al., 2021). They highlight the advantages of TikTok as a communication tool for healthcare institutions (Zhang et al., 2021), an approach that is echoed in studies outside China (Zenone et al., 2021). However, it is argued that its potential as a communication channel has not always been fully exploited, as the platform’s potentialities are not incorporated into the production of content (Zhu et al., 2020). Only two studies were found on the visibility of international organisations through TikTok. They address how these made use of the platform for the purpose of distributing COVID-19 information. Like the research located in China, they focused on the activity, content, and engagement of the WHO account (Zdunek, 2022), as well as those of several international organisations, such as FAO, IFRC or WEF (Li et al., 2021). Both studies stress the potential of TikTok for these organisations and suggest recommendations for improving their communication strategies. Regarding the pandemic scenario, it is worth mentioning several studies that are outstanding due to their unique perspectives on the creation of content. First, Acosta’s research (2022) analyses the pandemic as a moment of political opportunity for the incorporation of TikTok into communication strategies. She does so by studying the case of the head of government of the City of Buenos Aires who taking advantage

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of the possibilities of this platform created content characterised by simplicity and comedy (Ariza, March, & Torres, 2022). Second, of great interest is the analysis of the keys to the success of one of the most viral videos on TikTok during the pandemic: a piece of music produced in collaboration with the Vietnamese Ministry of Health (Ó Briain, 2021). Few studies have addressed the involvement of other state institutions. Some focus on the Chinese government’s propagandistic use of TikTok (Dian, 2022; Lu & Pan, 2022; Zhang, 2021). Two non-Chinese studies examine the communication strategies in the accounts of the Spanish state security forces (Bordonado Bermejo & Jaspe Nieto, 2022; Ortega Fernández & Rodríguez Hernández, 2021). Concluding this literature review, it is worth mentioning that there is a relatively remarkable amount of research (N = 5) analysing the use of TikTok as a tool for cultural campaigns or the promotion of cultural fields (Robles, 2021). These include the study of a media literacy campaign in the USA (Literat et al., 2021), in which TikTok reflected the topic’s intense politicisation. But above all, interest in TikTok as a platform for cultural campaigns is focused on the study of museum accounts, such as El Prado (Sánchez-Amboage et al., 2022) that through its TikTok account successfully distributes casual, educational content for the public with easily recognisable references (Martín Sanz, 2022). The strategy of using comedy, simplicity, and the possibility of replication is repeated in the accounts of other museums (Rodríguez Hernández, 2022).

1.5 Discussion and Conclusions In response to the first question posed in this chapter, clearly more and more actors are using TikTok as a channel for political communication, also reflected in growing academic interest. The topics are varied, highlighting the use of the platform during election campaigns, its use by political movements, and its function as a propaganda channel on international issues. Likewise, although in a very cautious manner, state institutions include the platform in their communication strategies or make use of it as an instrument for cultural diplomacy. The second question concerns the political communication techniques adopted in TikTok. Researchers and users are unanimous on the keys to success: simplicity, comedy, and the possibility of recreation. However, very little research has addressed the platform’s potential for political communication in terms of adaptation to specific codes. Most of the research is limited to analysing what political actors do on their accounts, but without considering the extent to which they have adapted to the new technological environment. The few studies that address this aspect agree that international organisations, political figures and parties, and state institutions do not take full advantage of the possibilities offered by this social medium. The cases of proper use are relatively rare, such as the account of the head of Buenos Aires’ government or museums such as El Prado.

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The relationship between the use of TikTok and more successful communication, an issue raised in the third question, remains to be explored. There are numerous studies on the increase in interactions and interest in political issues, but the emerging research addressing this aspect suggests that it is restricted to a new form of entertainment in which the political dimension is just an excuse or an incidental matter. It is yet to be proven whether it is possible to translate into real life this increased interest and involvement in TikTok, for example by increasing political participation or substantially impacting decision making. Fourth and finally, possible risks were raised in using TikTok as an instrument of political communication. According to the trends noted in the scientific publications surveyed, a twofold risk is identified. On the one hand, the excessive trivialisation of political content—or at least the perception that those who interact through TikTok are not serious enough to participate actively in political life. The initial idea of the platform’s role as an app geared towards the distribution of short-lived, youth music videos is still very much alive. On the other hand, there is the danger of ultimate colonisation by traditional political actors. This is partly a reaction to the problem outlined above. The reproduction of an image as official and formal as found in conventional media or more serious platforms, can be understood as a protective measure against the superficial, trivial, and frivolous projection of TikTok. This trend can already be observed in Latin America, where we find massive use of TikTok by traditional, male politicians in their late middle age who, moreover, do not adapt their messages to the affordances of TikTok. The videos distributed through the platform are no different from those that appear in conventional media, such as television, or on different social media such as YouTube. In many cases, they are even videos that have not been produced exclusively for the platform. In this sense, the novelty effect of Tik Tok and the benefit of the different possibilities it offers would not have much appeal for political communication in general, and its academic study specifically. It would be just one more platform with the same content as traditional political propaganda that can be found on Twitter or Facebook. These questions for the purpose of presenting the state of the art on the use of Tik Tok as a platform for political communication open up a further course of research on each of the issues, or a combination of them. It is important to keep a close eye on whether at some point there evolves an innovative approach to the production of audio-visual messages based on the technical specificities and the experience of this social media network, or on the contrary, it continues to be resorted to in the same way as other audio-visual channels have been used for decades. Also, compared to other social media whose normalisation and even obsolescence occurred quickly, TikTok’s potential longevity might have greater significance, strengthening its position as the leading political communication platform of our age—the latter depending on the former. Thus, only a new way of conceiving and transmitting political propaganda messages will make it possible to overcome the idea that the medium is the message in an age of constant technological innovation if and when new platforms replace the previous one without engendering content innovation beyond its purely semantic aspect.

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Castro Martínez, A., & Díaz Morilla, P. (2021). The political communication of the right-wing radicals on social networks: From Instagram to TikTok and Gab, Vox’s digital strategy. Dígitos. Revista De Comunicación Digital, 7, 67–89. https://doi.org/10.7203/rd.v1i7.210(inSpanish) Cervi, L., & Marín-Lladó, C. (2022). Freepalestine on TikTok: From performative activism to (meaningful) playful activism. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 15(4), 414–434. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2022.2131883 Che, S., Zhang, S., & Kim, J. H. (2022). How public health agencies communicate with the public on TikTok under the normalization of COVID-19: A case of 2022 Shanghai’s outbreak. Frontiers in Public Health, 10. PMCID: PMC9731275. Chen, E. (2022, June 29). U.S. FCC Commissioner wants Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/29/fcc-commissioner-tells-applegoogle-to-remove-tiktok-from-app-stores.html. Chen, Q., Min, C., Zhang, W., Ma, X., & Evans, R. (2021). Factors driving citizen engagement with government TikTok accounts during the COVID-19 pandemic: Model development and analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(2), e21463. https://doi.org/10.2196/21463 Cuevas-Calderón, E., Yalan Dongo, E., & Kanashiro, L. (2022). Conservative groups on TikTok: Social polarization in Peru. Prisma Social: revista de investigación social, 39, 156-182. (in Spanish). Cusot Cerda, G. R., & Palacios Arias, I. C. (2021). Tik Tok and his predominant role in the presidential campaign of Xavier Hervas. Revista Enfoques De La Comunicación, 6, 65–96. https:// revista.consejodecomunicacion.gob.ec/index.php/rec/article/view/52 (in Spanish). del Rosso, T. (2021). The volume inside of this bus is astronomical. In R. Luttrell, L. Xiao, & J. Glass (Eds.), Democracy in the disinformation age (pp. 99–118). Routledge. Dewi Swastika, G. L., & Al Qotrunnada, N. (2021). Pilkada Surabaya during Covid-19 pandemic: The spectacle beneath political campaign. Proceedings of the 3rd Jogjakarta Communication Conference, 148–153. https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211121.034. Dian, Y. (2022). Analysis on influencing factors of communication effect of government newmedia-based on case analysis of outstanding government TIKTOK accounts. The Frontiers of Society, Science and Technology, 4(8), 77–83. https://doi.org/10.25236/FSST.2022.040813. Enli, G. S., & Skogerbø, E. (2013). Personalized campaigns in party-centred politics. Information, Communication & Society, 16(5), 757–774. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2013.782330 Estadão. (2022). Timeline elections 2022: The electoral dispute on social networks. Estadão. https://politica.estadao.com.br/blogs/timeline-eleicoes-2022/lula-encosta-em-bolson aro-em-visualizacoes-no-tiktok/ (in Portuguese). Fatimatizzahro, F., & Achmad, Z. A. (2022). What if it was you (#WIIWY): Digital activism on TikTok to fight gender-based violence online and cyberbullying. Masyarakat, Kebudayaan Dan Politik, 35(4), 450–465. https://doi.org/10.20473/mkp.V35I42022.450-465. Fernández, P., Llanos, M., Sánchez, S., & Yangali, A. (2022). Perception of young Peruvians towards the 2021 presidential campaigns on TikTok: The Acuña, Keiko and De Soto cases . In Lima University (Ed.), Concurso de Investigación en Comunicación: trabajos ganadores (15ª ed. pp. 59–82). Lima University. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12724/16855 (in Spanish). Figuereo-Benítez, J. C., Oliveira, J. S., & Mancinas-Chávez, R. (2022). TikTok as a political communication tool for Ibero-American presidents. Redes Sociales y Ciudadanía, 103–112. https://doi. org/10.3916/Alfamed2022(inSpanish) Furtado, T. (2022 August 3). Lula has the most viewed TikTok video for the second week; let’s see his strategy to increase engagement. O Globo. https://oglobo.globo.com/blogs/sonar-a-escutadas-redes/post/2022/08/lula-tem-video-mais-visto-do-tiktok-pela-segunda-semana-entenda-aestrategia-do-petista-para-aumentar-o-engajamento.ghtml (in Portuguese). Gamir-Ríos, J., & Sánchez-Castillo, S. (2022). The political irruption of short video: Is TikTok a new window for Spanish parties? Communication & Society, 35(2), 37–52. https://doi.org/10. 15581/003.35.2.37-52.

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Pablo Sapag M. is an Associate Professor at Complutense University of Madrid. He is the author of Syria in Perspective and other books and articles on the Syrian crisis. He has published on the media and propaganda, and is also a contributor to the Sage Encyclopaedia of War. He has lectured in British, European, and Latin American universities, regularly contributing to international media. Laura Pérez Rastrilla works as Lecturer in History of Mass Communication at Complutense University of Madrid. Her main research interests focus on the study of propaganda, the media’s coverage during armed conflicts, and the representation of political campaigns in the media. She has held visiting fellowships in Rjeka, Moscow, Brussels, and Ljubljana. Armando Recio García PhD in Information Sciences. He graduated in Journalism and is a specialist in Communication and Political Management. He works as Lecturer in History of Propaganda, History of Social Communication, and Political Communication and Propaganda at the Complutense University of Madrid. He co-leads the course “Political Communication and Electoral Campaigns” at the Complutense Summer School.

Chapter 2

The Moving Body as the Articulator, Meme and Affective Link in Political Communication on TikTok Paolo Gerbaudo and Iago Moreno

2.1 Introduction Since the popularization of TikTok, the platform owned by Chinese company ByteDance, many have inquired about the political consequences of this social medium and the way it might transform the form and content of contemporary political communication. The diffusion of TikTok has been impressive in speed (Kaye et al., 2022), with over a billion active users as of the beginning of 2023, with a particularly high volume of users among the youngest cohort (Vogels et al., 2022). But it is not a matter of quantitative success that makes people interested about the political implications of this platform; qualitative considerations are just as important. Many see this new platform as embodying the spirit of Generation Z vis-a-vis previous generations (Stahl & Literat, 2022), with its greater valuing of positivity and collaboration (Katz et al., 2022) and an acid memetic humour. The platform’s content is to a great extent nonpolitical, focusing on content with an entertainment focus rather than on current news and political issues. As TikTok’s slogan suggests, the primary aim of this app is to “make your day” (TikTok, 2023a) and “powering creativity while enjoying you” (TikTok, 2023b). Yet, the platform is progressively being deployed to political ends by candidates in recent elections across the globe. While it is already customarily used for political communication in certain regions (particularly in Latin America), it is still some way from becoming a fixture in others. Paolo Gerbaudo—This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101030375. P. Gerbaudo (B) Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy e-mail: [email protected] I. Moreno Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9_2

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Yet, looking at the trajectory of other social media such as Facebook and Twitter that were initially more entertainment-oriented and then became progressively geared to political ends, it is fair to assume that something similar will soon happen with TikTok too. To explore the political consequences of TikTok, this chapter will approach the video-sharing platforms as the bearer of a second wave of social media that differs from the first one of Facebook and Twitter and their “media logic” (Altheide, 2015). While research on the political uses of TikTok is still at a very early stage, some of the initial work in this area has revealed evidence that political content channelled through it shares some well-known features of TikTok communication in general, namely its focus on entertainment, self-irony, creativity, visual exuberance and positivity (Medina Serrano et al., 2020; Zeng & Abidin, 2021; Vijay & Gekker, 2021). However, to date the commentary on the nature of political communication in the TikTok era remains limited in its theoretical grasp; more wide-ranging empirical and conceptual investigations are necessary. What is the nature of political communication on TikTok? How does it differ from that channelled on other platforms? How does the specific style and aesthetic of TikTok determine politics on this social medium? Our argument focuses on one specific aspect of TikTok communication: the central role played by the moving body. TikTok has become known to the general public for the recurrence of such performances as “dance crazes” or “lip-syncs,” in which users perform dance choreography of a “challenge” related to a popular song, or in which participants mime the singing or the speaking of a famous song, movie, or TV series scene. These practices hardly exhaust the almost infinite gamut of genres and “communicative forms” (Schellewald, 2021) that are available on the platform, ranging from educational videos to comedy sketches, so-called “satisfying videos” (2019) and all other forms of entertainment. Yet, the element of corporeal movement and communication is the signature feature of TikTok, transcending the specific format of dance crazes and lip-syncs. It is also visible in many other TikTok genres, where users often use bodily movements as a key element of their message; for example, by pointing their hands to different images or text boxes to multimodally communicate their message or transform viral gags, emblematic movie scenes, or topical events into playback and overacted playlets. To be fair, this corporeal element is shared with other platforms such as Instagram. But on TikTok it appears in an even more marked fashion, and as we shall see it carries important consequences for communication on this platform. To understand politics and political communication on TikTok—its form, content, and purpose—we need to start from this all-important signature feature and draw the necessary conclusions. TikTok politics is a politics of moving corporeality in which the moving body acts as the leading, articulating mechanism. Obviously, the body has been an important element in political communication for a long time before the internet and social media. One can appreciate the theatrics and choreographies of political rituals and displays of leadership and power across history, from the politically loaded significance of ceremonial dances in ancient Maya and Aztec civilisations (Looper, 2020) to fascist propaganda and rituals described by Walter

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Benjamin (2017). However, in the age of digital reproduction, the role of the body as a medium appears in a variety of new occasions and formats that require specific attention, from selfies and short videos (Kraidy, 2013) to animojies1 and augmented reality masks. Our contention is that TikTok body or corporeal communication has acquired an even more prominent dimension, acting as a central articulatory mechanism of discourse. On TikTok, political leaders are compelled to use their entire body as a means of addressing their target audiences and in so doing they have to adopt a posture that is different from first generation social media, such as Facebook and Twitter in which the dominant media was textual, with multimedia accompanying it, and from established forms of audio-visual communication such as TV that lacked the element of body self-representation and the interactivity of “social video.” While this view of political communication on TikTok as corporeal obviously leaves out other tendencies and practices, it goes a very long way to explain some of the ways TikTok is practically used by political leaders and parties. To develop our discussion, we shall proceed as follows. After introducing our discussion by presenting different relevant streams of literature and developing a theoretical framework, we move to the main body of our analysis. We proceed to show three levels: form, content, and function. We show that corporeal communication is central from the standpoint of form as the body acts as an articulating mechanism bringing together different forms of media. We see similarities between this articulating function and the total theatre famously theorised by Richard Wagner. In terms of content, we talk about “embodied memetics,” in which the body acts as the signifier of memes stemming from popular culture products of various kinds— TV series, songs, dances, etc.—thereby transforming motion into its primary source of signification. In so doing, the body brings political communication into contact with popular culture, with moves, expressions, and gestures that people are already familiar with because of their cultural consumption, cited in videos. In terms of function, our thesis is that bodily communication is crucial as a means of creative, discursive, and affective connection with the audience, which is made particularly urgent by present political circumstances, marked by a high level of popular distrust in political parties and leaders. In so doing, the performance of the body serves to display the human side of the political leader and the “backstage” of official political communication. These practices aim at engendering a sense of authenticity and direct contact between the leader and the led. For each analytical level thus expounded, we shall operate in the following way: first we highlight the specificity in media logic of TikTok vis-a-vis other forms of communication and other social media, and then attempt to trace the political consequences of these characteristics. In so doing, we will demonstrate how the specific affordances and logic of TikTok are reflected in the political messages channelled through it. In terms of examples, we draw on cases from both Europe and Latin 1

Animojis are animated emojis able to capture or record the user’s facial expression. These emojis tend to be customisable to emulate the user’s traits. Apple introduced them in their iOS12 operating system under the name of “Memojis.”

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America, a region that, as we shall see, has become the world’s laboratory of political communication on TikTok, where the corporeal dimension discussed here is all the more apparent.

2.2 The Body in Political Communication on TikTok To understand the role played by the body in political communication on TikTok we need to operate in three-stages, starting by elucidating the specificity of this platform compared to other media and social media in particular. Then we zoom in on the way the body operates as a key element of its communication in a manner different from previous forms of communication. Finally, we end by discussing how the body operated in political communication before TikTok. This will provide us with a useful framework for our ensuing empirical analysis. Founded in 2016 by the company musically, TikTok that is known as Douyin in China, has embodied a new style of online communication markedly different from other social media. It asserts that its mission is “to inspire creativity and bring joy” (TikTok, 2022). We can best approach TikTok as the representative of a second generation of social media, alongside other platforms such as Twitch, and to a certain extent Instagram and Snapchat that together share with TikTok a strong focus on visual material, video in particular. TikTok has been instrumental in the development of so-called “social video,” namely video-based social media, and in the popularisation of “reels.” This term, officially used by Instagram and Facebook, indicates short, looped videos, normally between 15 s and a minute. Given the short time available and the fact that these videos are typically watched in a sequence of tens of videos, they tend to contain highly simplified and emotionally intense content. Many of these reels have a strong focus on the body and bodily communication. The most famous cases are dance crazes, in which users participate in collective challenges in which they try to imitate the dance moves that are trending at any specific point in time. In this context, imitating or “miming” dance moves is central to the way people produce content on the platform, to the point that scholars have spoken of “imitation publics” to indicate the different approach and logic underpinning this platform (Zulli & Zulli, 2022). This genre has been so successful that it has forced the music industry to transform its digital marketing strategies, making the launch of these dance challenges and their viral diffusion a central element of their campaigns (Radovanovi´c, 2022). Dance crazes are a perfect example of the bodily communication that is central to TikTok; we claim that TikTok is fundamentally a “body medium” or more precisely a “moving body medium,” in the sense that its form and content revolve around the moving body. Obviously, the body has been a longstanding object of attention in culture. From the famous prehistoric statues of fertility goddesses to the emergence of performing arts such as theatre and dance in the ancient world, the body has been the protagonist of many forms of communication. Its various movements and postures have been used to communicate all sorts of situations and emotions—a non-verbal

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form of communication covered by the field of kinesics that is concerned with body movements and the interpretation of facial expressions and gestures (Birdwhistell, 2010). Over the course of the modern era the body has gone on to become the object of various media: photography, film, television, and mostly recently the internet (Fortunati et al., 2003). Further, the development of fashion has made the body, its appearance, and the style attributed to it, a central element of popular culture (Davis, 1994). In other words, the body has long been mediated and symbolised. The development of the internet, and most recently of social video, has created the conditions for bodily communication to acquire even more prominence. The early internet and the first wave of social media were by and large dominated by text, with multimedia content mostly being an accompaniment. However, visual and video content, in particular, have progressively taken prominence. Among other aspects, the higher byte size of video content as compared to text content means that video now accounts for around 2/3 of internet traffic. YouTube has been decisive in this popularisation of video, becoming one of the most popular social network sites, especially among young people (though many would not consider it a social network). Further, subscription-based, videos-streaming services such as Netflix have made films and TV series easily available to hundreds of millions of internet users. The next step in this diffusion of online video is “social video,” namely social networks that are entirely focused on this format. TikTok is obviously the most prominent, but the format of short videos it created was soon emulated by other websites. Instagram has introduced a reel feature, released in the year 2020, while YouTube introduced a sub-platform called “YouTube Shorts” in 2021. All of these platforms lend a central role to the body and its self-representation. If Instagram has been widely discussed as a platform that has reshaped people’s body image (Fardouly & Vartanian, 2016), TikTok is likely to have an even greater impact (Vandenbosch et al., 2022). But this is not just a matter to preoccupy psychologists; the self-representation of the body on TikTok can be seen as the centre-point of a new grammar that is bound to influence many forms of communication. To theorise this body of grammar, we can use the notions of “media logic” (Altheide, 2015) and “social media logic” (Van Dijck & Poell, 2013). These notions try to capture the way in which different media carry a series of fundamental rules that organise their functioning and, in the case of social media, people’s behaviour on them. Our contention is that to capture the logic of TikTok besides the four features of programmability, popularity, connectivity, and datafication, identified by Van Dijck and Poell for social media (2013), we should add “moving corporeality,” to express the fact that TikTok involves the moving body as a central feature. Bodily communication is central to social video as seen in a number of typical contents from the display of sporting skills, cosplays, to sexualisation of one’s body and its gait, all the way to dancing and lip-syncing. The typical TikTok video presents someone moving either to the tune of a famous song or in a myriad of other situations and conditions that can spark the curiosity of the audience. The centrality of the body in TikTok videos raises important questions for political communication that has indeed frequently used the body as a channel of expression: to inspire trust, to channel personal charisma, and to communicate emotions deemed

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effective in mobilising the audience. A clear example is the importance played by the body of the leader in various political performances: speaking at a rally, delivering a speech in parliament or on the campaign trail, interacting with voters. This is perhaps most visible in dictators such as Benito Mussolini who were singularly famous for the way they managed to use the stage, the facial expressions they utilised, and the way they aimed at being presented on the mass media of the day to create the image of the leader and his cult of personality. On the left are the similar cases of Mao Tse-tung, Castro, and other figures that became associated with famous gestures and facial expressions. But bodily communication has also been a common element of democratic politics in Western countries. Many memorable moments of contemporary politics have had important elemens of bodily communication: Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe at a UN assembly meeting in 1960; Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling during his visit in Warsaw in 1970 to apologise for German war crimes; President Obama famously reaching his hand towards the audience during speeches; Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s feisty declamatory movements; and Donald Trump’s signature smirks during television debates. The diffusion of cinema and television has only made bodily communication more important. It is true that they have reduced “bodily mass communication” (Marvin & Simonson, 2004) in the form of physical interaction on the campaign trail. However, those media made the leader’s body a pervasive presence in the public’s consciousness, enabling citizens to see their leader without the need of attending a physical event. The mediated representation of leaders and their body has been a crucial element in the trend towards the mediatisation of politics (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999) with its correlate of personalization (McAllister, 2007). A famous instance in this evolution of political communication was the 1960 debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, in which the former was deemed to have won, because he looked younger and more pleasing than Nixon (Druckman, 2003). Ever since, political candidates have tried to maximise their TV performances, to become as telegenic as possible, and to transform their communication into soundbites to be easily picked up by the TV evening news. Mediated bodily communication is strongly tied to emotions such as anger, sadness, hope, compassion, used in different political contexts, cultures, and ideologies (Newman, 1999). We want to explore how bodily communication serves political communication on TikTok. In other words, how does bodily communication serve to channel political content on this video-sharing platform? To what extent is TikTok’s body-centred character redefining the relationship between politicians and their audience? To begin exploring these questions we focus in this chapter on three levels of bodily communication on TikTok: as a communicative form of TikTok, as memetic content, and finally as an affective element. Our contention is that these different levels can offer us interesting lessons about the way in which social media communication and political communication are being redefined in the era of video-sharing platforms.

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2.3 Bodily Motion as (Political) Form Form is the first level where Tik Tok politics is displayed as a politics of motion and corporeality, through the various (mostly unspoken) rules that articulate how political communication operates on the platform. The moving body is the organising principle of different genres of communication that are played out on TikTok. This is aided by the vertical format of videos on TikTok, as mostly viewed on a smartphone. That may appear to be a rather trivial characteristic, but it constitutes a difference with important consequences compared to other social media platforms that use a horizontal video format: TikTok’s video format is perfectly suited to displaying people in their full height engaging in dance movements or other gestural movements. But like other social media platforms, TikTok is not just a series of features and “affordances” (Bucher & Helmond, 2018). It also embodies a culture, an aesthetic, and even an ethos, embodied in a series of practices familiar to all users, made visible in different genres found on the platform. Most TikTok genres have bodily communication (often showing the entire body rather than simply a “talking head”) as their centre. The most famous case is that of dance challenges. This was first popularised by the app DubMash that has since been discontinued but remains a signature feature of TikTok. Participants dance to the tune over the rhythmic section of a famous song, using either the moves that have been popularised by the singer in a videoclip, or by a famous influencer, or by creating anew this choreography. The dance is then mimed and reinterpreted by various other participants that engage in the challenge, with beginners and amateur users having to defy the fear of ridicule customarily attached to being seen as a mediocre or goofy dancer. These practices are a demonstration of the platform‘s performative and imitative logic. They evidence how the sharing logic proper to first-generation social media is substituted by a logic of “mimicking” what others do (Zulli & Zulli, 2022). Here the bodily element is all-evident: dancing is an action that involves the display and the movement of the body in its entirety, and with the mimesis proper to TikTok it involves people repeating and reinterpreting the movement of others. Dancing is, however, far from being the only genre of expression centring on bodily motion. The other famous TikTok genre following along the same lines is lip-syncing, where the movement of the face and, more specifically, the lips, become the communication focus. This is an occasion to show one’s ability to interpret a given song, convincingly or ironically, or as a means to parade one’s beauty or distinctive look (Arrieta, 2021). Other forms are instruction videos showing how to use one’s dexterity to face the most disparate situations, often in a rather ludicrous form. Another example of the use of motion is imitation of famous film or TV series films and of facial expression contained therein. For example, the oft-utilised scene of the famous film Love Actually where Mark confesses his love to Juliet by showing a series of cards on her doorstep, or the one of the film Joe Black where Susan asks Joe the reason why he does not have a love partner. Other videos resort to mime or slapstick, often in combination with comedy. TikTok videos recapture a primordial element of cinema, the surprise and excitement of motion as a spectacle

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in its own right—as in the slapstick of Buster Keaton, with people falling, trampling over, or failing in ways that elicit laughter. Another famous genre involving moving corporeality is that of “text-pointing videos,” in which participants point their fingers to different parts of the screen where text boxes appear. This format has been used for the most disparate purposes, such as providing instructions, making a point about a given social situation, or making jokes about oneself and one’s condition. From a formal standpoint, in defining the grammar of TikTok we could say that the moving body acts as an “articulating medium,” namely as a medium which organises many other media. In a way, TikTok is reminiscent of Richard Wagner’s theory of the Gesamtkunstwerk: total art (Brown, 2016). Wagner dreamed of an art form that could bring together different art media—most notably music, singing, sculpture and scenography painting, literature in the form of the libretti used by the characters, etc. Whereas for Wagner opera’s theatrical acting would have brought together these different media, with TikTok it is bodily movement that performs the same role: music acting as a soundtrack, the text popping up around the screen or used as a caption, the spoken word, images, videos and other media are all brought together by the movement of the body organising them around itself. Indeed, some people have described TikTok videos precisely as a form of theatre (Boffone, 2022). One could object that on the contrary, it is sound that acts as the platform’s central element. Indeed, sound clips are a basic element in the content creation dynamics of this platform and are the most identifiable and the most frequently replicated element in any user challenge, enabling TikTok users to navigate across millions of videos. However, ultimately the moving body has greater overall cognitive weight, especially given that a sizable number of users watch TikTok with the sound off. This role of the body as formal articulator of the content is also very visible in political propaganda where political messages are woven around the body of the politician. The videos posted by politicians on the platform often take the form of a small unedited scene in which a small action is performed, be it a short dance routine, or the uttering of a sentence, or a facial expression, or a mix of all these. In Latin America it has now become common to see leading politicians break into some dance moves to the benefit of the camera. Examples include leaders such as Gabriel Boric and José Antonio Kast in Chile, Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernandez in Colombia, and Keiko Fujimori in Peru. Outside Latin America, mostly because of “fear of cringe,” namely the fear of appearing ridiculous, bodily communication is limited to various gestures and expressions that are an important channel of communication (Hartung et al., 2022). One example is the political use of the aforementioned format of finger-pointing videos. This format has for example been used by Catalan politicians Jaume Collboni and Roger Torrent over the course of the 2023 regional elections to communicate proposals as well as to express principles and values (see Fig. 2.1). This format is well-suited to political propaganda that often involves the need to present bits of information and combine them in a coherent, entertaining fashion. In other videos, leaders are seen as performing accentuated gestures, often those that have become customarily associated with them as a distinctive trait stemming from their record of media performances. These gestures of politicians have become

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Fig. 2.1 The body as an articulator of a multimodal and intertextual discourse within TikTok. Left: Jaume Collboni using a choreographed challenge to contest myths against his political record. Right: Roger Torrent Using a Choreographed challenge to stress his Party’s principles (Esquerra Republicana, 2021)

the object of various forms of online communication such as sticker packs on Telegram representing the leader in various well-known situations. In TikTok, the communicative potential of the leader’s gestural and body language idiosyncrasies becomes manifest in a very particular genre of challenge: playbacks. TikTok’s interface is specifically designed to favour the (re)appropriation of other people’s audios as the base of one’s content. This application resource is most often used to emulate trending choreographies or to lip-synch humorous, viral gags. However, it is also politically exploited in disparate ways e.g., to praise its eloquence and charm. Imitating the leader’s gestures and expressions or syncing one’s lips to the leader’s speech has become an increasingly common way to celebrate the leader’s charisma on TikTok. For example, in the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, supporters of Bolsonaro had playback challenges with audio speeches and declarations of their leader, including some very controversial statements he had made (see Fig. 2.2), as a way to express their identification with him, in body and mind. In other words, when approached from a formal perspective the body of the leader, or that of supporters imitating the leader, becomes a sign in its own right, a canvas on which political messages are transmitted.

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Fig. 2.2 TikTok playback challenges as a celebration of the Leader’s Charisma. Screenshot of a viral discourse of Bolsonaro playback by 1875 users throughout Brazil’s 2018 presidential elections

2.4 The Body as Memetic Content As we move from form to content, moving corporeality is key to appreciate the contents and meanings channelled via TikTok and the multiple mental and emotional associations that TikTok videos are meant to elicit in the target public. TikTok videos revolve around “embodied memes” (Boffone, 2022), as a type of meme that rather than appearing in the form of an image or a text, is incorporated and performed in the body of content creators, in this case politicians. Memes have become a central element of contemporary digital culture. They are images, written texts, videos, and sound clips—or remixed combinations of these elements—that digitally networked communities create and transform to express themselves in the age of digital reproduction. For this reason, memes have been defined as “multimodal texts that facilitate participation by reappropriation by balancing a fixed premise with novel expression” (Milner, 2014). The most famous form of memes are visual memes, commonly known as image macros. In a nutshell, these are memes whose message is articulated by textually or graphically superposing layers of meaning and irony over screen-shot stock photos and frozen frames, or remixing other culturally resonant elements reducible to a motionless visual resource (e.g., emojis, cropped or transformed photos, sketched characters of memetic culture). However, the rise of TikTok, along with the emergence of a new streaming culture around platforms such as Twitch, has led to the classical archetype of a meme rapidly melding into a new “age” of post-classical memetics: an age where a plurality of video-based memes and memetic virtual challenges overshadow (or fiercely compete) with the prominence of image macros.

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TikTok in particular has become a key place where meme culture thrives, not just in the form of images, but also video formats with a number of recognisable rules (Brown et al., 2022). In this new setting, the old templates of memetic humour, based on the visual remixing of motionless images on raster graphic editors (e.g., Photoshop, Gimp), are contested by a new sort of memetic creativity shaped by a media logic configured by (or invested in) the interface of new social media platforms such as Twitch or Kwai, with Bytdance’s TikTok at the head. This is what can be described as an “embodied memetic,” namely a memetic communication in which the body becomes the supreme means of expression, through which content generators communicate a variety of messages, codes, meanings, and situations that like normal memes follow expectable and established patterns. Indeed, the radically memetic codes of communication that reign on TikTok are based on the playful remixing of a plural set of visual, textual, and aural elements, from viral choruses to augmented reality filters, with the moving body, however, usually playing a pivotal role. This can be appreciated in TikTok’s archetypical challenges, dance crazes, and playbacks, in which thousands of users mimetically perform while memetically transforming or twisting their meaning. For instance, at a political level this is observable in how users “playback” or dance to viral songs while de-contextualizing the lyrics of their chorus to give them a political twist. This becomes clear in the way gestures, facial expressions, and corporal language transform the original meaning: imprinting layers of irony over the original message or dislocating its intended sense according to the user’s political interests. This way of making political preferences, taking sides on electoral campaigns, or participating in the public discussion of controversial topics, is becoming increasingly popular within the platform. It can take multiple forms, from the political appropriation of so-called “spite songs” celebrating one’s adversaries’ defeat to the playback of festive songs in support of their own proposal. Aware of the normalisation of dancing and “playbacking” as natural forms of expression within the platform, parties, candidates, and movements across the globe have started to launch their own dancing and playbacking challenges. Two examples of this campaign tactic can be found in the 2022 Brazilian presidential elections. Figure 2.3 contrasts two similar challenges of this sort brought forward by the supporters of Bolsonaro and Lula in that election campaign, providing screenshots of six illustrative examples posted by supporters of both candidates. In the upper row, three TikTok users, including the Brazilian Paris Saint Germain football player Neymar Jr., are displayed dancing the same jingle in support of the former farright president. In the row below, another three users, this time Lulistas, dance to Us Magrão and Mc Rahell’s theme “Vai dar PT,” a humorous and sexually spicy theme in support of Lula. Some posts of the latter garnered more than three hundred thousand likes and millions of views. These “wars of choreographies” that are increasingly encountered in contemporary electoral campaigns highlight the power of the body and the memetic and participative qualities of dancing and playbacking on TikTok. But they also fundamentally highlight how the content of TikTok messages are fundamentally emotional in nature, often revolving around communicating allegiance and identification with one’s candidate rather than any substantial content.

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Fig. 2.3 Choreographed political jingles and the political affordances of TikTok dances. Three mimetic re-appropiations of the same electoral jingle

2.5 The Body as Affective Link The third element of bodily communication on TikTok that we discuss here concerns the way in which the body is used as an affective link to create a sense of connection between the political leader and his/her audience of reference. Our argument is that a key value of TikTok communication from the standpoint of politicians lies in the way the body performance can help them create a bond of trust with their supporters, at a time marked by general distrust and great suspicion of political institutions and political leaders. Bodily communication—the display of the politician’s body, of her/ his gait, moves, expression—can be a means of breaking down the barrier of officiality and the distance felt by many citizens vis-a-vis their political representatives. In many political TikTok videos the leader is presented in more intimate and private contexts than the ones customarily associated with the political process e.g., at home or in the backstage of political tours and campaigns. As Danielson and Rolandsson (2020) have remarked, throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, within a media setting dominated by entertainment television, the “political performance of the personal” had already become a relevant communicative practice. With TikTok this performance of the self acquires even greater prominence. Figure 2.4 provides two examples of iconic performances of this sort adjusting the media logic of television. The image on the right captures the saxophone solo made by the Democratic candidate Bill Clinton in CBS’s Arsenio Hall show throughout his 1992 presidential race to the White House. The more recent image on the left

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Fig. 2.4 The political performance of the self in entertainment television. Left: Bill Clinton playing a Saxophone Solo on CBS’s The Arsenio Hall Show (1992). Right: Pablo Iglesias playing game of Throne’s soundtrack in Antena 3’s Hormiguero (2016)

presents PODEMOS’ leader Pablo Iglesias playing the Game of Thrones intro theme with a kettle drum at Antena 3’s El Hormiguero, the most watched entertainment show on Spanish television. Over the last three decades, politicians have often not shied away from dancing, playing musical instruments, or singing as a means to endear themselves to mass audiences. On TikTok, the political performance of the self is partly different from what took shape during the dominant era of TV, in the sense that it is, at least prima facie, less staged and more intimate, with its setting often being a personal space such as the home or even the bedroom. It has often been remarked that TikTok’s aesthetic is quite different from that of Instagram because of its emphasis on authenticity and intimacy, clearly manifested by the fact that it dwells in spheres of one’s personal experience that otherwise remain out of sight, as one’s house (Unni & Weinstein, 2021). This “homely” element is also seen in much of the political propaganda that is channelled via TikTok in which leaders often try to present themselves in a more endearing light by showing themselves in domestic scenarios of their quotidian life or with their family and friends, as normal and ordinary people who have similar life patterns and needs to the ones of audiences that they are targeting. An example of this communication is offered by the far-right Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, the daughter and former official First Lady of the dictator Alberto Fujimori. Fujimori has used TikTok to broadcast episodes of her personal and family life, presenting herself as an ordinary woman engaging in everyday situations and chores. This becomes most evident when she addresses followers on election day from her bedroom or introduces her followers to her pets as “new family members” (see Fig. 2.5). This type of Tik Tok content breaks with the rigid rules of conduct expected from an official representative but also with the codes of mainstream media and the political theatrics of institutional communication. To the contrary, here the aesthetic is clearly oriented towards simplicity, authenticity, and directness. The everyday life setting sometimes even becomes the backdrop for TikTok challenges. Participation in these viral trends allows the leader to present themself as an equal “netizen” of its networked community, openly embracing the app’s participatory culture. For

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Fig. 2.5 The political performance of the self in TikTok. Left: Keiko Fujimori appealing to voters from her bed on election day. Right: Keiko Fujimori introducing her followers to an adopted pet as a “New Family Member”

instance, as displayed in Fig. 2.6, during his 2021 presidential election campaign in Chile, José Antonio Kast opted for Q&A challenges “testing” his knowledge of subcultural trends (i.e., K-Pop music, Anime series) or playing to emulate iconic memes, while Ecuador‘s President Guillermo Lasso celebrated the state provision of subsidised houses by participating in dance challenges with their new tenants. Similarly, other Latin American political personalities such as Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, head of the Buenos Aires city government, entertain their audiences by participating in the most varied musical challenges—from using Rihanna’s song “Where Have You Been” and slow-motion video effects to ironically overdramatise his sport routines, to posting emotive “rewind” videos on New Year’s Eve with Miley Cyrus‘s “You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home” as a soundtrack. Beyond participating in these challenges, political candidates and representatives deliver their political performance of the self by resorting to multiple other forms of “entertainment” content. For example, as displayed in Fig. 2.7, if Antonio Kast cosplayed Star Wars characters wishing their followers “may the force be with you,” then Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro tasted local cuisine specialties or kicked football penalties “against corruption.” Meanwhile, in Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro chose to share personal anecdotes, dancing to salsa music, playing baseball or singing romantic karaoke songs to his wife. These calculated displays of cheerfulness and joviality aim to project an impression of accessibility and trustworthiness in the public. However, they must be equally seen as a strategic effort to accommodate their public persona to a new stage in the “mediatization of politics” where, paraphrasing Mazzoleni and Schulz (1999, p. 251), “to get media attention” political agents are

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Fig. 2.6 The political performance of the self through TikTok challenges. Left: Jose Antonio Kast, 2022. Center: Guillermo Lasso. Right: Horacio Rodriguez Larreta

Fig. 2.7 The political performance of the self through varied entertainment content. Left: Gustavo Petro, 2022. Center: Nicolas Maduro, 2022. Right: Jose Antonio Kast

forced to “fashion” their public performance to meet TikTok’s needs regarding form, timing, location, and framing. Central to these performances is the projection of authenticity: political leaders on TikTok try to be seen as if they were just caught by the camera in an unstaged and spontaneous situation. Indeed, authenticity is well known as one of the key elements

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of TikTok culture and what sets it apart from the more staged and elevated ethos and aesthetics of other platforms such as Instagram. The paradox in this is that, as many influencers highlight, there is very little complete authenticity here; even the apparently simple video can often take a lot of time to produce (Guineadu et al., 2022). Rather than authenticity in the sense of a completely unscripted and spontaneous performance, there is often an element of calculated and staged projection of one’s personal self in which specific elements of one’s own self, life, and house are offered to the public very selectively. In this context the body always plays an important role in the selective and calculated revelation of the self, but it is caught in a contradiction that is difficult to resolve. On the one hand, it creates an impression of directness and access to the politician as person; on the other hand, this impression is by and large an illusion as the politician continues to be physically remote. The ever-present risk remains of falling prey to “cringe,” namely the possibility of appearing as inauthentic and goofy, contrary to what the idea of TikTok authenticity would want them to achieve. The lengths to which a growing number of politicians go to use TikTok despite these evident risks makes apparent how concerned they are about the distance of their target electorate. The politics of TikTok authenticity speaks volumes about the fact that we live in times of profound citizen distrust of political institutions and political organisations such as political parties. This situation compels politicians to compensate for distrust in organisations by acting themselves as direct affective links between the electorate and political power, as the case with the “hyperleaders” of digital parties (Gerbaudo, 2018). TikTok, with the centrality of the body in its communication, constitutes an ideal terrain in which to show the leader in his/her human corporeality, to demonstrate that the leader is ultimately a person made of flesh and bones, just as is the person viewing him or her, someone who goes about the same daily routines as everyone else. Identification with the leader, unable to be channelled through traditional ideological media, is now mediated through the shared human experiences that tie the leader and the led: eating, sleeping, family life, etc. Yet it remains to be seen whether this approach is effective in its ultimate objective and the extent to which, on the contrary, it might run the risk of backfiring, producing instead of empathy, identification, and compassion between the leader and the led, a condition of apathy and disdain towards the body of the leader and its obsessive display.

2.6 Conclusion The body has always played a role in culture and in political communication; the history of modern politics is to a great extent a history of the different ways in which the body of political leaders and supporters have been communicated and mediated. In the era of TikTok and social video this mediation of the body is undergoing another round of profound transformation hinging on the way political communication and propaganda operates, perhaps carrying important implications for how

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political campaigns are organised and their messages constructed. More than ever the body, or more specifically the moving body as it is manifested in communicative practices as dancing or lip-syncing, is at the centre of political communication; its overbearing presence has much to tell us about how TikTok shapes contemporary political communication. We have considered three main ways in which this corporeality of political communication on TikTok plays out: the body as articulator of messages, the body as a meme, and the body as an affective link. First, from a formal standpoint the body has become the articulating medium that brings together many other media, as seen in a variety of formats and genres that have been adapted to political ends. Second, the body becomes the vessel of memes, with gestures and moves reproducing well-known, stereotypical contents related to TV series and other popular culture contents. Finally, all these performances revolve around a central end: using the body as a way of fostering an affective bond between the leader and supporters, at a time when a major goal for politicians is overcoming the profound distrust that affects contemporary political institutions and organisations. Approaching TikTok politics from the standpoint of the body and its selfrepresentation reveals the symbolic power of how communication on this platform can lead to political persuasion and propaganda, going a long way to explaining why politicians are moving in droves to this platform. Yet, as we have begun to suggest, these practices also reveal profound contradictions that are likely to come further to the fore in coming years. We live in a time in which communication focuses ever more on our most human and idiosyncratic features of our bodies, gestures, smirks, and gait; yet these very features become the object of mediation, of filters and video edits, and the object of algorithmic measuring and cataloguing. Furthermore, we live in times in which the self-presentation of the body has become a calculated and intentional act; yet, at the same time this act has to be presented as spontaneous, authentic, and unfiltered if it is to achieve its desired effect. Researching political communication in the era of social video means being alert to this double bind and cognizant of the fact that what matters here first and foremost is not content in a rational and cognitive form, but rather primarily emotions, trust, and collective identification. Provided we are aware of this, studying political communication on TikTok can teach us important lessons about contemporary politics and the way in which it has turned the body not only into a sign, but also into a battlefield.

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Paolo Gerbaudo is a Marie Skłodowska–Curie Research Fellow at Scuola Normale Superiore working on the EU funded project TKTKGEN. He is the author of several journal articles and monographs including The Digital Party and The Great Recoil. Iago Moreno holds an Honours Degree in Human Social and Political Science and an MPhil in Sociology, both from the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on digital political communication and populist studies, and he has worked as a new media campaign advisor in Spain and Latin America.

Chapter 3

Scrolling Politics in the Politainment Era Ana Salazar

3.1 Introduction The relevance of TikTok was made clear on the 18th of July 2022, at the Brainstorm Tech 2022 titled “Organizing the World’s Information” (Fortune, 2022). During the conference, Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice president of Google and expert in algorithms and databases, shared some shocking information about a shift in the use of online searching tools. According to his data, 40% of young people turn to TikTok and Instagram when searching for information—bad news for Google’s search engine. Opening Google maps to find a restaurant or using Google to search for lastminute news is becoming a less common practice for the younger generation. Youth prefer more stimulating and dynamic platforms that include suggestive multimedia content, and TikTok appears to have come up with the most successful formula. It is a platform that encapsulates the unique and distinctive features of all the social media: users can consume content quickly by scrolling endlessly through videos that are rarely more than 30 s long. It is no surprise, therefore, that young people are moving to TikTok. In an era in which our capacity for concentration and focus is increasingly reduced and the competition for attention is rising, TikTok triumphs. According to a survey by Bloomberg (2022), American internet users spend 29 h every month on this platform, compared to 21 on Instagram and 13 on Facebook.

A. Salazar (B) Head Manager of Idus3 Estrategia Política, 41940 Tomares (Sevilla), CP, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9_3

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3.2 Scrolling for Fun The first aim of this chapter is to reflect on the “spectacularisation” of political communication through the analysis of TikTok’s codes and affordances. In the current context of digital society, social networks such as TikTok are essential platforms for studying this representation of reality as spectacle (Berrocal et al., 2012; Towner & Dulio, 2011; Tyron, 2008). The second aim is to evaluate how the novelties introduced by TikTok in terms of political communication impact the definition of communication strategies in practice. To explain the consequences of the spectacularisation of political communication, I resort to the concepts of “politainment” and scrolling politics. Both features rely at the core of TikTok and challenge the traditional approach to the design of political communication strategies. The compund term—politics and entertainment—is modelled on neologisms such as infotainment (Ortells-Badenes, 2011; Calvo, 2018) that emerged during the Nineties to define the nature of television content from a critical perspective. The term infotainment refers to the reporting of superficial, trivial, and even silly, stories on television news. This type of content replaced serious news coverage and had a particularly strong impact on international and national news departments (Cebrián & Berrocal, 2012). In the last decade, the production of infotainment was transferred with outstanding success from television to digital platforms (Berrocal et al., 2012; Alhabash & Wise, 2015) giving rise to a transmedia narrative (Ferré-Pavia & Montoya-Bermúdez, 2016). From this moment on, communication strategies became more complex, requiring the coexistence of traditional and new platforms, including social media. Politainment refers to the idea that political information should be entertaining to attract the attention of the audience, understanding entertainment as amusement and enjoyment. This phenomenon applies to the production of content as well as to its dissemination and consumption (Berrocal, 2017). In line with these trends, TikTok emerges as the perfect platform. Its codes of use demand treatment of content in a light, superficial, and fun manner, with spontaneity and humour being the key to success. TikTok is characterised by a high virality rate, thus achieving dissemination and social impact in a short time. Thus, this disruption of information production in traditional media has become a golden opportunity for political campaigns. The novelty of the phenomenon makes it difficult to precisely and conclusively assess its consequences. Most existing studies on infotainment are focused on television. One can also find some analyses of the role that other plataforms have played in the growth of politainment: Twitter (Berrocal et al., 2021; Baviera et al., 2019; López-Meri et al., 2017), Facebook (Durántez-Stolle & Martínez-Sanz, 2019), and YouTube (Berrocal et al., 2012). Despite the absence of studies on the impact of TikTok, it is possible to identify some initial, significant transformations from professional practice in the approach to political communication. Politainment entails new communication dynamics, both for politicians and citizens, and implies a devaluation of political information and a

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loss of democratic quality (Sayre & King, 2010; Schultz, 2012), as the main goal is to entertain. The result is pop politics (Oliva et al., 2015), where decision-making and the management of public affairs turn into a spectacle. In this context, scrolling politics is introduced as a concept to define the audience’s behaviour in the consumption of political information. This behaviour is marked by the need to move continuously and quickly from one content to another. This concept thus evokes the functioning of TikTok—copied by other platforms—characterised by the short length of the videos and the endless scrolling from one video to the next. On the one hand, scrolling politics reflects the consequences of politainment’s rise, and on the other hand is a challenge faced by communication professionals. Political content is in competition to capture the interest of the user on social networks. All content producers, whether they are anonymous citizens, traditional celebrities, or influencers, seek to capture the user’s attention. In this environment the goal of politicians is to ensure that users, consciously or unconsciously, receive the political message. To do this, communication professionals must take into account factors that influence user interest, such as content relevance, message clarity, and video quality, among other aspects. In addition, specific techniques must be developed to adapt to TikTok’s codes. This includes a new audio-visual narrative, the creation of original content, and the inclusion of emotional elements.

3.2.1 Knowing the TikTok User When designing a communication strategy, it is crucial to know who constitutes the target audience, not just to build an appropriate message but also the crucial step of getting to know the platform’s rules of use. Each social medium is characterised by specific possibilities determined by its technical capacities that are known as affordances. For instance, there are platforms that prioritise text, like Twitter; some facilitate sharing photos, such as Instagram; while others centre on video, as does TikTok. There are limits to the number of words that can be posted or the length of videos. However, the use of social media depends not just on these technological affordances but on the behaviour of users. This is why information about the users’ profiles is a relevant factor. The rules, grammar, and narrative that ultimately differentiate a social medium is determined by the way its users communicate and interact within it, regardless of its technical affordances. They modulate the codes according to their necessities. Thus, we need to ask ourselves what a TikTok user is looking for in the platform when opening an account. After lengthy observations of this social medium’s operations, I can distinguish three fundamental reasons for someone to invest their time on TikTok: to be entertained (or to entertain), to learn, and to be informed. First, the mere search for entertainment is the main hallmark of TikTok and what makes it stand out from other platforms. The user who wants to share content does not need to be informed, to feel the need of communicating something specific, or even prepare his/her appearance to feature in a video. In fact, the simpler the performance

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is, the higher the chances of success. Just the desire to have a good time or to make people laugh is enough to fit the platform’s codes. This trend has probably a lot to do with the app’s original aim as a music platform. Music is indeed still very much present on TikTok. The core product is the short video, most backed by cool, catchy, and rhythmic music. Its carefully trained algorithm precisely prioritises entertaining content that makes one lose track of time and jump from video to video for minutes and even hours. Time spent on TikTok by American kids and teens grows every year, and in the UK young adults already spend more time on TikTok than they do watching television (DJS Research Ltd, 2022, September 22). Concerns about this trend has led the app itself to adopt protective measures to limit the time of use, although their effectiveness is questioned (Kohli, 2023, March 2). The second reason to employ TikTok, learning, has to do with the average age of users. Although the age range of TikTok users is quite wide—it was especially broadened after the Covid-19 lockdowns—the imprint of late Millennials and Generation Z is very palpable on the network.1 These generations, particularly Generation Z, are characterised by the need to learn independently as they were born and grew up with all the information at their fingertips at the click of a button. Added to the fact that they are digital natives is another relevant aspect for understanding their relationship with social media: their disaffection with institutions, including educational ones. Thus, the result is a self-taught generation that trusts technology to acquire knowledge without having to depend exclusively on institutionalized, formal education. The topics that users can learn about on TikTok are highly varied and extensive, ranging from how the kitchen drainer can be used differently from how it has traditionally been used to understanding key geopolitical elements in play or techniques to manage anxiety. Anyone who enters the platform and types the most far-fetched thing that comes to mind will find that on TikTok there is someone who is teaching how to use it in “Three tips,” summarised in a few seconds. Finally, there is a third reason to enter TikTok: to access breaking news. Despite the enormous efforts from traditional media to adapt their content to social media formats, the competition does not let up and they are unable to regain their market position. Again, the age of users is a significant factor. Adolescents and teen adults do want to be informed. 74% of people between ages 16 and 40 report getting news daily, 96% at least weekly (Media Insight Project, 2022, August 31). However, to understand the world, Millennial and Z generations created their own language and customs for news consumption, trusting new channels. They still resort to traditional media, but not exclusively nor anymore on a daily basis. Messaging services, search engines, and social media are some of their sources. And when it comes to the reliance of social media as information providers, TikTok is skyrocketing in the rankings. Data reveal that 4 out of 10 members of Generation Z resort less to the podcast format since they have been using TikTok, close on the heels of YouTube (Auxier & Arbanas, 2022; Skinner, 2022). 1

34% of platform users worldwide are between 16 and 24 years old, and 32% are between 25 and 34 (Asselin, 2022).

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The impact is not limited to the media; a multitude of professionals have found TikTok to be a showcase that no other social network can duplicate, as in one way or another all users pour knowledge into the network. People become informed not only about current issues but also about specific topics. Some examples: a TikToker pharmacist keeps us up to date on all kinds of common seasonal diseases; the political account that updates us on what is happening internationally—conflicts taking place, different scenarios unfolding, and their possible consequences. This phenomenon not only refers to niche accounts but also to those with hundreds of thousands of followers. In this type of content there is a noteworthy fact: very rarely do these accounts belong to teenagers. This means that in the case of TikTok, when the platform is used as a source of information, one must consider the difference between the profile of the consumer and that of the content creator.

3.3 TikTok’s Growing Potential for Political Communication Data show that TikTok is certainly not the most widespread social network; Facebook and YouTube are way ahead in number of users (Martín, 2022). Regarding politics, Twitter is undoubtedly the most important platform (Enli & Eli Skogerbø, 2013; Campos-Domínguez, 2017; Medina-Serrano, Papakyriakopoulos, & Hegelich, 2020). So where does TikTok fit into the equation? Why should political communication professionals monitor it or even start to include it in their strategies? One of the fundamental reasons lies in its algorithm’s performance, making it one of the platforms with the greatest capacity for message amplification. An example supporting this contention is the Chilean constitutional plebiscite that was held in September 2022, causing a big stir on social networks. Atribus, one of the pioneering tools in data collection and structuring on social networks, conducted extensive research on major platforms to understand the behaviour of users and how discussions were generated around the issue during the plebiscite. The following data2 illustrate the potential of TikTok for political communication and how powerful its algorithm is. In Table 3.1 we can see the distribution of the conversation on five platforms: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. As expected, the bulk of the conversation occurred on Twitter: 97.18% of mentions and 90.98% of individual users. Instagram, the second most relevant platform is significantly distant: only 2.21% of mentions and 6.88% of individual users. Therefore, we can conclude that Twitter monopolises the political debate. If we look at TikTok, it barely represents 0.2% of all the mentions generated in the aggregate of all the social networks. What then are the reasons to invest time, effort, and resources in the platform? Why insist on its importance for political communication? The answer is profitability and efficiency. One must be careful not to 2

I am grateful to the team that conducted the study for sharing the collected data with me.

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Table 3.1 Distribution of political conversation on different social platforms (Author, from social listening Atribus Data) Social network

Mentions (absolute value)

Mentions (%)

Individual users (absolute value)

Individual users (%)

Twitter

10,838,063

97.18

243,585

90.98

Facebook

32,247

0.30

1676

0.63

Instagram

236,225

2.21

18,423

YouTube

11,381

0.11

1163

0.3

6.88

TikTok

20,474

0.19

2,598

0.97

Table 3.2 Key performance indicators (KPI) by social network Social network Impressions3 (M) Scope4 (M) Interactions5 (M) Average engagement6 (%) Twitter

36,400

68.9

38.2

6

Facebook

21,900

450.4

12.7

0.82

Instagram

2,700

20.2

45.8

5.17

YouTube

86,500

9.7

4.5

37.7

746,200

304.4

179.7

TikTok

216.2

6

Average commitment generated by users with the content or opinions analysed. It is shown in percentage

confuse volume of mentions with impact. TikTok is the second social network—just behind Facebook—with the greatest reach capacity. Table 3.2 offers a different perspective on the impact of each platform, based on the following criteria: impressions, scope, interactions, and engagement.3 While data in Table 3.1 focused attention on the volume of mentions, Table 3.2 data reflect the performance of the conversation around the Chilean plebiscite. Here the picture is substantially brighter for TikTok. Although it ranks fourth in Table 3.1 in number of mentions—20,474 versus 10,838,063 mentions on Twitter—TikTok achieves the second best scope—304.4 million—just behind Facebook with 450.4 million mentions. In addition, TikTok leads the number of impressions (746,200 million), interactions (179,700 million), and the most outstanding variable when designing a communication strategy: engagement, reaching an astonishing 216.18% compared to the second-best figure, 37.7% for YouTube. The result is that with little effort—0.19% of mentions—TikTok achieves an exceptionally large number of impressions and a remarkably high rate of engagement (Macnamara et al., 2012; Chang-Olmsted et al., 2017). To explain such performance, two particular features of this social medium must be noted. First, we tend 3

Engagement reflects the level of interaction that platform users have with an account or around a theme. To obtain this index, the number of likes is taken into account, as well as comments, visits to the profile, replies, the number of times the profile has shared content with other users, etc. These data represent the emotional bond of the user with a specific account or theme (Chang-Olmsted et al., 2017; Macnamara et al., 2012).

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to underestimate the profile of TikTok users. Whereas it took Twitter 17 years to reach 436 million users (as of 2022), TikTok has managed to surpass one billion users in just five years. Not even accounting Douyin, the Chinese version (We are Social & Hootsuite, 2023). This sustained increase in the number of users means that the number of potential voters that can be targeted is also likely to be higher than in other platforms, such as Twitter. A second consideration is the aggressiveness of its algorithm when measuring virality. It is easier to reach 100,000 followers on TikTok than 10,000 on Twitter. On TikTok it is complicated to get a video to viralise for the first time, but as soon as that line is crossed, maintaining consistency, the growth of such accounts, and the virality of their contents are much higher than those obtained on other social networks. This exponential propagation of the contents explains its high impact rate. Twitter holds its position as the main platform for addressing electoral and political issues. Communication professionals need to monitor it and integrate it into their communication strategies. After all, it is where political discourse is shaped. Opinion makers and journalists keep their activity on Twitter, making it the best route to traditional media. However, TikTok, that continues to grow its number of users, represents the opportunity to address millions of constituents directly, without intermediaries and in the most efficient way possible.

3.3.1 Politics and the Entertainment Industry Although entertainment, communication, and politics are a triad that we can trace over time, it is with the rise of the mass media and specifically television that their link has become increasingly close. Politainment is the offspring of this alliance, and its influence has risen considerably with the irruption of social media (Gil-Ramírez et al., 2019; Zamora-Medina & Rebolledo-De la Calle, 2021; Zamora-Martínez & González-Neira, 2022). This trend in political communication shifts the focus away from substantial policy issues and puts light-hearted content, such as anecdotes, personal stories, and emotional slogans, at the centre of the political agenda. The aim is to avoid annoying the audience, which is not necessarily synonymous with friendly or relaxed political debate, but rather of spectacle. Politainment is the effort to make politics fit into the entertainment industry, entailing two mutually reinforcing processes. On the one hand, the entertainment industry has the ground to exploit political topics to its benefit. On the other hand, political actors capitalize on their media access to enhance their images and promote their agendas (Nieland, 2008). Political activity requires visibility to a large extent, as an intrinsic dimension. But at some occasions, this visibility goes beyond the demand of the job and has more to do with egocentric behaviour. Since ancient times, politicians have attempted to leave their mark through large architectural constructions, monuments displayed in the public square, and all kinds of community celebrations. Politainment takes advantage of this human inclination to publicly display one’s image and endear

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oneself to the masses. In this sense, we can find a link between past and present expressions. However, politainment is a very specific phenomenon that can only be understood in the context of mass society, as it is closely related to pop culture, the personalisation of politics, and its media coverage (Riegert & Collins, 2015). Faced with the challenge of communicating in an “entertainment society,” communication consultants were quick to glimpse the opportunity offered to them by the media to reach the general public. However, very soon these strategies based on quick and easy excitation of the voters were not enough to penetrate the houses of citizens. The excessive dynamism, the repetition of tactics and slogans, and the lack of content generate audience fatigue that makes it necessary to raise the temperature higher and higher. Hence in a society increasingly hyper-stimulated with advertisements and information, plain, empty, and anodyne political messages have a decreasing effect and contribute to the citizens’ feeling of disengagement from politics. The consequence is that to seduce constituents, politicians are encouraged to get out of corseted, institutional formats and turn to entertainment programs. This practice has become a booming trend in recent decades. Recalling some manifestations of this marriage between politics and the entertainment industry in our contemporary age, one must mention Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian television businessman who became prime minister in the Nineties (Mazzoleni, 2011; Statham, 1996). In recent decades, one can find widespread examples of such practices in the Western world. His mastery of the television format and his knowledge and experience in the entertainment industry played an important role in the rise of Donald Trump in 2016 (Hall et al., 2016; Pocalyko, 2017). In Sweden, politicians, including prime ministers, are usually guests in popular TV shows. They impersonate characters in talk shows, play in comedy skits or participate in singing and dancing programmes (Danielson & Rolandsson, 2020). In Spain, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president and candidate for re-election in Madrid in May 2023, participated in a cooking programme, Master Chef, and in the show Spain’s Got Talent. Previously, in 2019, all the candidates for the presidency of the government showed up on the set of El Hormiguero (Pacheco Barrio, 2021), the programme with the highest audience rating on television (Garzón, 2022). Its format is purely recreational: in addition to tests and games, the interviewer is mainly interested in the guests’ personal issues, without thoughtful, in-depth reflection.4 In the past, it was difficult for campaign consultants to find an incumbent politician, let alone a candidate standing for election, willing to innovate by taking risks on television, especially when their appearances on entertainment programs could earn them criticism. It also took a while to convince them that their presence on social media could bring them political advantages (Hoffmann et al., 2016). However, statistics prompt communication advisors to further extend the presence of political actors in entertainment formats. Regarding the impact of TikTok on consumer behaviour,

4

It should be noted that politicians’ appearances in the programme also benefits the network P.i. The programme attended by Pablo Iglesias, candidate of Podemos, was watched by 3,823,000 viewers, achieving a 21.7% screen share.

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participating or creating trends on the platform improves the opinion of about 61% of users towards the brand (Woolf, 2022).

3.3.2 The TikTok Aurea Mediocritas TikTok is a platform that embodies, par excellence, the entertainment format that exponentially enhances public visibility. The ingredients of entertainment are displayed in an extreme way as no other platform has ever done before. Therefore, despite its benefits, perhaps it is time that political communication professionals also raise some questions about the effects that this phenomenon might have. First, regarding advantages for politicians, we should be cautious and consider that social media profiles are not enough. Politicians must know the medium’s code and use it correctly. Once the accounts have been created it is necessary to instruct them in the appropriate use of the platforms, sharing political and personal contents from a different angle to make the most of this communication mode. A politician who uses TikTok to be recorded in his/her office reading from a teleprompter, describing the variations in spending in the budget proposal for the following year, has everything to lose on a platform with such varied content. It would be of little use to add a background song and even a more or less original visual filter. That’s not the way to capture attention, as the entertainment industry and the star system has shown for decades. Instead, what attracts attention is seeing the same person who yesterday presided over Congress now spending Sunday afternoon with his/her children playing in the park or cooking a barbecue with friends. And by adding catchy music, there’s a far better chance of succeeding. Yet it is not just a simple matter of adding value; risks must also be weighed (Hellweg, 2011). In this sense, the mediatization of politics has never meant simply appearing on television or giving a press conference, but rather incorporating the functions and affordances of the medium by using appropriate language, clothing, gestures, photography, etc. A prime early example: the well-known impact that Nixon and Kennedy’s appearance on television had on the 1960 election results (Druckman, 2003). The addition of social media to the communication strategy complicates the communication toolkit and behaviour that a politician must manage, so that playing in this social media arena politicians also increase the risk of damaging their image (Hong et al., 2019; Marcinkowski & Metag, 2014; Stromer-Galley, 2014). A second question goes beyond a one-off strategy and short-term results. A deeply worrying consequence is that politainment is pervading all spaces, not only changing media performance but also penetrating into the very heart of politics, thereby affecting political agendas and decision-making (Power & Phillips-Wren, 2012; Seib, 2012; Nurmandi et al., 2018). We need to be aware of the implications of encouraging citizens to devote the same amount of attention and relevance to a political campaign tweet or video whose results may determine their daily lives as they do to the latest influencer video of a dinner at a chic restaurant in town.

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Does the use of social media necessarily imply the infantilisation of politics? Not necessarily. Political activity is not only a matter of Excel sheets, meetings in offices, and parliamentary sessions. Emotions also play a significant role. They are part of the politicians’ life, both personal and professional, and they equally constitute part of citizens’ lives. Indeed, emotions are a fundamental driver of electoral behaviour (Rudolph et al., 2000; Sahly et al., 2019; Weber, 2012). A campaign that only appeals to emotions does not guarantee a successful outcome, but a campaign that does not include the emotional dimension is guaranteed to fail. The challenge for communication advisors lies in integrating this type of content and formats in a balanced way and seizing the opportunity they provide for more effective and transparent communication. Is not the political arena in social media the window for citizens to meet their representatives? Would not citizens be better informed if their government ministers upload videos on TikTok with content about the laws under discussion?

3.3.3 An Attractive Political Profile to Avoid Scrolling In terms of tactics for successfully using TikTok as a political communication instrument, the great challenge for the practitioner is to ensure that the user does not end up immersed in the dynamics of scrolling. This defies the very nature of social media, so if one decides to incorporate TikTok into a communication strategy there is no choice but to approach politics from the perspective of politainment and embrace some of its principles. One of the first steps is “starification” i.e., an influencer strategy, as the best option to introduce a political figure. This is also the tactic traditionally used in legacy media, consisting of portraying the politician as a star. This is a blatant expression of pop politics. “Starification” does not necessarily imply superficiality. Much work is involved in the staging and development of storytelling that must be told here in condensed fashion. The effort to synthesise often marks the hardest part. Videos should address the character, preserving his or her personality over time in a way that is entertaining but also plausible. This entails placing great weight on humanization e.g., showing emotion behind the scenes before appearing at press conferences, rallies, or meetings; what their family is like; how the politicians understand life; how they behave in their free time, etc. This type of content is essential to create an attractive and eye-catching political profile on TikTok. For deciding tactics, lessons can be drawn from the field of marketing. Close to 45% of TikTok users feel more connected to those brands that show them something new or share information. 38% of users convince friends or relatives to purchase a product that they became aware of through the platform (Woolf, 2022). The same tactic can be applied to the political arena—understanding the voter as an “electoral agent” is one of the most effective approaches to attracting votes. The politician’s

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strategy is transferred to the endorsing user who replicates it in their environment, thereby expanding the scope of the message. The communication professional must make the videos speak in TikTok code, but at the same time get them to stand out from all the content flowing through the app to draw the user’s attention. The main enemy to success on TikTok is scrolling. Political content competes with videos of cute kittens, cooking recipes, and viral challenges. As users scroll down the screen, passing by videos with a finger flick, the content creator has to present unusual content to make them watch a familiar product—hence the importance of the first two seconds. However, grabbing the user’s initial interest in the video is not enough. In addition, attention retention is critical as TikTok uses this marker to determine whether to continue showing a certain video; thus, the platform encourages people to view the clip until the end. For a video to work, it is recommended to keep it short so that it becomes more likely that the user will watch it all the way through. Creating challenges and a sense of humour are tools that drive positive results. Riding trends is also a useful way to produce a viral video. A good example: the TikTok account of Paco Cuenca, mayor of Granada, Spain. Shortly after opening his account, he joined the fan fever for Rosalía’s “Motomami.” With a casual summer look, on the terrace of his house, he surprised everyone by executing the choreography of the trap music icon with great style. It was a great success. A different example of effective use of TikTok is the account of Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. Since she assumed the prime ministership her public appearances and political discourse comprises most of the material that she uploads to the platform, but she continues to keep things fresh with lots of content in which she addresses her audience directly in casual style. Along the same lines we can situate the strategy of Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic. Much of his content consists of video selfies, normally in unofficial environments. He projects an image of authenticity and spontaneity that is perceived by the audience as natural. This format conveys the feeling that when politicians have something to tell the audience, they just pick up the phone, records themselves, and upload it without training or a communication staff: the TikToker style. Diving deeper into TikTok, we can also find more eclectic accounts that combine politics, music, family, reflections on life, or the exhibition of management’s backstage, showing us what happens in that office or in that meeting when the official media left. This type of content is found in profiles such as Gabriel Boric, President of Chile, with 628,000 followers, and of Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador with 4.6 million followers. These accounts represent examples of successful TikTok political communication strategies. They reveal to us a side of politics and politicians that we are not used to seeing in the media, such as spending time with their families, meeting with music stars, or sharing a traditional dance.

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3.4 TikTok and War Propaganda I will end this chapter with a brief reflection on the role of social media as an instrument of strategic communication or propaganda in wartime, following international current affairs, and in particular with regard to the war in Ukraine. Propaganda is a fundamental issue in political communication. This term comes from the Latin propagare, meaning “to increase, extend, spread,” that is, to make the message reach as far as possible in the clearest possible way. However, it has been modified over time, given how different governments have used it to influence public behaviour—not with a de-ideologized, transparent message, but rather one often accompanied by duplicity and manipulation to achieve the desired effect on the recipients. Wartime is one of the paradigmatic situations to understand how political propaganda works. More than any other circumstance, in the war scenario messages, speeches, and oratory have proven to be relevant. In the world of contemporary mass communication, images and videos must be added to the traditional discourse aimed at encouraging resistance under bombardment or an army fighting on the front not to surrender. They have equipped propaganda with essential features that have a great impact on the perception of citizens in order to reach political objectives (Gubern, 1999). An exemplar of this is Leni Riefenstahl’s cinematography i.e., how she wisely orchestrated films in and for Nazi Germany. Soviet cinema also played an important role for the governments of the USSR. In the case of the U.S., during the First World War Hollywood managed to switch from a pacifist position, represented in The Cross of Humanity, to a belligerent one expressed in films such as The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin. Smartly wrought visual propaganda is a powerful weapon that can change the course of a conflict. A prominent and recent example can be found in the RussianUkrainian war and in particular the Ukrainian president’s ability to spread his message. The way in which Volodimir Zelensky addressed those at home and abroad is worthy of note: his garb, gestures, surprise screen appearances in events as important as the Superbowl, or his speeches using different historical references according to the country he was visiting or speaking to. All this has served to win the sympathy of public opinion inside and outside his country, gain support from some of the world’s powers (support expressed through financing and donation of military weapons), and also to break the morale of the Russian people and mobilise opposition to the war. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Zelensky and his communication team is the way they have performed on social media. TikTok has emerged as the platform for this conflict. A significant number of studies have researched thousands of accounts that document the war with the aim of reporting on what is happening in the field or to promote a specific position on the conflict (ElHawary, 2023; Primig et al., 2023; Steel et al., 2023). TikTok and other social networks have largely replaced the mid-morning news and the early morning newspaper. Although the role of the war reporter and the traditional press continues to be essential, it is irresistible to turn to first-hand witnesses’ videos showing the

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consequences of the war or to share the missiles raining down on Kyiv from the balcony of a user who has uploaded a live video. However, the significance of TikTok arises not only from its having replaced or complemented traditional media, but also because the Ukrainian government, and especially its president, have discovered a very effective vehicle for propaganda. Particularly striking is the fact that the president does not even own an account on the platform; he merely uploads clips to Instagram,5 but that has not prevented videos with his image flooding TikTok. His videos and messages have been shared by millions of TikTok accounts all over the world. It is enough to watch the first videos of the Ukrainian president walking with his associates through a darkened Kyiv to assess his professional handling of this format. Many pundits stated flatly at the outbreak of war that the Ukrainian president would escape and that Russia would easily take control of Ukraine. However, Zelensky boldly showed his face to the whole world with a clear and concise message: he was staying in Kyiv and Ukraine would resist. Social media worked as a loudspeaker, and he managed to reach millions of people by transmitting the conflict to their smartphones. Videos in which emotions lie at the core of his discourse are also very popular. He frequently uploads clips accompanying soldiers who are recovering in the hospital. The use of emotion is critical when Ukraine is going through difficult times, especially during the winter period when power cuts happened almost every day. Coping with such difficulties, a high level of morale had to be maintained on the battlefield and in the homes of Ukrainian citizens. They could see that their president, and eventually his wife, were standing by their side, resisting the aggression. In addition to that domestic aim, Zelensky’s communication efforts were also focused on ensuring that over time the conflict would not disappear from the world stage and would be kept on the global political agenda. The Ukrainian president and his communication team make smart use of the codes and narratives of social media. They have skilfully identified what works for the audience, making wise use of “entertainment politics.” Not coincidentally, Zelensky comes from the entertainment domain. Returning to the etymological root of propaganda, it is evident that in the same way that television and cinema functioned in their day, social networks are the most currently effective showcase for governments to convince the ever-increasing number of users of the virtues of their decisions and the benefits of their actions versus the failures and wrongdoings of their opponents. Among them, TikTok is proving to be an ideal tool for political propaganda purposes. Easy to use, cheap, and direct.

5

It is important to recall that TikTok belongs to the Chinese company ByteDance, and China is not Ukraine’s ally in the conflict.

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Ana Salazar is a political scientist, graduated from the University of Granada. She works as the Head Manager of Idus3, a political consulting firm. She has developed her career in the field of political and electoral consultancy. A TikToker of necessity, she dives into the network with the aim of acquiring knowledge to design effective strategies that help politicians and parties connect with citizens.

Part II

Leaping from Lip-Sync to Politics: Redefining Public Debate through an App

Chapter 4

From Popular Culture to Popular Politics: TikToking in India and Bangladesh Ratan Kumar Roy and Ahana Choudhury

4.1 Introduction Twenty-seven year old Mohit Mor was sitting in a photocopy shop and scrolling through his smartphone when two men barged in wearing helmets, pointed guns at him, and said, “Let us make you a Tik-Tok star.” They fired so many bullets into him that even his teeth were found in pieces when the police came (Delhi News, 2019, December 31). The above excerpt speaks of a TikTok star in-making and the popularity that engulfed his life. In May 2019, the star was battered to death by two of the TikTok users with the strange intention of making exceptional content for their followers, blurring the essence of life and fabricated reality. While TikTok does not always have negative implications, this particular incident portrays one such plentiful tale of fame, fan-making, and competitive struggles for hyper-visibility among the youth. That is further afflicted by the social media culture of transforming activities today—either domestic or any other work—into “posts” of interactions, associations and acknowledgments. In contemporary South Asia, mediated culture and communication practices are immensely influenced by digital media platforms where the TikTok is ontrend. The craze of becoming a “content creator” has been around since the World Wide Web was developed in the nineties and opened new ground where everyone wants to make their presence felt on digital platforms (Donath, 1998; Robinson, 2007; Hogan, 2010; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kopf, 2020). Like other parts of the globe, social media users in South Asia have found it quite effective to rely on TikTok for propagating, mimicking, and playfully seeking attention. In this chapter, we examine such actions and activism across the borders between R. K. Roy (B) School of General Education, BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh A. Choudhury Department of Sociology, Tezpur University, Tezpur, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9_4

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India and Bangladesh to outline the politics and playfulness of the public within TikTok. It goes without saying that TikTok, lying between material and non-material cultural propagation, enhances the ordinary masses’ opportunities to connect to their hard-to-reach or God-like entertainment celebrities through aesthetic sensibilities and the flux of affective markets (Kennedy, 2019; Zhu et al., 2022). In a way, the social lag between “celebrities” and “non-celebrities” is narrowing, something quite unimaginable in the past. This is also happening similarly with political leaders and icons who script catchy dialogues and stimulating performances to garner a larger fan following on TikTok. In other words, political leaders, socially acknowledged to be “serious” actors sustaining nations, are also seen enacting dialogues or bombarding their voters with statements to be further reproduced on TikTok. This too raises an intriguing question: Why are social media applications like TikTok actively gaining ground in incentivising political participation for the masses and their leaders in South Asia today? The “feeling like an artist” emotion on TikTok is attracting followers in South Asian countries like India and Bangladesh. Today, the multi-dimensional influence of social media celebrities reflects a fluid media-ecosystem deconstructing the sociotechnical configurations of digital dominance of the marginalised (JaramilloDent et al., 2022). In such populous countries driven by incessant political and religious instabilities, TikTok and social media youngsters amass enough potential power to make or break traditional, political power centres (Kaur-Gill, 2022). TikTok users and influencers (the celebrated ones) also generate huge incomes from the platform. Owned by a Chinese multinational media company named ByteDance, Asian peripheries quickly took to it. With a strict and stringent ban on TikTok in India, the lifting up of restrictions or legal protocols for the users who already installed it, enabled the platform to keep around 200 million users (Basu & Mandavia, 2020). Meanwhile, Bangladesh raced ahead with nearly three million contents released every three months despite some form of censorship (Dew, 2020). The element making TikTok a vehicle of interaction between the masses is its ready-made format. In a rapidly globalising world, such easy-to-use services are much more favoured, leading to greater time spent on and productive utilization of the medium. In any case, all this has enhanced high-end usage of Internet services in these countries. As a mechanism of networking societies (Castells, 1996; Weller et al., 2014), TikTok emerges with great potential for narrating voices and aspirations, if used in a responsible manner. But as a political weapon today, it constitutes a complex device for social control by “celebrated” leaders whose work spans the economic, legal and cultural frontiers of countries like India and Bangladesh. Foregrounding this, the chapter explores pertinent questions as to how TikToking demands rethinking politics in India and Bangladesh from the standpoint of the masses. Do people stricken by socio-economic marginality use TikTok as a space of turning them from being mere uninformed “voters” to actors shaping the existence of political parties? What does TikToking say about transitioning political culture and power relations from the mere physical to virtual systems? How do TikTok practices encourage aestheticism, political activism, and personal agendas? Answering

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these questions would open up discussions and debates on how political identities are being performed on audio-visual applications. This chapter utilises a case study analysis of highly-popular, political and global leaders from India and Bangladesh respectively, like the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, and other politicians like Mamata Banerjee, Himanta Biswa Sharma, etc. as well as the long-standing Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia. The chapter first describes the historical context of TikTok in South Asian countries like India and Bangladesh, and then expands the discussion in exploring how “TikTok for politics” and the “politics of TikTok” is used for making and remaking current political discourses. Last, it analyses how TikToking in relation to the above political figures is entangled with critical politicking, control, and contestations in the age of digitalisation.

4.2 Methodology Since the inception of TikTok in 2016, its revolutionary potential has unleashed a plethora of cross-cutting spaces, institutions, infrastructures and politico-economic growth. But its popularity as a public exchange forum did not display any significant flow across India and Bangladesh until the late 2018 (Chandar, 2019; Rahman, 2022). Taking this into account, the present study employs a critical discourse analysis to examine “social texts” (Williamson et al., 2018) such as websites, blog posts, magazines, articles and politically driven TikTok videos, viralised by the masses— from 2018 to 2022. As a qualitative research methodology, critical discourse analysis focuses the study on understanding the patterns of language use and performances in TikTok and how the masses popularise certain events to generate political discourse and its large-scale transformations. Hammersley (2003, p. 758) argued that critical discourse analysis plays “a key ethical and political role in showing how social phenomena are discursively constituted: it demonstrates how things come to be as they are, that they could be different, and thereby that they can be changed.” In light of this, the present study primarily began with tracing several TikTok app videos in 2020 (during the debates regarding an official ban), where app users mimicked popular political leaders and their slogans. Over 20 user videos were traced belonging to diverse occupational groups like artists, informal sector workers, social influencers, youth volunteers, etc. Codes and assertive words, such as “power,” “votes,” “politics,” “lectures,” “social media,” “noble services,” “elections,” “money,” “corrupt,” “frauds,” etc. were listed. Once the platform was censored, many TikTokers started publishing their TikTok content on YouTube channels whereas the users with the already installed TikTok app continued using the app to either favour or critique a party or leader. We then analysed approximately 30 video contents and trusted news sources like The Times of India, National Herald, The Financial Express, The Daily Star, Prothom Alo etc., to shortlist names repeatedly mentioned by TikTok users of seasoned Indian

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and Bangladeshi leaders, such as Mr. Narendra Modi, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, Mr. Himanta Biswa Sharma, Ms. Sheikh Hasina, Ms. Khaleda Zia, Mr. Shamim Osman, etc. Apart from the priority given to TikTokers’ dialogues, symbolic expressions of their activities with props were also taken into account: brooms, spectacles, blankets, etc. Later, the selected keywords and relevant descriptors were used to synchronise the datasets for description, interpretation, and thematic explanation (Fairclough, 1995).

4.3 TikToking and the Virtual World As designed in 2016, TikTok became popular because of its easy and interesting pronunciation. It appeared meaningful to the masses, later invested with a slogan of “record a good life” (Xin et al., 2022). With TikTok’s origins in the Chinese ByteDance, an eight-person entrepreneurial team was engaged in its production, turning it into a breakthrough app by installing engaging and lightweight activities (Zhang, 2020). It boosted China’s e-commerce and global market expansionism through celebrities, popularly known as the “internet celebrity economy” (iResearch, 2017). The typical attractive feature of TikTok is its short video duration, motion editing, filter-effects, and installed musical variety. Users can portray themselves in myriad manners with music and dance contents, irrespective of location—either in kitchens, footpaths, highways, or pubs. Moreover, the arrival of big data and high-speed Internet services made content creation a socially attractive and financially remunerative job (Kaye et al., 2021). Other strategies such as inviting singers and dancers to perform on TikTok after the official release of their songs, playing TikTok videos in reality shows, sponsorships of TikTok company and partnerships with several other corporations to organise competitions etc., were all employed to expand its global reach. In developing nations like India and Bangladesh, where unequal access to digital devices reinforces the “digital divide”, TikTok initially surged among elite urban groups. Users from 16 to 24 years old (“youths”) were targeted primarily to come up with creative ideas and turn them into content for people to consume with leisure (Kaur, 2020). Given the fact that India has the proportionally the largest youth population in the world (66%) (International Labour Organization, 2022), and in Bangladesh one-third of its population ranges between 15 to 35 years old (BRAC, 2019), TikToking influences the country’s working and non-working population, engendering a virtual economy. This enhanced opportunities for the unemployed to earn money and transform their status from “dependents” to that of “self-sufficient” producers of (for example) trendy hip-hop dances through actions and voices to gain material wealth and knowledge. However, these trends are not bereft of the aura of popular political figures across India and Bangladesh, where Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Ms. Sheikh Hasina of India and Bangladesh respectively, are drawn into TikTok for

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their persuasive orations and appealing personalities. In fact, TikTok users who often adopt the clothing styles these ministers follow, re-assemble hegemonic ideals of the “nation” while incarnating alternative imageries of “nationalism.”1 Although not a holistic informational outlet, TikTok nonetheless offers layered spaces or what can be envisioned as the “TikTok for politics” and “politics of TikTok,” especially in India and Bangladesh. The first phase can be analysed as a definitive form of user-body experience: contents, perspectives, dissent, mimicked performances of politicians and multimediated relationships that users share with TikTok as an object with subjective manifestations of visuality. For instance, users from diverse social, cultural and economic backgrounds might develop different ways of portraying a political message or a figure. The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (Save the Girl Child, Educate the Girl Child)2 program launched by the Government of India in 2015 later trended on TikTok, dividing users into two contrasting realities, one of which making comical dialogues on male children. This public communication of reform in people’s everyday lives leads to the reproduction of political and communal camps. In circulating such permeable discourses supporting a political leader, TikTok users not only actively participate in politics but also subtly represent themselves as the clones of popular political personalities’ bodies. This intertwines with the second phase of the complex and ephemeral “politics of TikTok.” At a functional level, it might synchronise the macro-appropriation of political cultures, not only aimed at voting but also governance mechanisms used by, with, and for the masses. However, this is not without a measure of symbolic reconstruction of political authoritarianism, class/caste, or religious stratification and capitalistic accumulation of contents across globalised networks. Fans following Mr. Narendra Modi (ranked 9th in 2018 in Forbes as among the most powerful people in the world: India Today Web Desk, 2018), and Ms. Sheikh Hasina (43rd place in Forbes’ 2021 most powerful women in the world: IANS, 2021), in their own nations and also across the developed worlds, show the popularity of their speeches and personalities—and as a result why and how the ordinary masses incorporate them into media platforms like TikTok. Such transmissions of information, ideologies, and entertainment at the grassroots provides greater meanings to Indian and Bangladeshi socio-political rhetoric today.

1

With the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the majoritarian party or seat of government in India, multiple versions of nationalism have been overturned to evoke one-dimensional imageries of Hindu Dharma (religion). 2 This scheme was launched to curb the declining child sex-ratio in India, primarily focussed around the North Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab, etc. See: https://wcd.nic. in/bbbp-schemes

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4.3.1 Political Performances: TikTok Reflections from India “Bangla nebe, eto shosta!” (“Want to take away Bengal, is that so easy?”), is one of the most popular and provocative, snide questions asked by Ms. Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal. But, it garnered tons of “hits” as it turned ripe for TikTok users to edit her televised oration and couple it with the famous Kacha Badam fever, a local Indian rural Bengali song enlivened on TikTok in 2021. This song’s virality illustrates debates on governance i.e., subtle criticisms of Ms. Banerjee’s humorous demeanour whose role-playing is a sign of her long-term inattentiveness on the unemployment issues of the state. The users’ version of the Kacha Badam song has also been evoked as a response to Ms. Banerjee’s unclear statements on rising unemployment, expressing resentment by asking whether the ordinary masses should start vending Kacha Badam (raw peanuts) for sustenance and livelihood. Thus, rather than portraying direct protest against the state, TikTok serves as a socio-political space for the representation of mass voices. It invigorates a weapon for “defaming” politicians and socially controlling their behaviour, where vote-bank politics constitutes a significant force. However, such direct resistance to political authoritarianism through protest can bring legal penalties on one hand, while on the other hand it is a vehicle of resistance on TikTok to enhance the exercise of citizenship in a sovereign country where tracing multiple devices and people remains difficult. As Hansen (2004, p. 22) noted regarding digital cultures, “as media lose their material specificity, the body takes on a more prominent function as a selective processor of information.” The processing of multi-mediated information on TikTok also invokes complex questions about marginalisation, authoritarian structures, and capital accumulation. In addition, another question is whether TikTok raises the bar of marginality to such an extent that its reach is in danger of being engulfed within the dominant and hegemonic socio-political discourse. Bhuban Badyakar’s notable composition Kacha Badam (the “raw peanut” song) garnered millions of followers on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Innumerable people from different walks of life, such as actors, bloggers, singers, dancers, and stand-up comedians, imitated the song with the dance movements from his remix cover. The credit came after he was signed by, and entered into a contract with a music label titled Godhulibela Music for re-producing a peppy remix version of his song. But this led to some controversy, as he received meagre payment of Rs. 3 lakhs for the composition. On the one hand, while this was a case of visual inclusion of a rural marginalised person within the structure of modern transnational elitism, on the other hand his socio-economic status as a person belonging to a lower caste and class group was reproduced through “meagre payment” when compared to other supporting singers in the video cover (Quint Neon, 2022). Such permeability of his body as a “consumable” article splits him in two: his material voice for capital accumulation and enhancement of the mainstream economy vs. his social body as an exotic representation of marginality, lacking any structural shift. Essentially, he

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became a resource for the generation of memes on popular political leaders and their rivalries, keeping Indian politics a popular marketing affair for mass media businesses. For instance, several live interviews of the Kacha Badam star took place in television channels known to have strong allegiances to specific political parties and their ideologies. The powerful tones of pluralism on TikTok also surround another popular political leader, Himanta Biswa Sharma. As the powerful administrator and Chief Minister of Assam, one of the eight Northeastern states of India, he rose to fame with his local name “Mama” (maternal uncle in Assamese), accorded him by the masses. As an experienced politician, Mama is leading Assam towards the path of development and progress by substantially addressing issues such as alleged “infiltration” from neighbouring Bangladesh. His TikTok fans are often interested in his funny stature, his smile, and his statements on music and slogans. His statement in Assamese, “TV t dekhu jein slogan orr training loise, keneke ahuuue yaa keneke koribo pare,” translates to “I watch TV as people spout slogans just like anything, aahh…huuun. How can they do this!” Such fun-loving displeasure regarding young party workers’ cavalier attitude to sloganeering was imitated by various vloggers from the remotest corners of the state. TikTok users covering their heads with gamuchas (a traditional cotton cloth with designs, used as a towel in Assam) or imitating the famous “smile” of the Chief Minister, went viral. The full-mouthed smile, stunts of the Minister standing halfway with car doors open in rallies and people congregating behind him to capture his cheers, turned into a heated topic on TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The cut-out “smile” face, with users putting his smile over theirs, indicates a dual position—affirmation of his work as a firm political leader in Assam versus resistance from liberal camps regarding his subtle monopolistic behaviour. Their “smile” also deconstructs multiple layers of his social personality. It can also be politically pictured as a grotesque meme of an avatar, that lies within what Russo (1994, p. 9) analysed in relation to the “psychic register and to the bodily as a cultural projection of the inner state.” Nonetheless, his diction and pronunciation of certain words have turned him into a celebrated person, so that imitating him generates revenue for many. So in a way the politics of TikTok redefines intricate linkages between entertainment and politics. Apart from a disciplined demeanour, some politicians might take on funny-ness in the performance of politics in order to generate a captivating impact for TikTok users (or followers). In fact, they unintendedly or deliberately provide content to TikTokers. Rather than merely admiring the movies based on nationalism, the politicians also employ commercial Bollywood movies and their superstars to ingrain their “charisma” or transfer the actors’ charisma to themselves. This charisma also invokes power at multiple levels, garnering mass political participation in critical “public spaces,” and enhancing the social visibility of the marginalised in a democracy like India. In a way, this enhances democratisation of the conditions for claiming citizenship, state objectivity, and equality of opportunity—not merely as a homogenous belongingness in a democratic, secular country but also as a process of recognising asymmetrical social identities. Thus, today, hierarchy is built, re-built, and negated

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between India’s ordinary masses and their celebrated politicians in TikTok’s political discourse.

4.3.2 TikTok’s Influence in Bangladesh As a neighbour to India, Bangladesh’s demographics and politics attracts global attention as the eighth most populous country in the world. The twin processes of high population growth and a few economic reforms over the recent past has also turned the country into a fertile ground for TikTok. As a widely popular application among the youth, TikTok garnered substantial revenues for the country, including income for the unemployed, while also opening new portals of information. While other similar media applications such as Likee was launched around 2017 in Bangladesh as an initiative of a Singaporean Technology Firm named BIGO Technology, it still remained less popular than TikTok. In addition, whereas proper content creation across other audio–video applications like YouTube requires a host of technical tasks and knowledge—scripts, presentation, editing, multiplying effects, adding, and publishing. In that place, TikTok works as a ready-made fast input loop where audio files are present beforehand for the users to apply and viralise themselves. Just as people adorn themselves with pieces of jewellery or fashionable clothing, TikTok provides fashion for their bodies, their social existence, and their urge to reach the standards of being “celebrated” i.e., between being an ordinary human and somewhat more than an ordinary person. This echoes common behaviour across the globe. However, what is intriguing here is the intricate overlapping of religion and politics in Bangladesh. As a country with the third-highest Muslim population in the world, it is governed as a unitary, parliamentary, constitutional republic. With a centralised authority, people’s voices also play a role in selecting the country’s elected representatives. Here TikTok has a huge impact on youthful voters making informed choices, reinterpreting the politicians’ statements, and even criticising them in controversial situations. A significant instance relates to the communal violence that occurred in Bangladesh in 2021, when minority Hindu groups were attacked across the country during their annual Durga Puja festival (Express Web Desk, 2021). As an instant reaction, many citizens used social media platforms like TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook to express their displeasure, irrespective of their religion. Conversely, a few radical Islamic groups took the routes of justification and denial. This also posed an immense threat to the “public image” of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, admired for her liberal and secular outlook. Numerous TikTok users stormily protested with distrust and apprehensiveness at the Prime Minister while declaring resentment over failed promises to protect minorities from regular threats and killings. The popularity of TikTok can also be seen through its role in the political economy of governance. While initially following countries like India to pose a ban on TikTok in 2019, the government of Bangladesh then partly backtracked, turning it into a

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legal but censored application—due to the app’s huge revenue-generating potential, its grassroot political appeal, and the creation of new voters. These revenues play a significant role in the developmental prospects of the country and election campaign fundings. Today, Bangladesh’s political scenario is marked by stark competition between two political leaders: Ms. Sheikh Hasina, the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh and President of the Bangladesh Awami League, and Ms. Khaleda Zia, the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh and Chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Visible spats between these two competitors are often disseminated as curious contents by TikTok users. Their clothing and makeup, gestures of hurling comments at each other, and facial deformities too, are exploited as subjects of humour. In a TikTok video, a woman simultaneously dressed as Ms. Hasina and Ms. Zia, is seen speaking in two different tones. To add a symbolic element to the fun-filled content, the makeup and much-talked-about eyebrows of Ms. Zia were emulated. While pseudo-Hasina states: Aajke aapnader shokoler haate phone, ei mobile phone keh dieche? Awami Sorkar dieche! (in a prideful tone), pseudo-Zia counteracts with an argument, “Chup thako, beyadoob kothakar! Mone korechen ki, desh taa ki apnader aklar! (in a tone of rage) (TCN_Insider Tips, 2018, 0:01). The first statement translates to: “Today, you all have mobile phones in your hands, who gave you these? The Awami Government gave! The second statement translates to,:“Shut up! Shameless one! What do you think, is the country only yours?” These statements were uttered by the competitors in two different and unrelated contexts, but the TikTok users assembled them to signify the political climate of Bangladesh, the ambivalent status of citizens within the rule of power, and the competitive drive to monopolise sovereignty. As a strategy for exercising citizenship and political participation, real-time oneliners used in mass media and its quick reproduction in a public-virtual platform like TikTok, offer ways of understanding humour as a “peripheral power exercise” to expose dubious political situations (Roy, 2022, p. 187). An example of this is Khusite-Thelay-Ghorte, a TikTok video that began trending before the 2018 national election in Bangladesh. Initially, it took place when a television reporter asked a few women standing in a queue outside the pooling booth, why they came to cast their votes a second time despite it being evident that they already voted. One of the old women uttered that she was given the task to stand, the second woman stated that she likes being there, and the third woman came up with an exquisite reaction of “Khusite-Thelay-Ghorte” in Bangla, that translates to “joy, being pushed and roam.” This response destabilised the rationality of a legitimate civic affair to a sort of transitory recreation park. Although in South Asian countries elections resemble the air of festivals and grand celebrations, its panorama is broad enough to traverse physical and virtual spaces. In his exploration of elections in the context of North-East India, Das (2018) posited that an election is a divine affair where popular political leaders like B. Ajmal perform the functions of a spiritual healer (through his orations) and a strong leader to vote for. He furthered his argument by stating that during elections food and jewellery stalls are set up, children and women dress up in new clothes, enjoying their day free from

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routine work and being on their own. These joys today garner better currency over TikTok, as humorous liners like Khusite-Thelay-Ghorte continued to be trended by TikTokers until the beginning of 2019, even after the national election. This statement went on to become a party anthem in Bangladesh, sung by pop singer Asif Akbar. In relation to this, Roy (2022, p. 187) noted that Khusite-Thelay-Ghorte prose: …may not have a political connotation if we take it out of the context, but just using the prose for such ordinary and quotidian purposes has an implicit reference to the national election and the nature of polling in Bangladesh. It feeds into the claims of the opposition parties and also certain reports that raised questions about free and fair nature of the election, which was allegedly engineered by the party in power.

Such vernacular discourses create negotiations between the rules of TikTok, devices used, users using it, and the value contestations over socio-political ideologies in everyday life. In fact, such humorous responses mask direct confrontations hurled at the political parties by the ordinary masses and celebrities, either using brooms, makeup brushes, or chunnis (long scarf material) over heads to symbolise the thrashing of political party corruptions. Such instances of “TikTok for politics” and “the politics of TikTok”, conferring a performative dimension to politics, invite people into the pull and push of frankness versus control (Fingas, 2020). It follows the analysis of Vijay and Gekker (2021, p. 717) regarding the playfulness of politics on TikTok, where a single mini-video can acquire different meanings in different contexts. They further note two forms of play—doing and looking. The former “studies the playful and silly civic practices through which citizenship is enacted” whereas the latter disburses a transgressive force that “stretches and explores the limits of political participation, laying bare the conditions of possibility: what forms of play are permissible, what are not and to what extent.” The above example where pseudo-Hasina and pseudo-Zia were pitted against each other in TikTok, was actually the same person reflecting two different personalities on the nation-making project. Such messages on TikTok get shaped into a humorous element that normalises socially disruptive or politically perverse comments. But it also invokes considerations as to whether the transformative approaches of political parties pushed by the ordinary masses, might be moulded into misinformation. Whereas some of TikTok’s content could be categorised as disinformation, misinformation, or hate speech, this is not necessarily the case all the time. These technologies used in our everyday life as citizens or as critics of political practices could succumb to the threat of legal action against TikTokers vocally expressing factual but politically improper content. This ambivalent situation is a form of “content appropriation” on TikTok in which the multi-faceted TikTok modes of expression for subject-object relations is absorbed into the larger structural power relationship between civic political agents and the politics of authoritarianism, the latter then directing it to support governance.

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4.4 Critical TikToking In South Asian countries, political practices and power plays show typical characteristics of emotion-laden appeals, values, and social performances. The masses cheering for political figures in election campaigns and running behind the cars of the leaders to shake hands, reveals the disjointed yet popular celebration of political culture. In countries like India and Bangladesh, the visuals of ordinary masses participating in rallies, party campaigns, charity-works by political figures, and even meeting their favourite leaders in person, constitutes a channel of consumption and distribution of democratic commitments—involving negotiation, conciliation, and promises of welfare. Today, such commitments to the people as voters are transferring morally charged political practices from physical to virtual platforms like TikTok. Influencers on TikTok, using their language of political approval or criticism, as well as applying colourful visuals to attract their followers, turn their social roles from passive receivers of democratic/republican socio-political ways of life to managers of such overarching political structures. TikTok influencers embrace idiosyncratic and spatial actions within the platform to derive intricate and layered meanings of populism. The voices of TikTokers within the circle of populism “presents itself both as subversive of the existing state of things and as the starting point for a more or less radical reconstruction of a new order whenever the previous one has been shaken” (Laclau, 2005, p. 177). However, this also generates two-sided implications for political culture: the saturation of elitism and ordinariness through diluted spatial, temporal, and conflict-based interactions, or approval, scepticism, and even disapproval of using TikTok for political contents. For instance, in India where the rightwing party claims leadership as the protector of democracy, religion, and nationalism, contents of some TikTok users are often objected to for leftist performances, instead favouring people of a specific religious belief. On the other hand, the overintegration of young people with parties of their choice often raises debates as to why entertainment platforms like TikTok are used as an effective political weapon, even if political leaders are not themselves involved directly or visibly. This puts forth a case for the federal-fragmentary nature of politics in post-colonial societies like India and Bangladesh. While TikTok users deal with the affective immersion of political agendas among the masses, the political leaders took charge of the offline world that intersects with locales and the local. So, as the ideologues of “nation-states” plays an indispensable role, “one cannot ignore the location of online politics [TikTok here] within a transnationally networked public culture” (Pathak & Roy, 2017, p. 161). Political strategists in India defined TikTok as an appropriate channel for reaching out to most of the users as first-time voters who mix the essence of loyalty towards a party or party leader with the creation of entertaining contents, like #myfirstvotefor …, a micro-movement across TikTok (Kamath, 2022). Such hashtags largely act as symbols of visible populistic movements and the conscious goals of democratisation in India while reinforcing authoritarian power for some. One no longer requires a formal/official designation to prepare political content or participate in politics per

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se. TikTokers have overturned this former state of affairs, integrating themselves into political party activities. This is akin to a form of social performance: “the actor, collective representations, means of symbolic production, mise-en-scène that means ‘putting into the scene,’ social power and audience are set into the stage of consolidation of nationalism (and hyper-nationalism) or people’s aspirations” (Roy, 2018, p. 257). So, today political practice moves far beyond the trope of redistributive justice. Platforms like TikTok and its diverse users and influencers demand mass recognition with reconciliation, the institutionalisation of their influence, and reaction to crises in political leadership. Khela Hobe (The game is on) fever was popularised as an election anthem by the regional All India Trinamool Congress of West Bengal (TMC) for its political campaigns against the national majoritarian party − Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Later, the Khela Hobe’s popularity increased significantly when users and influencers around TikTok utilised the platform creatively, ranging from dance moves with brooms, politicians fighting among themselves, ousting BJP spokespersons and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to portraying romantic acts in loud makeup and hairdo. Such trends gained so much popularity for the Trinamool Congress that it emerged victorious in the state election of 2021 (Konar, 2022). However, the historical inception of “Khela Hobe” manifests another trajectory of cross-border mobility of TikTok contents and users, strengthening political relationships between neighbouring countries i.e., India and Bangladesh. This slogan was the brain-child of Shamim Osman, an Awami League party politician and a member of parliament from the Narayanganj-4 constituency of Bangladesh. It started making rounds from 2013 to 2014 when Osman began convincingly opposing the coalition of BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party), a right-wing party, and Jamat-e-Islami (Islamist conservatives) in favour of bringing about religious freedom for different groups. That slogan quickly went beyond political and cultural geographies to turn into a spiritual sustenance for TMC members. Later in 2021, this Bengali slogan came to be used by North Indians in Punjab (an Indian state) and Hindi-speaking people too, regaining popularity back in Bangladesh. This continual mobility of circulating phrases shared political sensibilities and imagination among the masses on both sides of the border while returning nostalgic moments of the Indian independence movement in 1947 with its violent partition. This can be further seen from Osman’s visit to Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal where some of his relatives lived before India’s partition. An excerpt reads, “at least six youngsters walk up to Shamim Osman [in Kolkata], each of them congratulating him for coining the popular slogan ‘Khela Hobe’” (Dasgupta, 2022). A proud moment for this politician, this re-defined the symbolic connectivity of common Bengali language across national borders, even if political geographies are constitutionally separated. The Bengali language channels the interactions between political leaders of the two countries through which Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is often seen sending congratulatory gifts and videos to the Chief Minister of Assam and West Bengal for their policies and victories in elections. As this too begets TikTok content-making, the virtual followers of political leaders often spread these congratulatory contents to increase the political credibility and

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hegemony of the leaders; receiving praise from Ms. Hasina increases the support of Mr. Sharma (the Chief Minister of Assam). Such interlinkages of politics, commerce, and vote-banking, make elections and identities of leaders a mirror image-like festival event in India and Bangladesh. If TikTok acts as a symbol of a populist, level-playing field, then the way TikTok politics surfaced through defining, reproducing, sensitising, and even resisting inequity, calls for attention. Political parties in India operate through layered grassroot frameworks like the formal Panchayati Raj members (elected members from within a local self-government system in Indian villages), the informal dalals (middle-men operating rather illegally in India for garnering votes or even disbursing welfare benefits to the poor), and young party volunteers. Such agents of political parties viralised their memes and dialogues before elections or during the COVID-19 pandemic to maintain loyalty among the public towards their parties and shower continued support for their parties’ actions. It pitched in to commercialise voters’ choices, the distribution of governance, and its sovereign-neutral features. Such sharing of memes on the TikTok by dalals and villagers acts as a coping mechanism for the vulnerable masses’ peripherality while turning the state into a “live theatre in which the unaffected audience witnesses major actors improvising” (Khaja, 2021). This theatre-like political situation boils over with debates regarding banning or non-banning of TikTok.

4.5 Digital Politicking India banned TikTok under the Information Technology Act 2000, through the directives of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, Ministry of Home Affairs. Reportedly, this was done to adopt diligent measures of shutting down any widespread harmful content (Scroll Staff, 2020), despite several advocates and activists for the social media platforms promoting the tool of regulation rather than a complete ban. The banning decision also emerged from the heated tensions over the Indo-China border dispute involving the protection of India’s sovereignty and political-legal codes. The ban aimed at closing China’s revenue from the Indian economy, as ByteDance (the parent company) seemingly had estimated an Indian loss of over USD 6 billion (PTI, 2020)—in turn making the political leaders more popular for their approach in such a cold war situation. Whereas cold war considerations influenced India’s decision, Bangladesh moved against some objectionable contents affecting youngsters and children, like pornography. Upon unearthing the sex-trafficking racket ranging from Bangladesh to India, TikTok turned out to be a market-generator of crimes where more than 500 Bangladeshi teenage girls were lured into sex-work in the South Indian state of Karnataka (AFP, 2021). This prompted the spearheading of written petitions by a few lawyers in the Dhaka High Court, where further orders for ban are pending. Nonetheless, as TikTok incorporates the masses and their social roles as producers, consumers, and distributors of contents, the disjuncture between citizenship and state evaluation of “what is trendy” often leads users to the charges of sedition. In one

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example, Ramesh Solanki, an activist from Shiv Sena (a regional political party in Maharashtra, the Western Indian state) lodged a complaint against a group of seven TikTok influencers with followers, for provoking people to avenge a Muslim man’s death (OpIndia Staff, 2019). This led to conflicts between Hindu and Muslim TikTokers, turning the religious divide into a popular political value. Similarly, in Bangladesh TikTokers criticising government policies and “defaming” political leaders are often arrested. A case in point: a young man talking about corruption and displaying the poor quality of materials used for the Padma Bridge in Dhaka was put on a 10-day remand. Such incidents emerge either through the innate passion of participating in civil and political liberties as citizens, or following the viral(ing) of contents to gain income (as TikTok users can pay each other for outstanding contents). This cross-commerce and viral communication between ordinary people makes TikToking a populist platform of exchange within equals alongside the corporate make-up. Viral(ing) takes few days, weeks or months when users deem debates to be pivotal for their national society, economy, culture, and polity. In the context of India and Bangladesh, religion and politics form a complex, life-sustaining entanglement. Here TikTok functions as a quick platform for users from religious minority groups to state their grievances, something that might not be otherwise possible to voice in district, provincial, or national forums—such as the hijab controversy of female Muslim students in Indian educational institutions, the genocide of Hindus and Christians in Pakistan and Bangladesh, gastronomical politics related to banning beef meat in India, forced religious conversions, rapes and abductions of minor Hindu girls in Pakistan, etc. This can be expanded as a ray of light for progressive populism and the ordinary masses to address crises in a manner that secures democratic projects by upholding civic, political, and economic rights (Fraser, 2017). Initially emerging as a concept resisting neo-liberal capitalist democracy, populism later turned into a mix and match of thin and ambivalent political discourse. TikToking remains a similar process, where users and voters mobilise themselves, presenting “not only democratic exercises of self-constituting popular sovereignty” (Mueller, 2019) but also defining themselves as the constituent power. This can be rooted in the practices of TikTok as combining several schools of populistic thought to define ordinary “people” as not merely the poor but also “elites,” resisting certain circumstances and policies in a political democracy and republic (India and Bangladesh) respectively. Furthermore, TikTok offers space to visualise the people’s ordinary life routines. “TikTok for politics” as an “ordinary” activity of life resembles Pathak’s (2021, p. 4) ordinariness as a “complex structure, experience and idea” (p. 4). As he notes (p. 5): “The idea of ordinariness shall be revealed through our personal association with it … enchantment of ordinariness does not allow the separation of personal ordinariness from the public and the political.” Within these manners of sharing mundane experiences that shape inter-group dynamics, memes and video clips with stickers like sunglasses placed over someone’s face, defines adaptive resistance. As Thurm (2018, p. 1) analyses meme-functionalities: “The closer words are shared and the deeper they are held, the harder it becomes for their users to back away from the things they are doing when they speak.”

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Being a “TikTok star” along with being a politician today, adds more heft to one’s career profile, designation, and qualifications. For instance, after the death and alleged murder of Ms. Sonali Phogat, a party member of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on 22nd August 2022 in Goa (Pandey, 2022), she was referred to with various additions to her biography—as a party member who contested the 2019 state assembly election in Haryana, a former contestant in popular reality show Bigg Boss, and a former TikTok star. Her case depicted a typical representation of the outer-worldly expansion of material bodies and its limits in the neo-liberal world. While her death caused deeply emotive pain among her familial members, friends and fans, others felt a loss of her video-making skills on TikTok. So apart from sensitising one’s socio-bodily absence from physical-material spaces, the figurative absence from the virtual world and making of collective memories, destabilises social relationships. Such forms of virtual “populism” work as a shifting and flowing paradigm for political power today. With access to information on the details of Phogat’s navigations, many followers and users on platforms like Twitter and TikTok (those who had installed it before the ban) are demanding justice for her. Through popular resistance, her old videos are being viralised for the public to memorialise her, use her voice for appeals, and even re-craft her assertive anecdotes. This blending of elite Ms. Phogat’s preserved voice and the material body of other “ordinary” masses makes for her transhuman distribution across several spaces. The more than human characteristics of Phogat are displayed through old videos of her evocative appeals to the public that reified her political position. Even if the contexts of her contents and those of her fans regarding her appeared in different contexts, it settled around the interlinkages of offline and online space of political practices. This echoed political authoritarianism for Phogat through the masses’ production of affective dualisms, or what Papacharissi (2015, p. 62) argued as blending of “affective gestures [as a rational choice] that provide the basis for how individuals connect and tune into the events in the making.” These can accentuate feelings of community formation across social media before the issue reaches the broadcast media. Demanding justice for Phogat, sneak-peeking into her friends, her daughter crying before cameras, etc.—turns emotions into power, aligning actual experience of the event with liminality in content and its painful affects as a political reinstatement for marketing Phogat corporeality as an icon of BJP. Hence, using affect as a dynamic interlinkage of one’s self (as a TikToker), space and place, and the representative body of the other produces a “text.” Locating practices of “TikTok for politics” and “politics of TikTok” in India and Bangladesh, such as replicating Mamata Banerjee’s humorous tones, mimicking Himanta Biswa Sharma’s gestures, referencing clothing of Ms. Sheikh Hasina and Ms. Zia, and even capturing Ms. Phogat’s dances—all produce and reproduce TikTok as a digital structure where every accumulation of bits and programming codes can make contents and emotions of the masses a networked item to develop a political face. Rather than mere protocol-oriented(ness) of political practice, TikTok and its texture of ethos, pathos, and opinions, turns politics into a matter of marketing and affectivity, where the “affect is subjectified through its connection to a body [bodies of TikTokers here],

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thought, or idea and desubjectified through (the potential of) interactions with other bodies, thoughts, or ideas” (Papacharissi, 2015, p. 14). Thus, through TikTok, processes of populism, digitisation, and emotive networking, are entwined in complex relationships with each other, remaining instrumental for Indian and Bangladeshi political discourses.

4.6 Conclusion TikTok and the practices of TikToking are highly dynamic and procedural in nature, enabling millions of people to mesh their bodies, selves, and environment for critical politicking. In other words, the inclusivity that TikToking provides incorporates several narratives for subverting dominant and hegemonic seats of political authority. Today, this is highly visible across South Asian countries like India and Bangladesh, where politics, nationalism, elections, and power relations stand in an inextricable relationship to each other. To this can be added other dimensions such as entertainment, that re-define political practices and legal-regulatory actions. For instance, dialogues and one-liners from superhit Bollywood (Indian film industry) and Dhallywood (Bangladeshi film industry) movies are often coupled with sarcasm, fun, comments, humorous enactments, raps, and ridicule, to circuitously transfer a social message to some politicians regarding their actions and decisions. This is often contextual and erupts after political rifts, election malpractices, and socioreligious debates. This too enlarges the space for transitioning the social status of TikTokers from mere users to “influencers,” where ordinary people with many followers are given celebrity treatments. Several influencers also pursue their careers in entertainment and showbiz industries, making their voices heard against or in favour of a political figure with greater social status. Rather than formally attending any political campaigns, a section of TikTokers follow the influencers, thereby choosing for whom to vote. While it can incite anxiety of getting censored for protesting against charismatic politicians, TikToking also shapes consumers by providing information, public culture, populism, and even deviant ideas. The latter are often too complex to comprehend, with equal chances of being called an information disorder or inviting charges against TikTok stars as participating in defamation propaganda orchestrated by opposition parties. Such subtle crossings, collisions, and contestations between two positions, and between TikTok stars and official politicians, might provide an unfavourable impression of democracy. Thus, the personal often turns political, in and over TikTok. In the final analysis, it is not farfetched to argue that the Internet’s political economy in which cheap network packages are distributed across South Asia, or the Indian and Bangladeshi government’s policies towards free internet services with some housekeeping rules; all facilitate TikTok users to make a lot of content and “viralise” it. TikTok and TikToking are therefore enmeshed in creative configurations, bargaining powers, critical politicking, and affective network productions,

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as well as contestations and consolidations of ordinary citizens and political leaders, giving rise to a discourse of celebrity digital politics in South Asia.

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Ratan Kumar Roy is an Assistant Professor of the School of General Education at BRAC University, Dhaka. He was the Charles Wallace Bangladesh Trust Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow 2022–23 at South Asia Centre of LSE, UK. Trained in Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Dhaka and South Asian University, he has worked as a television journalist in Bangladesh. Dr. Roy was a research fellow at the Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, JMI (New Delhi) and the Asia Culture Centre (Korea). He is the author of Television in Bangladesh: News and Audiences (Routledge, 2021).

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Ahana Choudhury is a Research Scholar at the Department of Sociology of Tezpur University, India. Her research interest includes sociology of care, ageing, family and digital media. Her latest publication work includes “Care as work: ayahs and eldercare practices in India,” International Journal of Care and Caring, 2023. In addition, she also functioned in the capacity of a Research Associate, in a project funded by the UNICEF, Assam.

Chapter 5

The Dangerous but Efficacious Potency of the Social Media Behemoth TikTok on U.S. Politics with Gen Z: Conceptualizing Mis-, Disinformation and Propaganda on TikTok Young Joon Lim and Lynse Larance Guerra

5.1 Why is TikTok Popular? Social media have been around for two decades. Its premise was to keep one connected with friends. Later it grew to adding friends that had never been met in real life. The idea of seeing content from those one chose to follow was the premise of MySpace, Facebook and Instagram. That model was completely turned upside down with the arrival of TikTok whose popularity exploded during the lockdown peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. With millions around the world hunkered down in their homes with far less to do than normal, bored individuals started looking for something new to do. Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s vice president of global business solutions and head of ad sales, attributed the main factors of its success to diversity in video content and creators who posted inspiring stories customized for a wide range of audiences (Littleton, 2021). TikTok was recognized as a dancing app for teenagers in the late 2010s and began to gain popularity by feeding social media users funny, educational, informative, and entertaining content in the format of 15-s videos. In early 2021, many Americans still did not know what TikTok was. Yet it already boasted more active user engagement than Twitter, more watch minutes than YouTube, more app downloads than Facebook, and even more site visits than Google (Klein, 2022). In the first half of 2022, TikTok as Y. J. Lim (B) Department of Communication, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Texas, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. L. Guerra SGR Law Firm, Texas, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9_5

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an entertainment social media platform became “the most-downloaded and highestearning non-game app in the world,” as well as “one of the most engaged user bases among social networking apps” (Chan, 2022). There is little doubt that TikTok has emerged as the biggest and most popular social media platform from the early 2020s by surpassing other prevalent competitors such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram. When it comes to TikTok’s U.S. user base, the New York Times reported that Americans were spending an average of 82 min a day on the platform, three times more than on Snapchat or Twitter and twice as long as Instagram or Facebook in early 2022 (Hsu, 2022). The most compelling logic for explaining the tremendous success of TikTok within its two years of exploding popularity can be found in its maximum allowable time of 60 s, but most are 15 s videos, thus incorporating the brevity of Twitter and visuality of YouTube and Snapchat into an effective social media strategy for producing viral video content. TikTok has since added a three-minute video feature; however, its shorter format remains the most popular. Facebook and later Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg once validated TikTok’s magic formula, lamenting that he should have jumped sooner on “the trend of video content sharing at the start,” misjudging TikTok as merely “a shorter version of YouTube” (Mellor, 2022). In other words, the shorter version of YouTube, once dismissed as a silly dance-video fad, turned out to be a powerful, magic bullet that now dominates the social media community. A wealth of research conducted by market measurement firms and tech experts have revealed eight main characteristics that make TikTok the most downloaded app worldwide based on TikTok users’ reviews (Brandon, 2022; Doyle, 2022; Harwell, 2022; McAuliffe, 2022; Serrano, 2021; Southern, 2021): 1. TikTok users found content on TikTok unique compared to other social media platforms, citing that it was entertaining, fun, and provided joy; 2. TikTok users appreciated the content’s authenticity in association with feelings of bravery and freedom; 3. TikTok users found themselves less jealous, bored, or stressed while using the platform; 4. TikTok users feel more comfortable expressing their feelings without judgment, as opposed to other major social media apps; 5. TikTok users are more open to watching new products or brands if the users are entertained; 6. TikTok users trust other users to be their real selves on TikTok; 7. TikTok users feel a sense of community on TikTok making them excited to engage with one another; and 8. TikTok users feel swift and time efficient as they can decide in less than five seconds to keep watching or move to the next video. Whereas major social media platforms thrived on connecting friends and families, TikTok’s unique characteristics of authenticity, brevity, visuality, and entertainment during the peak of COVID-19 inspired YouTube to develop YouTube’s Shorts and Meta to introduce Meta’s Reels. However, TikTok continues to dominate the field. What is not yet known is whether TikTok will go the way of earlier social

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media platforms like MySpace, Vine, and Google Plus. TikTok’s current reign as the king of social media shows no end in sight as it expands its digital, cyber territory from a social media platform to a search engine by gunning for Google. According to the Washington Post, TikTok users increasingly take advantage of the app as a visual search tool that replaces Google, saying “I don’t Google anymore, I TikTok” (Harwell, 2022). Since more than 100 million Americans, roughly a third of the country, are using TikTok, the term TikTok will soon be used as a verb among the general public. In a nutshell, TikTok poses a threat to Google as a search engine. A Google executive acknowledged the risk, noting that nearly half of “young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search,” they turn to TikTok (Delouya, 2022). When Facebook enjoyed its glory days as the social media king several years ago, the public believed that social media existed to connect people all around the world with cute, friendly photos and kind, inspiring words. As users of the Facebook platform became increasingly negative and posts became more political, interest in Facebook decreased. TikTok’s environment is different. It first focused on entertainment amid the coronavirus outbreak, and then it broadened the social media spectrum to discourse and ideology. Still there were U.S. national security concerns over TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance, one of the most influential companies in China. Now that the seemingly one-time silly video app has unexpectedly grown to become the dominant power in the social media world where Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook used to be considered invincible players, it is time to discuss how TikTok will change and affect the way Americans think and behave regarding its influence on public opinion and politics in the United States, as the most influential social media, content platform. The present discussion originates from the perspective of media effects in a paradigm of manufacturing information and disseminating messages in American politics.

5.2 U.S. National Security Against China’s Meddling in American Politics Via TikTok From the start of 2020, the globe was engulfed by a new global disease named coronavirus. While the world was suffering physically, mentally, and economically, the two global superpowers, United States and China, found themselves entangled in a political war blaming each other for the origin of the virus. President Donald Trump waged a trade war against China after taking office. Before the outbreak, he had already signed an executive order in 2019 against two Chinese communications companies, Huawei and ZTE. Its purpose was to prevent Chinese telecommunications companies from selling tech equipment in the U.S., “a move aimed at neutralizing Beijing’s ability to compromise next-generation wireless networks and U.S. computer systems” (Geller, 2019). President Trump later pinpointed China as the source of the coronavirus pandemic and dubbed it “The Chinese Virus.” The virus

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crippled the U.S. economy, as it did much of the world’s economies. As some of the biggest U.S. digital platforms such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook were banned from operating in China, the political tension between the two global giants was fully apparent in the TikTok ban by the U.S. president. Trump confronted a large amount of criticism from the American public in terms of his handling of the coronavirus deaths. In the summer of 2020, President Trump demanded TikTok to be sold to American companies over concerns that Chinese tech companies and apps posed a threat to U.S. national security. He aimed to dismantle TikTok, first ordering top branches of the U.S. government and military to erase the app from government-issued phones, and then demanding that the video app be sold if it was to remain in U.S. app stores. On August 6, 2020 President Trump invoked his emergency economic powers to impose broad sanctions against TikTok, arguing that TikTok was capturing vast swaths of information from its American users, including location data and Internet search history, which could be handed over to the Chinese Communist Party that would “track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage” (Allyn, 2020). The Trump administration’s fear of TikTok was derived from the Chinese government’s controlling power over its domestic corporations. The administration believed China was capable of forcing Chinese global corporations to gather data and information within the United States and spread alternative narratives or disinformation campaigns to the American public in the interest of the communist country. In response to Trump’s executive order TikTok issued a press release the next day (August 7), stating that the social media company was “shocked by the recent Executive Order, which was issued without any due process… TikTok has never shared user data with the Chinese government…. This Executive Order risks undermining global businesses’ trust in the United States’ commitment to the rule of law…. TikTok has never, and will never, waver in our commitment to you. We prioritize your safety, security, and the trust of our community—always” (TikTok, 2020, August 7). In addition, TikTok officials pointed out that the data TikTok captured on U.S. users was stored mostly in its Virginia data center, and the company had never turned over any U.S. data to Chinese authorities (Allyn, 2020). In September 2020, U.S. computer tech firm Oracle and retailer Walmart proposed buying around 20% of TikTok Global with a combined $12 billion while allowing ByteDance to retain 80% in hopes of moving TikTok’s data to U.S.-controlled infrastructure. This was after ByteDance had earlier the same month rejected a plan by Microsoft to buy the U.S. arm of TikTok (Daley, 2020). The Oracle-Walmart announcement served as a political catalyst for Trump to reinforce his messages that he was the “protector” of Americans “against external, particularly Chinese, threats from coronavirus to Tik Tok” (Daley, 2020). However, the politically driven deal did not go through as ByteDance walked away by declaring that it would not sell the video sharing app’s U.S. operations to Oracle Corp. and Walmart Inc. In February 2021, ByteDance explained that the deal was “mainly designed to entertain demands from the Trump administration” (Rubio-Licht, 2021). Trump’s White House departure led to the end of discussions of a deal. Biden was sworn in by U.S. Chief Justice

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John Roberts as the 46th president of the United States in January 2021. President Biden signed an executive order revoking the Trump-era bans on TikTok, directing the Commerce Department to investigate the risk of apps connected to foreign adversaries, including China, that might pose a threat to both U.S. national security and American data privacy. About a year after President Biden revoked the Trump-initiated ban on TikTok, BuzzFeed News reported that ByteDance employees in China had gained access to TikTok’s U.S. data as recently as 2022 despite a TikTok executive’s sworn testimony in an October 2021 Senate hearing that only “a world-renowned, US-based security team decides who gets access to this data” (Baker-White, 2022). A member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department told the BuzzFeed News, “everything is seen in China,” referring to the Chinese government’s access to TikTok’s U.S. data, including sensitive information like Americans’ birthdays and phone numbers (Baker-White, 2022). Based on the news report, the Trump administration’s concern that TikTok data on over 100 million American users would end up in the hands of Chinese intelligence appeared accurate. After the exposé item was published, nine Republican senators in June 2022 sent a letter to TikTok, questioning the company about its security practices. TikTok responded by detailing how it planned to be run from Oracle’s machines and audited by a third party to prevent American TikTok data from being used by its Chinese parent company and government. It turned out that in March 2022 TikTok was in the process of negotiating a deal with Oracle to store its U.S. users’ information, blocking its Chinese parent ByteDance from accessing it (Wang & Shepardson, 2022). Under political pressure from Republican lawmakers and American public fears of data breach before November’s midterm elections of 2022, the Biden administration reached a preliminary agreement with TikTok to resolve national security concerns in September 2022. TikTok assured the administration that it would make changes to its data security and governance in favor of U.S. security. The New York Times characterized the agreement as “a symbol of the Cold War-like atmosphere in relations between Beijing and Washington” in the middle of the titfor-tat of the two powerful nations “battling over primacy in technology and digital data” (Hirsch et al., 2022).

5.3 Conceptualization of Mis- and Disinformation and Propaganda Via TikTok TikTok is at the center of political conflict between the United States and China not because of the social media platform’s invasion of American privacy but because of its potential to become a deadly, manipulative, and propagandistic weapon that can have a monumental impact on American politics. More importantly, TikTok has the power to form or frame American public opinion as a search engine and an opinion sharing platform through a modus operandi of media manipulation. When

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the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won the 2016 election, a series of accusations of Russian meddling in the election arose, and a 2018 U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded that Russia, aiming to help Trump, used every major social media platform, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, to try to influence the 2016 U.S. election (Myre, 2021). The way Russia helped Trump win the election was not much different from traditional political media tactics of spreading misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda through the media against one’s opponent. However, one difference was their use of social media. For example, the Internet Research Agency of Russia, based in St. Petersburg, spearheaded the implementation of every dark media tactic to manipulate U.S. politics during the presidential campaign period of 2016 by (1) manufacturing sensationalist, conspiratorial, and other forms of junk political news, (2) spreading misinformation to American voters across the political spectrum, (3) producing disinformation to divide Americans by race, religion and ideology, and (4) promulgating propaganda against Hillary Clinton’s campaign operations (BBC, 2018; Hosenball, 2018). After Russia had adapted new cyber techniques designed to target U.S. voters across multiple social media platforms, the intelligence report pointed out that Russians effectively exploited the vulnerabilities of U.S. society by manipulating the American public in a way that undermined and manipulated its democracy with propagandistic, sensational, and fake political news and social media posts on major social media platforms, including ad slogans—“Hillary Clinton doesn’t deserve the black vote!” and “Trump is our only hope for a better future!” (Lee, 2018). 2020 saw the new rising star of social media, TikTok, transforming itself from an entertainment content platform to one of the most powerful digital algorithms that selects videos for TikTok users’ central feed. Their behavior and use of the platform are analyzed and collected in a form of data. Based on the users’ interests, TikTok plays a “rapid, hyper-efficient matchmaker” of personalized niches (Roose, 2020). TikTok’s unique algorithm technology traces and collects every swipe, tap and video viewed by TikTok users, and then it puts billions of data points into databases for artificial intelligence “to predict which videos will keep users’ attention” (Roose, 2020). According to a 2022 study published in the journal of Additive Behaviors, the concept of “TikTok addiction” emerges when users develop a dependence on the platform in which addiction-like behaviors negatively affect the users’ daily lives. “TikTok addiction” is without a doubt a very real thing (Smith & Short, 2022). TikTok’s algorithm during the pandemic, which forced humans into an online-only world in their working and their personal lives, offered users a playground of online escapism and eventually made them addicted to the seemingly harmless app (Smith, 2022). This phenomenon should be understood as one of the most compelling reasons both the Trump and Biden administrations made titanic efforts to place TikTok under its supervision. It was no secret that President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping were in a notoriously rocky relationship. Trump vying for a second term in office was concerned about Xi’s meddling in the 2020 U.S. presidential election through social

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media, as Russia had done during the 2016 election. Although the Trump administration insisted that the sale of TikTok’s American operations to Oracle and Walmart was to take a preventative measure against the Chinese government’s espionage in terms of spreading misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda, all threatening national security, the president was in fact worried about the Chinese government using the app as a vehicle for interfering in the upcoming presidential election, “perhaps through tweaking the TikTok’s algorithm to favor or disfavor videos supporting one candidate or another” (Schneider, 2020). As a result, TikTok was viewed as carrying a high probability of spreading misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda, all of which could influence American public opinion and lead to a specific election outcome. As the rocky relationship between President Xi and President Biden continued, the Biden administration rushed to finalize the sale of TikTok to Oracle before the 2022 midterm elections held on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. To have an in-depth understanding of TikTok and its influence on U.S. politics, it is imperative to discuss the main concepts and applications of misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda in association with TikTok.

5.3.1 Misinformation Misinformation is defined as “false and inaccurate information that is spread intentionally or unintentionally” as a massive amount instantaneously reaches a large audience via communication technologies at a very low cost (Chen et al., 2018). In other words, misinformation is loosely interpreted as incorrect, untrue, or halftruthful mostly political content presented as fact to target audiences. While too much information is available via the internet and social media functioning as the amplifier of both real and fake news articles, some articles might not be clearly structured, organized or even accessed. Islam et al. (2020) argued that the primary reasons for misinformation embedded in news articles stem from (1) a proportion of the available information is edited; (2) much of the available information is irrelevant; (3) information entropy: information is poorly organized and presented; and (4) information is overloaded (Islam et al., 2020). Research shows that individuals in the United States on average were exposed to 1–3 fake news stories online in the month before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and about one-quarter of American voters admitted to having shared fabricated political news online on purpose or by mistake (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Anderson & Rainie, 2017; Chen et al., 2018). Because TikTok struggled to contain misinformation regarding COVID-19 vaccines and face masks, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Eric Han, Head of U.S. Safety at TikTok, issued a press release in August 2022, noting that the platform works “hard to keep harmful misinformation and other violations” of TikTok policies off the platform as the U.S. midterm election campaigns continue (Han, 2022). However, more than “60 percent of videos with harmful misinformation were viewed by TikTok users” before being deleted in the first quarter of 2022, and misinformation is bound to prosper

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on TikTok because the platform still refuses to release data about “the origins of its videos,” according to tech experts (Hsu, 2022). Researchers in September 2022 found that nearly 1 in 5 of the TikTok videos automatically suggested by the platform’s algorithm contained misinformation based on TikTok’s search results for the topics of COVID-19, climate change, and Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine (Klepper, 2022a, 2022b, September 14). They also pointed out that many TikTok videos about abortion, the 2020 election, and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol were spreading misinformation.

5.3.2 Disinformation One of the most compelling definitions of the term disinformation is “false information, as about a country’s military strength or plans, disseminated by a government or intelligence agency in a hostile act of tactical political subversion,” as opposed to misinformation defined as “false information that is spread, regardless of intent to mislead” (Dictionary.com, 2022, August 15). Arayankalam and Krishnan (2021) argued that disinformation through social media platforms was considered a threat to national security since the alleged Russian involvement in the United Kingdom’s Brexit Referendum and the 2016 U.S. presidential election “with an agenda to undermine the democratic political legitimacy of these countries” by flooding their social media space with fake news articles and propagandistic comments to dissemble public opinion (Arayankalam & Krishnan, 2021, p. 1). Disinformation through social media has become an alarming threat worldwide, and each country’s active engagement of newly available technologies can influence “the hearts and minds of targeted audiences” in pursuit of creating “hatred and tension” among the public (Arayankalam & Krishnan, 2021, p. 2). In the United States, disinformation on the coronavirus vaccines, in which public health organizations and social media platforms tried to tackle the problem of anti-vaccine activism, provoked fears and polarized opinions thanks to anti-vaccination activists’ ability to avoid accountability for the misleading and pseudoscientific claims they spread through social media platforms with no editorial gatekeeping process (Witte, 2022). If the pre-TikTok era of social media was regarded as a genuine, full-spectrum privacy disaster, the current TikTok era brings up the subject of disinformation after the influential platform emerged as a great tool for spreading political messages and conspiracy theories (Herrman, 2022). For example, the war in Ukraine rapidly positioned TikTok as the number one source of disinformation thanks to “its gigantic number of users and minimal filtering of content,” according to a study by NewsGuard, a firm that monitors online mis- and disinformation, that also conducted “an experiment to see how long it would take” for new TikTok users to start receiving videos streamlining disinformation—“the answer was 40 min” (Agence France-Presse, 2022, 1–5).

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Thus, TikTok has become a prominent tool for manufacturing and spreading political disinformation. Although struggling to tackle and delete videos of disinformation, TikTok can serve as a primary driver for political disinformation that entices violence, racial conflict, and extremism (Mateo, 2022; Raphael, 2022). Now that the concerns about disinformation on TikTok have led to calls for tighter scrutiny and investigation, political actors increasingly seem to outsource their disinformation work to third-party PR and marketing firms that specialize in organizing and streamlining disinformation campaigns on behalf of their political clients (Goldstein & Grossman, 2021). One major consequence of the massive amount of disinformation videos being shared via TikTok is the difficulty filtering or correcting information. U.S. presidents Trump and Biden might have agreed upon one thing about TikTok: U.S. foreign adversaries, particularly Russia and China, can easily interfere with U.S. politics through their TikTok disinformation operations in which they aim to manipulate American public opinion.

5.3.3 Propaganda If the difference between misinformation and disinformation originates from the latter’s intent to deceive, and disinformation more often also thrives on targeting foreign nations, propaganda from a political warfare perspective can be conceptualized as a type of disinformation that is intentionally and falsely intended to deceive or mislead foreign audiences. In particular, propagandistic disinformation is designed to make citizens believe their own government is good or righteous, and enemy countries are evil. When social media tactics of propagandistic disinformation are implemented to attack and disorder foreign nations’ political landscape, they can easily undermine electoral processes, polarize the public, and erode trust in democratic institutions (Reddi et al., 2021). As research on propaganda has evolved into developing concepts of propaganda in the context of social media “across the fields of communication, political science, and information studies,” the definition of propaganda in a much more expansive manner can “feature disinformation as a core element” (Reddi et al., 2021, p. 3–4). It is a well-known fact that U.S. political parties traditionally turn to new media outlets to communicate their political agendas and interests with the public via news reporting. Liberal, conservative, and independent politicians hold news conferences, organize public events, participate in interviews, and issue press releases to grab media attention for publicity. Such traditional media relations strategies can be considered a comprehensive means of promoting political propaganda if their purposes have something to do with mere promotion of politically motivated power and influence on the public. Biased news articles, provocative, and highly edited coverage of images from cable television news programs, and manipulative comments on radio have been popular and dominant examples of how to spread political propaganda by targeting target audiences or more likely voters in the United States. Those traditional media

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outlets used as the tools of propagandistic message promotion are being replaced by social media platforms with a slew of unidentifiable, fake, and distorted sources of political propaganda. Beck (2022) argued that ambitious politicians use social media to spread dishonest rhetoric to serve nefarious purposes manufactured by baseless claims to boost their interests, in which “the effects of these actions can be seen in the destabilization of modern democratic processes” (Beck, 2022). Driven in large part by social media and its ability to circulate and disperse propagandistic information in a disguised form of trustable news, propagandistic information is conveniently delivered to most Americans’ smartphone apps, as social media is among the most common pathways “where people—particularly young adults—get their political news” (Mitchell et al., 2020). Propaganda in the digital age is spread via social media communication channels that are intended to relay manipulative messages embedded in such forms as videos, photos, memes, and texts. Propagandists aim to gain political power by painting political opponents or enemies in an unfavorable light, as well as by manipulating target audiences to behave in accordance with the propagandizer’s political intent (Born & Edgington, 2017). Hence, underlying the concept and practice of propaganda in the social media community is a wide range of communicative and psychological elements such as emotional appeals, manipulative persuasion, distorted or twisted truth, fake news dissemination, visually staged images, cyber warfare, provocative stunts, and negative campaigns. TikTok contains most of these elements needed for the practice of political propaganda for in the digital age. It can easily be flooded with a confusing mishmash of propagandistic images, especially regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Vynck et al., 2022). In response, the White House announced that it was closely watching TikTok’s rise as a dominant news source in association with pro-Kremlin/Putin propaganda of the Ukraine war and China’s support of Russia (Lorenz, 2022). Several members of Congress voiced concerns that TikTok could be a Trojan horse for secret Chinese propaganda (Harwell, 2022). There is little doubt that TikTok’s role in transmitting propaganda is rapidly brewing a perfect storm in which it “normalizes” and affects the way millions of Americans view wars, crises, and conflicts all around the world. Among U.S. government officials and lawmakers, TikTok is considered a formidable hub of databases that store misinformation and disinformation, as well as planting a seed for a propaganda war to undermine U.S. political stability (Fig. 5.1).

5.4 Gen Z’s Influence on American Politics Via TikTok Many American adults using social media platforms, particularly Facebook and Twitter, went through some unfortunate experiences of falling for fake news articles during the 2016 presidential election. They were exposed to President Trump’s endless series of tweet bombs until his Twitter account was permanently suspended in January 2021. Those years from early 2016 to late 2020 witnessed a powerful effect of social media in politics. Facebook earned its nickname as parents’ political online

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Fig. 5.1 Conceptualization of dis-, misinformation and propaganda via TikTok (Authors)

playground where they expressed the polarized opinions of liberals and conservatives. In contrast, Twitter was used for Trump to freely throw his thoughts that were often seen as offensive, provocative, insulting, or truthful, depending on political interpretations. After the takeover of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob in early 2021, news outlets accused Facebook and Twitter of fueling political conspiracies and violent insurgencies by deferring to Trump. Social media platforms allowed a positive feedback loop for Trump-organized conspiracy and violence that ultimately led to the mayhem (Kovach, 2021; Smith, 2021). The Capitol insurrection on January 6 was understood as an exemplary case that demonstrated the danger of politically motivated extreme activism fueled by social media platforms. Facebook and Twitter were blamed for becoming political megaphones that promoted the interests of Democratic and Republican politicians who would sacrifice anything for the support of American voters. However, until late 2020 TikTok was still characterized as a joyful social media platform to watch videos that were a mix of dance routines, cooking demonstrations, fun lip-synching, and entertaining pranks. Most American parents saw TikTok as a family-friendly social media space for kids where they could spend time together viewing silly, harmless, entertaining, and inspiring content. They believed that TikTok would be another short-lived trend (Moore & Haasch, 2021). Instead, in May 2021, less than three years since it launched in the United States, TikTok became “the first-ever Chinese-owned app to fully penetrate the American market” and became an object of “fascination, fear, confusion, and joy ever since” (Jennings, 2021). TikTok’s quick success, according to Shelly Banjo, Asia Bureau Chief of Bloomberg, stems from two factors: (1) the focus on attracting young social media users, early teenagers aged 13 to 16, and (2) the focus on creators whom TikTok was committed to making “TikTok famous” with an expectation of their loyalty to the platform (Jennings, 2021). In early 2020 people called

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TikTok “the world’s youngest app,” which encouraged parents to show their interest in the platform, and then they became “hooked” (Jennings, 2021). The process was compared to the phenomenon of BTS, a South Korean boy band, in which teenagers became loyal fans of the band and their parents joined the fandom following their kids. TikTok’s strategies to attract young kids first bore fruit, and of course the timing of the coronavirus lockdowns boosted TikTok’s take off (Kale, 2020). According to Pew Research, TikTok for American teenagers ages 13 to 17 is the top social media platform (Vogels et al., 2022). A growing number of college students ages 18 to 24 are also showing definite signs of “TikTok addiction,” entailing strong feelings of sadness when deprived of access to TikTok (Dolan, 2022). Since these age groups represent more than 60% of TikTok users and TikTokers, it may well be argued that TikTok has positioned itself as a “utopian” Gen Z playground equipped with popularity, supreme dominance, and strong addiction (Doyle, 2022). During the coronavirus pandemic TikTok turned out to be the young generation’s favorite online space where authenticity sells, love wins, and mostly dancing took place. Thanks to the young generation’s unique characteristics, TikTok has evolved into a prominent space for ideological formation, political activism, media manipulation, trolling, and political discourse. However, ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, did not mind showing hesitancy to be seen as a rising political platform. Gen Z, armed with social media skills and adaptation to new technology, spearheaded TikTok’s influential transformation from a social media venue for viral dance crazes to a political content platform. Most of Gen Z, viewed as the first generation of digital natives, had their first voting experience in the U.S. 2020 presidential election. They became accustomed to using TikTok as a means of spurring political conversations and social activism. The main reasons they are active in political discourse and activism is that they not only care about social responsibility and transparency more than any other generation, but they also enjoy being the first to find or do something (Aldea, 2022; Lorenz, 2022). As Gen Z sees TikTok as a space where they can gather and be pressed into action quickly, a huge variety of social and political issues have been addressed on TikTok. These include the Russian invasion of Ukraine, LGBTQ + activism, climate change, voter registration, the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, and Donald Trump. The most pivotal political event in which Gen Z showed their political strength through TikTok was their coverage of President Trump’s campaign rally held in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 21, 2020. It was then that the mainstream media and the public detected the stunning political influence of Gen Z who capitalized on the visual effects of TikTok in terms of injecting media manipulation and advocacy into political activism. Before that campaign day, Brad Parscale, the chairman of Trump’s re-election campaign, announced one million people requested tickets to be inside the venue to watch President Trump give a speech, but the attendance was way lower than expected—around 6,000 people (Lorenz et al., 2020). It turned out TikTok users trolled the President’s campaign, posting videos that directed people to go to Trump’s website, register to attend the event, and then not show up. As a result, potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for the Trump’s campaign rally fell for the TikTok political prank. While most mainstream media outlets agreed that teens

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used TikTok to sabotage President Trump’s Tulsa rally, TikTok and its Gen Z users together garnered considerable media attention as a promising political powerhouse for upcoming U.S. elections. Aidan Kohn-Murphy, the founder of Gen-Z for Change, a coalition of about 500 progressive social media influencers, told Politico that they want to be able “to advocate and to push for policies that Gen Z believes in” via “the coalition’s primary digital stomping ground”—TikTok (Ward, 2022). Dubbed Gen Z’s digital warriors, the influencers focus on using TikTok to make “positive change and leave the world better,” and then they’ll feel great having gotten the job done (Ward, 2022). In fact, American teenagers on TikTok—many of them too young to vote—formed political coalitions to campaign for their chosen candidates for the 2020 presidential election while sharing real-time video commentary for TikTok users who see it as cable news for young people (Lorenz, 2020). Clearly, TikTok has been transformed into a forum for political action, not just a tool for reaching would-be voters, which makes PR staffers on Capitol Hill busy strategizing to spread political messages to potential voters (Ward, 2022). The effectiveness of Gen Z in addressing political issues is most clearly displayed in the account of @Oliviajulianna. After the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade in the summer of 2022, Olivia took to Twitter to discuss her concerns. She was “trolled” by Rep. Matt Gaetz who had earlier claimed that all abortion activists were women “nobody wants to impregnate.” He shared a photo of Olivia, a teenager, on Twitter. Olivia used the comment as a rallying cry. She took to various social media outlets and kept followers updated on all of them, including TikTok. Working with Gen-Z for Change, she raised over $2 million for abortion access (Mui, 2022). It would be incorrect to believe all Gen Z TikTokers and users are liberal minded or lean toward the Democratic Party. A study found that there were more conservative TikTok videos during the 2020 presidential election as TikTok actually favored Republicans, not Democrats (Kasana, 2020). There was also “actually plenty of conservative political expression,” in which millions of pro-Trump voices found an audience on the platform (Venkataramakrishnan, 2020). TikTok is often accused of being quite conservative, “like Facebook-lite”. Myers and Frenkel (2022) pointed out that TikTok grew into a primary proxy battleground in today’s American fight against transparent politics, particularly ahead of the 2022 midterm elections which led to the massive number of video productions flooding the platform with baseless conspiracy theories about voter fraud and foreign meddling. American candidates running for congressional and gubernatorial seats in the election of November 2022 acknowledged TikTok’s precision-guided ability to reach young voters. Republicans and Democrats eagerly embraced TikTok to promote the election since it is used by nearly two-thirds of American young voters (Klepper, 2022a, 2022b, October 1). When a study found that more TikTok videos supported Republican political causes than Democratic ones since 2020, President Biden, his party, and his administration came to the realization that they were facing a major deficit with young voters. As a result, the Democratic National Committee took “the dive into TikTok” in March 2022, and it encouraged Biden who “never

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translated well with the Gen Z audience” and the White House to connect with Gen Z voters on TikTok (Rodriguez, 2022). Knowing that President Biden was not necessarily the party’s most viral messenger on TikTok, the White House held a private briefing in March 2022 about the war in Ukraine for TikTok stars and invited TikTokers to celebrate the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in October 2022. The briefing on the war was led by White House National Security Council special adviser for communications Matt Miller and White House press secretary Jen Psaki who regarded TikTok as a critically important avenue for young Americans finding out about the latest information (Rai, 2022). The briefing event went viral and inspired a “Saturday Night Live” parody in which President Biden (James Austin Johnson) and Jen Psaki (Kate McKinnon) asked for advice on the war in Ukraine from an unexpected source on the crisis in Ukraine: TikTokers. The SNL narrator opened the show, saying: “This week as the war in Ukraine intensified, access to Facebook and Instagram in the country were shut off, leaving only one source of information: TikTok …. The White House responded by holding a national security briefing with some of the nation’s top TikTok creators” (Patrick, 2022, December 3). The two events demonstrate that the Biden administration recognized TikTok’s dominance as a source of news among Gen Z voters, seeking to leverage it. In fact, a New York Times columnist giving a lecture at a college asked where the students liked to get their daily news, and “almost everyone said TikTok” (Klein, 2022). If Donald Trump invigorated the popularity of Twitter as a tool for his political vents, Joe Biden carefully explored how to capitalize on TikTok’s political functions. During the 2020 presidential elections, two TikTok accounts, the Republican Hype House and Democrat Hype House, became major sources of political messages customized for Gen Z, ages ranging from 13 to 17, who could not cast a vote but with a heavy mindset of social responsibility, civil rights, and climate change (Hohman, 2020). Millions of Gen Z who participated in political discourse and self-education on TikTok are about to vote for the next presidential term, spearheading TikTok’s inroads into political and cultural territory where public opinion and social agendas are formed and discussed in videos. Whereas the 2012 presidential election utilized Facebook, and the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections facilitated Twitter as a platform for political campaigns, upcoming U.S. political candidates for mid-term and presidential elections will explore ways to maximize TikTok influence on voters. Videos on TikTok with humorous, dramatic, and sometimes eerie sound effects, and remixed memes of visible places, successfully integrate the proven elements of Snapchat and YouTube’s visibility with Twitter’s brevity into the phenomenon of TikTok addiction whereby Gen Z users find themselves “continually being sucked into endless evenings of scrolling” (Biggs, 2022). Now that the Gen Z generation is increasingly getting their news from TikTok, American political campaigns might exploit or take advantage of TikTok addiction that triggers cognitive images of an “infinite candy store” for the brain and a “dopamine machine” that provides a flood of rushes with every new video (Jargon, 2022). In a similar vein, TikTok was once referred to as “digital crack cocaine” by a psychologist (Nash, 2022).

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5.5 American Politics Via TikTok Algorithm A new study by the Pew Research Center in October 2022 found that a growing share of U.S. adults regularly get news on TikTok (Matsa, 2022). The phenomenon indicates that TikTok is headed for the position of the social media king regardless of users’ age, attitude, political association, and even educational and income backgrounds. The way TikTok users consume information is to quickly scroll from one video to another thanks to the vast majority of Americans—85%—owning smartphones (Pew Research, 2021). Smartphones turn into a best fit for scrolling through addictive videos on TikTok, similar to playing Las Vegas slot machines in which users seek to get a shot of dopamine in short but entertaining bursts (Pierce, 2021). The all-knowing algorithm of TikTok, a complex system designed to serve users’ content on the TikTok’s homepage—the For You page (FYP)—is to blame for making users addicted to TikTok like gambling. TikTok’s algorithm finds a stream of videos that are based on user interests after it collects data of how long users watch a video and the kind of content that they are posting on their own account, and then it categorizes posts by looking at the video’s caption, sounds, hashtags, trending topics, and filters used (Newberry, 2022). Finally, it identifies users’ devices and account settings that show what videos they are most likely prefer, including information like country setting, language, type of mobile device (Quinn, n.d.; Worb, 2022). TikTok has become the prime platform for political messaging since mid-2020, enabling users to scroll through hundreds of videos tailored for political causes and social activism that the TikTok algorithm, based on several metrics, delivers to the For You page. TikTok’s cutting-edge algorithm focuses on convincing users to maximize time spent on the platform, a maneuver called a social media echo chamber, broadly defined as “environments in which the opinion, political leaning, or belief of users about a topic gets reinforced due to repeated interactions with peers or sources having similar tendencies and attitudes” (Cinelli et al., 2021, p. 1). Departing from the definition of a social media echo chamber, it can be argued that TikTok algorithm aims to manipulatively gauge users’ opinions and effectively transform their feeds into a political echo chamber that can act as a mechanism “to reinforce an existing opinion within a group and, as a result, move the entire group toward more extreme positions” in hopes of prompting “an emerging effect of human tendencies, such as selective exposure, contagion, and group polarization” (Cinelli et al., 2021, p. 1). TikTok’s potent algorithm leads users to experience biased, intuitive media exposure that eliminates opposing political viewpoints and conflicting voices, so that they feel comfortable with self-confirming videos. In other words, the TikTok algorithm creates an effective political echo chamber by pushing targeted videos into the For You page regarded as a propagandistic goldmine for politicians and social activists to spread their messages and convince their target audiences to act on them. TikTok should earn the moniker “Dancing Influencian” because of its unique algorithm in the political echo chamber. Combining sound and dance to create engaging and entertaining video content, TikTok armed with its use convenience and simplicity to create and post content

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for anyone with a smartphone offers the best social media experience for today’s Gen Z generation, glued most of the time to their smartphones and easily bored (Taulli, 2020). TikTok’s forte is to grab their short attention span with politically comfortable videos pushed into the For You Page by the advanced AI algorithm which analyzes user preferences and then provides customized videos (Perez & Miller, 2022; Taulli, 2020). With such TikTok effects and technology, fears have risen in the area of American politics. Now that TikTok has become a pivotal, convenient way for younger people in the United States to learn about news and current events, it could serve as a channel for a foreign power or political entity to control users’ attitudes and behavior with subtle manipulations to its algorithm. The combination of TikTok’s Chinese ownership by ByteDance, its addictive nature, role as a political echo chamber, and Gen Z’s yet-to-mature involvement in politics with mis- and disinformation, TikTok could serve as a massive vector for a politically chaotic, perfect storm. In response, on Sept. 21, 2022, TikTok banned political advertising and campaign fundraising on its platform. In addition, a new regulation prevented politicians from being able to use the app tipping tools or accessing advertising features such as TikTok’s Creator Fund six weeks before the 2022 U.S. midterm elections (Chandlee, 2022, September 21). However, it has not addressed the concern regarding sponsororganized political content in which politicians and political parties pay TikTokers to post content that favors the political sponsors, although TikTok has some sponsor disclosure guidelines, albeit with many loopholes. It can be expected that in the future politician-sponsored videos made by TikTokers with no disclosure will flood the For You Page before every U.S. election, without much that TikTok can do about it. In the end, TikTok is “first and foremost an entertainment platform,” being “proud to be a place that brings people together over creative and entertaining content,” as Blake Chandlee (2022), President of Global Business Solutions of TikTok, claims. Despite these possible concerns, a number of politicians used TikTok in an attempt to connect with voters. Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke frequently posted on the platform during his campaign as @betoorourke. Although he garnered 8.2 million likes for his videos, he lost the election by over 800,000 votes (Svitek, 2022). This was a far poorer result than his earlier statewide race against Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate. Kelly Krout, a candidate for Arkansas Lieutenant Governor, garnered only 32% of votes in her state, while using TikTok extensively during her campaign as @kellyforarkansas (NBC News, 2022). Clearly, her 100,000 followers did not have the effect she had hoped for her campaign. Accelerate Change, a nonprofit political group, studied TikTok videos leading up to the mid-term election. The study was released three days after the election, concluding that the TikTok algorithm tended to suppress content that encouraged people to vote. For example, the videos with verbalized election terms such as “mid-terms” and “get out and vote” were reportedly viewed three times less than the videos with written phrases, meaning that the findings proved election content was being suppressed by the algorithm (General, 2022). This obviously leads to concern of TikTok’s effect on elections in the United States as its popularity as a social media platform continues to grow.

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One month after the election was over, the Biden administration approved an unprecedented ban on the use of TikTok on federal government devices, ordering all federal agencies to wipe TikTok off by the end of March 2023 (Kim, 2023). The ban was a product of national security concerns based on two types of propagandistic fear: domestic and foreign. As a growing number of fake news sources intentionally distort reality, sensationalize public emotions, and invoke civic unrest, the government has to take action to deter domestic propaganda spread through TikTok videos. This is due to such false information being directly tied to national security. Regarding foreign propaganda and the ban on TikTok, the U.S. government’s biggest concern stems from the fact that any American with TikTok downloaded on their device gives the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a backdoor to all their personal information. This is like installing a digital spy balloon into their phones, which can lead to U.S. national security being jeopardized by Chinese control over Americans’ data security and privacy (Shepardson, 2023). The U.S. concern has been vindicated by the Chinese government’s outright data-controlling action when it set to create its National Data Bureau, a new government agency to centralize the management of the country’s vast stores of data. The Bureau aims to streamline data-security practices under the CCP’s regulatory structure in March 2023 (Zhai, 2023). In conclusion, the U.S. government has acted against TikTok in the name of national security because of domestic and foreign propaganda concerns.

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Rubio-Licht, N. (2021, February 28). TikTok parent walks away from Oracle, Walmart deal. Los Angeles Business Journal. https://labusinessjournal.com/technology/tiktok-parent-companywalks-away-oracle-walmart/. Schneider, J. (2020, August 3). The U.S. is right to worry about TikTok. Lawfare. https://www.law fareblog.com/us-right-worry-about-tiktok. Serrano, S. (2021, March 10). Nielsen study shows creativity and authenticity on TikTok drive a positive experience for users and brands. Campaign Magazine. https://campaignme.com/nie lsen-study-shows-creativity-and-authenticity-on-tiktok-drive-a-positive-experience-for-usersand-brands/. Shepardson, D. (2023, March 1). U.S. House panel approves bill giving Biden power to ban TikTok. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-house-panel-approves-bill-give-biden-powerban-tiktok-2023-03-01/. Smith, A. (2022, May 5). New study identifies “TikTok addiction” and the symptoms that show users might have it. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/tiktok-addiction-sym ptoms-study-users-b2072116.html. Smith, E. (2021, January 6). Column: It is not just Trump. Blame California social media companies for D.C. riot too. The Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-06/ how-twitter-facebook-partly-culpable-trump-dc-riot-capitol. Smith, T., & Short, A. (2022). Needs affordance as a key factor in likelihood of problematic social media use. Additive Behaviors, 129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2022.107259. Southern, M. (2021, October 23). Why is TikTok so popular? Search Engine Journal. https://www. searchenginejournal.com/why-is-tiktok-so-popular/424603/#close. Stokel-Walker, C. (2020, August 5). Pro-Trump creators are a lot more active on TikTok than Democrats’ supporters, study finds, as Trump threatens ban. Insider. https://www.businessinsi der.com/study-tiktok-more-republican-creators-2020-8. Svitek, P. (2022, September 14). Gov. Greg Abbott leads Beto O’Rourke by 5 percentage points in new poll. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/14/greg-abbott-beto-oro urke-texas-gubernatorial-poll/. Taulli, T. (2020, January 31). TikTok: Why the enormous success? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/ sites/tomtaulli/2020/01/31/tiktok-why-the-enormous-success/?sh=61a531d465d1. TikTok. (2020, August 7). Statement on the Administration’s Executive Order. https://newsroom. tiktok.com/en-us/tiktok-responds. Venkataramakrishnan, S. (2020, June 1). TikTok becomes political platform ahead of US election. The Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/c4c09793-993e-4ffd-9e46-2c609f98b79d. Vogels, E., Gelles, R., & Massarat, N. (2022, August 10). Teens, social media and technology 2022. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-mediaand-technology-2022/. Vynck, G., Zakrzewski, C., & Dwoskin, E. (2022, March 4). TikTok has long tried to stay out of politics. Russia’s invasion is making that harder. The Washington Post. https://www.washingto npost.com/technology/2022/03/04/tiktok-ukraine-russia-politics/. Wang, E., & Shepardson, D. (2022, March 10). Exclusive TikTok nears Oracle deal in bid to allay U.S. data concerns-sources. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-tik tok-nears-deal-with-oracle-store-its-data-sources-2022-03-10/. Ward, I. (2022, March 27). Inside the progressive movement’s TikTok army. Politico. https://www. politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/27/progressive-gen-z-for-change-tik-tok-00020624. Witte, M. (2022, February 24). Disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine is a problem. Stanford News. https://news.stanford.edu/2022/02/24/curbing-spread-covid-19-vaccine-related-mis-dis information/. Worb, J. (2022, September 19). How does the TikTok algorithm work? LaterBlog. https://later.com/ blog/tiktok-algorithm/. Zhai, K. (2023, March 6). China to create new top regulator for data governance. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-to-create-new-top-regulator-for-data-governancec9317233.

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Young Joon Lim (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor, teaching public relations and communication research at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His research focuses on social media and its effects. Lynse Guerra (J.D.) is an attorney with an active civil litigation practice in Texas for 20 years. Guerra is a partner with Skaggs and Guerra.

Chapter 6

Communication Strategies on TikTok During the 2021 Ecuadorian Presidential Election María Claudia Rivera Prado and Kevin Lupiciano Barreto Coello

6.1 Introduction New technologies have been essential in political communication, as the axis to develop and execute strategies during electoral campaigns. Along that line, in the last decade politicians have become increasingly aware of the professional management of social networks and the use of digital platforms that target their electorate audience (Villavicencio, 2020). Research has shown that users’ participation in political activities increases with the informational uses of media (Ekström & Shehata, 2018; Knoll, Matthes & Heiss, 2018). Political actions that influence the selection of government representatives take place online, in social media platforms (Valenzuela et al., 2019). Consequently, the candidate’s presence on the main platforms is crucial (Rúas & Casero, 2018). In the early history of social media, the literature focused on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat (Matassi & Boczkowski, 2020). TikTok appeared in 2016, progressively becoming very popular throughout the world, generating interest from scholars and statisticians in their studies (Dohan, 2021). This interest specifically addressed towards how TikTok impacts areas such as communication, marketing, education, health, arts, activism, sports, and gender studies, among others. When it comes to the political communication field, however, the amount of literature is scant. Thus, the present chapter will survey two main aspects: (a) exploration of the origin and characteristics of the TikTok social network as well as its enormous

M. C. R. Prado (B) Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, Portoviejo, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] K. L. B. Coello Lay University Eloy Alfaro of Manabí, Manabí, Ecuador © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9_6

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current popularity; and (b) descriptions of recent successful social media campaign strategies from presidential elections in the Latin American region. TikTok’s rise in popularity coincided with the general presidential elections in Ecuador in 2021. This case study addresses the use of TikTok by the candidate Guillermo Lasso against the favourite candidate at the time, Andrés Aráuz, and the engagement that Lasso achieved through a strategy consisting of emotional appeals manifested through likes, comments, and shares. The chapter will conclude with a description of the narratives used by Lasso in his posts.

6.2 TikTok: Origin, Characteristics, and Popularity TikTok is a Chinese social network created by ByteDance that was originally called Douyin. In August 2018, after acquiring Musical.ly, Douyin changed its name to TikTok, reaching 800 million users by the end of 2019 (Morais, 2020; Conde del Río, 2021; Bleger, 2022). It quickly became the fastest-growing social media on the market, reaching more than one billion active users, with two billion downloads worldwide in 2020 (Statista, 2022). TikTok’s performance has been impressive considering its recent launch. In mid2021, the app was the most downloaded, even ahead of other social media networks like Facebook (Semana, 2021). In Ecuador, between January and June of 2021, TikTok was the fastest-growing social medium, with a growth of 42%, reaching 3.28 million active users (Mentinno, 2021). Most of these users were young people between 18 and 24 years old, representing 34% of the Ecuadorian user base, while those between 25 and 34 were another 29%. One of the main reasons for TikTok’s exponential growth was the global lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Ballesteros (2020) remarked that “users have been using their mobile devices to find new ways to shop, work and connect with others during the crisis.” The main purpose of this app is to create, edit, and post short-format videos, and the possibility of accessing other users’ videos with whom it is possible to interact by expressing acceptance through hearts or likes, commenting in their own or their friend’s videos, and sending direct messages to their users and followers (TikTok, 2020). The user interface is different from other social media with their “For you” and “Following” sections (Quiroz, 2020). In the first section, the user will find videos that TikTok considers fitting with the user’s interests. In the “Following” section, the user will find a list of videos by other creators that the user follows. TikTok videos can be shared through messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, etc., and other social media such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. In each video, a description and hashtag can be included. The app adds other special effects, filters, original sounds, and available music. As Fernández (2021) notes, TikTok uses artificial intelligence and augmented reality in its features. TikTok’s engagement and success are due to two unbeatable factors: its successive reproduction and efficient algorithms (Scolari, 2020).

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The TikTok algorithm uses machine learning to recognize the content that every person prefers based on their behaviour (Matthew Brennan, in Orgaz, 2020). As a result, it is the most recommended search engine in the Chinese market, continuously improving and becoming more addictive. The TikTok algorithm enables connection with other users and the discovery of new content, a fundamental element to achieve a full experience on the social network and for politicians to stand out and reach their target audience. This social medium focuses on keeping an interesting feed for their users, inserting various types of content along with those that the user has selected. This ensures a variety of videos that increases the involvement of new accounts, making it a powerful weapon in the social media strategy.

6.2.1 Social Media Political Strategy in Latin America Although TikTok’s use in politics is relatively new, social media have played an important role in Latin American presidential elections during the last decade, beginning with Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president who governed between 1999 and 2013. He was the founder of 21st-Century Socialism, a left political party whose ideology has been adopted in the region by some countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina over the last two decades. Aware of the potential of social media, he launched his Twitter account in April 2010 with the username @chavezcandanga. Despite his young and handsome opponent, Henrique Capriles, who would seem to fit better in the social media scene (Cyr, 2013), Chavez’s team for his last presidential election did not hesitate to resort to social media. As Capriles was trying to connect with the citizens and reach young people’s votes in an intensive campaign using social media, Chávez clearly understood that he also had to be part of the digital battle to fight against the negative slogans against his administration. The Venezuelan president entrenched himself on Twitter and his team took advantage of Facebook and other social networks available at the time. In fact, the campaign’s closing speech was broadcast on a YouTube stream (Guerra, 2018). He eventually won his fourth election, notwithstanding his limited campaign due to cancer that would take his life shortly thereafter. In 2013, Hugo Chávez’s successor Nicolás Maduro defeated Henrique Capriles again in the general elections. In that campaign, at least 32% of the tweets published by @NicolasMaduro recalled or made mention of Hugo Chávez, as the leader of 21st-Century Socialism (Gómez, 2016). Only in 2021, eight years after the death of his predecessor, would Nicolás Maduro’s Twitter account exceed that of @ChavezCandanga in the number of followers. In Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, whose first term as president began in 2010, had a team of social media experts who previously worked in the Obama campaign (Santiago, 2015). Her team’s strategy for the election of 2014 relied heavily on social media networks, especially Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. On October 5th of that year, Rousseff was re-elected; that night she received a congratulatory message: “Congratulations Dilma for your Courage and Bravery in the face of so much evil, the

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people of Brazil did not fail history, a thousand Brotherhood Hugs”, written from the @NicolasMaduro account (BBC Mundo, 2014). Years later in Brazil, a digital confrontation between veteran politicians took place. One of them, the ultra-right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, planned a social media strategy focused on an ecosystem that rewarded and enhanced tribalism, radicalism, and histrionics (Galárraga & Becker, 2018). The other candidate and eventual victor, leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who governed Brazil between 2003 and 2011, targeted women and Millennials with a strategic social media campaign, as noted by Soares (2022). Ituassu et al. (2018) affirmed that Bolsonaro arrived at the 2018 elections with a consolidated position on Facebook that he had cultivated over the years, giving him a significant advantage over his political opponents. In the last elections in 2022, though the sitting president centered his campaign on a dominant disinformation narrative, challenger Lula narrowly won the runoff, after the most divisive election in decades (Vara, 2022). In Argentina, another ideological associate of Chávez and Maduro also waged her own battles through social networks in two electoral campaigns. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK), who began using Twitter on September 6, 2010, took full advantage of the hypertextuality offered by the microblogging network. To publicize her sites and advertisements, many of her tweets consisted of links to photographs, speeches, and videos related to her electoral campaign (Coiutti, 2015). Also in Argentina, CFK’s political opponent, the liberal Mauricio Macri, made use of social networks during his presidential candidacy in 2010, though he ended up dropping out of that race. In 2015, he triumphed against the Peronist Daniel Scioli from CFK’s party, ending 12 years of Kirchnerism. According to Slimovich (2017), the 2011 election in Argentina was the first in which the campaign had a strong presence also on social networks. Macri had started with just Facebook and Twitter, but during the 2015 presidential campaign used more social networks, such as Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. That year his main adviser, Ecuadorian Jaime Durán Barba, directed the campaign so that Macri would show closeness to the people. Social networks were fundamental to accomplishing this goal. Three times per week Macri would go to the houses of some supporters chosen randomly via Facebook to listen to their problems. He also went from house to house ringing doorbells and attempting to sway those who criticised him. Everything was recorded by a huge press team posting on Facebook the emotional videos of those encounters (Cué, 2015). In May 2018 the Colombian presidential candidates Iván Duque and Gustavo Petro were the top names on a ballot, marking a milestone in the use of social networks during an election contest. Both Petro, the left-wing candidate, and his right-wing opponent Duque, made it clear that social media strategies employed in other Latin American countries were quite effective in Colombia as well. On the one hand, Petro had a more robust and consolidated audience than Duque; on the other hand, Duque had the support of former president Álvaro Uribe, who himself was a great influencer on social media, especially on Twitter where in 2018 he had 5.18 million followers (Rincón, 2018). The support of Uribe, who dedicated

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himself to criticising Petro on his social media during the campaign, is what many experts considered one of the main factors that led to Duque becoming president. Gutiérrez and Gómez (2021) described Duque’s social media presence at the time as having more than 350,000 Twitter followers and more than 650,000 on Facebook— significantly less than Petro —with posts consisting primarily of videos and images. Avoiding the digital mudslinging and repercussions associated with it, Iván Duque won the presidential elections for his 2018–2022 tenure in office. In 2018, the candidacy and appointment of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) as president of Mexico constitutes another recent case in which the use of social media was considered decisive in achieving victory. His overwhelming success can be attributed to factors such as an accumulation of strong social discontent against the establishment, and a successful election campaign. Although carried out through traditional media channels, it was remarkable because of its clever use of social media. In this sense, AMLO’s victory can be explained fundamentally by the skilful and dynamic use of this new virtual communication system operated through social media networks in cyberspace (Esteinou, 2018). In El Salvador, 37-year-old publicist Nayib Bukele won the elections held on February 3, 2019, in a single round of voting with 53.10% of the votes. The use of social media made Bukele the favorite in his presidential campaign and according to the polls was the one who used these platforms the most (Regidor, 2019). Freidenberg and Caceres (2020), who evaluated all tweets published by the three highest-vote garnering candidates during the electoral campaign, declared Bukele the most active candidate on Twitter (5,353 tweets). He posted an average of 44.6 tweets daily, while the other candidates averaged between 10.7 and 11.3 tweets per day. The Salvadoran millennial president was already a regular user of social media before leaping onto the national stage. He withdrew from the traditional media and focused his campaign solely on the internet (Europa Press, 2019). In preparation for this, Bukele had been carefully cultivating his presence on social networks since the beginning of his political career, six years before becoming president (Palumbo & Malkin, 2019).

6.2.2 Social Media Communication Strategy in Ecuador Rafael Correa, an ideological ally of Chávez, began his campaign on social media networks in 2006—a milestone in Ecuadorian political communication history as it was the first time that social media were used in an Ecuadorian presidential campaign. First, the campaign team created an official website, through which their entire digital strategy revolved. The number of visitors per day started at around 50,000, and in the final stretch of the second round of elections, in November 2006, it reached up to 80,000. All the videos, radio spots, photos, and documents were published on the same site, with high demand for this content easily exceeding the server’s allocated bandwidth. To alleviate this burden, they chose to open accounts on the new service platforms that were gaining popularity such as YouTube, HI5, and Flickr.

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For the first time in Ecuador, a candidate had his website and channels on various social networks. On YouTube alone Correa uploaded more than 200 videos, including his biography and campaign tours (Rivera, 2014). In 2013, he broadcast the final speech of his reelection campaign via YouTube. Correa’s victories while in office included reelection as president in 2009 and 2013, in the latter campaign triumphing over Guillermo Lasso in the first electoral round. Freire and Gómez (2015) stated that social networks contributed to the voting intention of 83% of Ecuadorians; the other 17% were not exposed to the audio-visual contents broadcast on social networks. The main tool Correa used to connect with his followers was his Twitter account, @MashiRafael, created on October 10, 2010, where he posted his first tweet on July 29, 2011. Since then, the information that he presented through Twitter marked the country’s media agenda and was personally managed by the president himself (Báez, 2018). In the decade spanning 2007 to 2017, Correa got involved in all the trending topics, not only regarding politics, society, and economics, but also sports and religion (Zibell, 2017). His participation was so outstanding that in a study among 669 Twitter profiles analysed by the PR firm Burson-Marsteller he was ranked globally as the third leader who most interacted with his followers (Oñate, 2015).

6.2.3 Guillermo Lasso and Social Media Campaign Guillermo Lasso, from the CREO right-wing political party, competed three times for Ecuador’s presidency: in 2013, losing in a single round against Rafael Correa; in 2017, defeated in the second round by Correa’s successor Lenin Moreno; and in 2021, finally achieving victory on the ballots against Correan candidate Andrés Arauz. In the 2013 elections, Guillermo Lasso was the candidate who published the most photographs during the campaign and achieved more than 284,000 followers on Facebook, 1,500 on YouTube and 71,500 on Twitter (El Telégrafo, 2013). During this period, his opponent Rafael Correa surpassed him, doubling those numbers. In 2017, his second attempt to reach power, the Twitter account @LassoGuillermo began the campaign with 243,647 followers and ended it with 282,122. During this period, he tweeted 783 times for an average of 8,6 daily tweets Moreno, 2017). According to Puente 2017), on Facebook there were 1,678,315 people who spoke about Lasso. They generated 8,972,062 interactions, both positive and negative. These numbers were slightly higher than the 8,895,672 interactions obtained by his opponent Lenin Moreno. During this electoral battle, Lasso would add one more social network to his arsenal as a politician: Instagram. He reached 91,200 followers on that network, and 71,171 likes on the 48 posts made during the campaign period 41 photos and 7 videos), reaching an average of 617 likes per post Gavilanes, 2018). The figures reached on Instagram and other networks by Guillermo Lasso were not enough for victory, but that story would change four years later with the addition of TikTok, the network where he unquestionably reigned in the last electoral contest. Lasso was initially reluctant to use TikTok. He told various media organisations: “You are not going to see me on Tik Tok, it seems to me invasive to politicize a

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network dedicated to young people” (Tu Voz TV, 2021). Authors like Lozano (2021) described Lasso as a “defeated old man, weighed down by the limp caused because of medical praxis. Politically pigeonholed in the ideological right, without openness to the different social groups and limited by his religious ideas, close to Opus Dei.” Stigmatized by his past as a banker and as Minister of Economy before dollarization, Lasso was convinced that he had not been able to convey his vision, including his upbringing as the youngest of 11 siblings in a modest family. The candidate eventually changed his mind and opened his TikTok account — @guillermolasso—posting his first video on February 25, 2021. Lasso, adorned in red shoes and a jacket, a crutch under his right arm (Fig. 6.1), and backed by the sounds of Michael Jackson’s “Bad,” the former banker’s new look reached 338,000 likes and 4.5 million views on TikTok, a turning point in the Ecuadorian election (Lozano, 2021). Guillermo Lasso immediately publicized his TikTok account through other different social media, such as Twitter, where he tweeted: “We are already on TikTok” and the next day, as a justification for his earlier rejection, he wrote: “You must adapt to modern times and make changes. I will continue to be the same Guillermo Lasso, but I have listened to you. We are ready to work with all citizens and reach “the Ecuadorian match’ [referring to his campaign motto]” (Lasso, 2021). The main factor that led Lasso to change his mind was the need to adapt to his young audience, who were increasingly consuming short-form video content on social media (Xiao et al., 2023). Each campaign is unique, and in this sense, the strategy was designed according to the concrete political and social reality faced at that moment. A good strategy analyses the political moment and defines what a candidate has to say and do to win an election (Ágora Democrática, 2006), and for Lasso’s campaign the opportunity appeared in the first round of elections when he came close to second place behind Yaku Pérez, the indigenous candidate. The electoral conflict began on February 7, when the CNE (National Electoral Council, the institution that regulates Ecuadorian elections) unofficially announced that the progressive candidate Andrés Arauz, close to former president Rafael Correa, had won the vote, with a difference of 13% over Yaku, who had a slight advantage over the conservative Lasso (EFE & El Comercio, 2021). After broken agreements, recounts, and fraud accusations, the CNE found it necessary to wait until February 21 to announce the results: Lasso obtained 19.74% of the votes, 0.35 percentage points more than Yaku. Thus, in addition to Arauz’s significant point gap over Lasso, the struggle against the indigenous candidate had caused Lasso’s campaign to lose 14 days. During this period, Arauz took advantage by attempting to consolidate his victory. In Fig. 6.2 one can appreciate the tight ballot race, with a strong preference for the left-wing parties—all candidates other than Lasso were members of left-wing parties—with more than one million votes separating Lasso from Arauz. There were few opportunities left for Lasso to win the presidential election. To face the new situation, Lasso decided to change his advisers. He called Jaime Durán Barba, who helped rebuild the campaign’s contents to enhance Lasso’s candidacy (El Universo, 2021). He was joined by Gabriel González and Juan Mateo Zúñiga.

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Fig. 6.1 Screenshot of Lasso’s first TikTok video (Lasso, 2021)

Both had been the communication strategists behind the successful digital campaign of Xavier Hervás, an unknown candidate of the Democratic Left who finished fourth in the first round with 15.78% and who was the first to use TikTok as the main campaign platform since September 2020. As noted above, Lasso had refused to be involved on TikTok because he did not feel comfortable on it. However, one of the first decisions attributed to the social media expert, Gabriel González, was to open his TikTok account. In only one day Lasso added 112,000 followers on the social network and surpassed Andrés Arauz, his opponent in the second electoral round, who had almost 105,000 followers. On Monday, April 12, one day after the second round of elections, the Spanish portal El Mundo published a catchy headline: “Guillermo Lasso, the political phoenix that soared with TikTok videos,” stating how he managed to reach young people in a

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Fig. 6.2 The results of the first electoral round showing a miniscule difference between Guillermo Lasso and Yaku Pérez (El Universo, 2021)

country where their opinion is vital: 60% of voters in Ecuador are between 16 and 29 years old (Lozano, 2021).

6.3 Research Goals and Methodology Social media applications, such as TikTok, can quickly become outdated, presenting a challenge in predicting their sustained relevance. However, TikTok’s meteoric ascent and current hundreds of million active users worldwide have sparked interest, particularly as a reflection of the younger generation. Despite its popularity, limited research has explored TikTok’s political utility. To fill this gap, our study scrutinizes the impact of TikTok on the last presidential campaign in Ecuador, delineating how conservative candidate Guillermo Lasso used this platform to revive his flailing campaign. Our objective is to shed light on the emerging role of TikTok in political communication by analysing its use during the 2021 Ecuadorian presidential election. Through a detailed analysis of the principal narratives deployed by candidates Guillermo Lasso and Andrés Aráuz, we aim to explore the efficacy of different engagement strategies and their impact on audience participation. This study is crucial in understanding the evolving landscape of political communication and the potential of emerging platforms like TikTok to shape electoral outcomes. Given the recent use of TikTok by political parties and the relatively small sample size of our study, we decided to analyse all 83 posts made by the runoff candidates during the Ecuadorian presidential elections —Andrés Arauz and Guillermo Lasso— between February 8 and April 11, 2021. As the @guillermolasso account had been created 17 days after the analysed period began, the timeframe varied from 63 days for @ecuarazu to 46 days for @guillermolasso. During this period, Arauz posted 43 videos, while Lasso uploaded 40.

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To gain valuable insights into how the presidential campaign performed on TikTok, we considered several key factors critical to understanding the success of a presidential campaign on TikTok: followers, post frequency, reach and interactions, engagement, video length and music trends, hashtags, and narrative themes. Conducting a thorough and in-depth analysis of all relevant factors is crucial to provide a comprehensive understanding of the platform’s impact on political campaigns, especially since this is the first such analysis in this context. As TikTok did not provide a commercial, application programming interface (API) to share data on users and their behaviour (Cervi & Marín-Lladó, 2021), data (posts, number of followers, number of “likes,” comments, and shares) were collected manually by the authors. Key performance indicators were analysed with Popsters and TikBuddy applications. Engagement was measured using the following formula (Ramírez, 2021): Engagement =

   Likes number + Comments + Shares × 100 Views

Content analysis was also conducted to examine the publications and content uploaded to both TikTok accounts, with posts as the unit of analysis, defined as both video content and the accompanying caption but excluding the content of comments.

6.4 Results 6.4.1 Followers At the end of the second round of the presidential election on April 11, 2021, the verified TikTok accounts of @guillermolasso and @ecuarauz had 756,700 and 230,600 followers, respectively. This means that for every follower Andrés Arauz had on his account, his opponent Guillermo Lasso had 3.2 followers. It’s worth noting that Arauz had been using his account for 119 days, while Lasso had only been active on TikTok for 46 days. Despite this, @guillermolasso gained an average of 16,450 followers per day, which is eight times more than the 1,938 followers per day that @ecuarauz achieved. This significant difference highlights the effectiveness of Lasso’s TikTok strategy in engaging with his audience and promoting his campaign.

6.4.2 Frequency of Posting Posting frequency is a crucial factor in determining the success of a political campaign, particularly on TikTok, where the platform’s algorithm heavily relies on user engagement. A higher frequency of posting generally results in increased

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visibility based on consistency, in turn leading to a higher likelihood of being recommended to new users. During the electoral race, @guillermolasso posted 40 videos, and Arauz uploaded 43 TikToks (Fig. 6.3). Neither candidate managed to publish daily on TikTok. The 40 videos that @guillermolasso posted during the race are equivalent to an average of 0.87 TikToks per day, while @ecuarauz uploaded a total of 43 videos, reaching an average of 0.68 daily TikToks. The last upload from Arauz was on April 8, three days before the elections, whereas Lasso published videos until April 11, the very last day of the campaign. Lasso did not have long gaps without posting—just twice, between February 26 and 27, and between March 15 and 16. On the other hand, Arauz had more periods of silence; from March 9 to 13 he remained on the sidelines for five days; February 10 to 13 were another four days without publishing anything, and on April 9, 10, and 11, the last days of the campaign, he did not upload any TikToks either. The cycles of greatest activity in TikTok’s publication were registered in the days after the presidential debate held on March 21. According to the pollsters qualified by the Ecuadorian Electoral Council such as Click Research, Social Climate, Market Asociados, and Eureknow, this event significantly reduced the number of undecided voters (El Universo, 2021). After the presidential debate, the Ecuadorian right-wing candidate took advantage of a catchy tagline that he launched in the encounter with Arauz to fight the criticisms he received. Lasso weaponized the line “Andrés, don’t lie again” as a meme drop, hashtag trended on social networks.

Fig. 6.3 Publications calendar (the white cells represent days without publications) (Authors)

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Andrés Arauz’s communication team’s actions on social networks also reveal how important the debate was. Regarding TikTok, the posting intensity increased between March 20 and April 1, expanding on March 22 with three videos posted and the next day with two more videos. They only stopped on March 27. One week after the debate, neutral polls gave 51.49% of the votes to Lasso and 48.51% to Arauz (El Universo, 2021). Convinced of their possibilities, Guillermo Lasso’s advisers promoted the use of social networks with even greater emphasis in the final stretch of the campaign; on TikTok, the videos were published between April 1 and 11. They increased on the April 5 with three TikTok, whereas on April 1, 4 and 9 @guillermolasso posted two TikToks each day. During that busy week, only on one day (April 6) did they fail to post.

6.4.3 Reach and Interactions Regarding the total number of views, @guillermolasso surpassed @ecuarauz at a ratio of 2.63 to 1 (Table 6.1). The first candidate’s videos were viewed 66.8 million times, while his opponent achieved 25.3 million views. On April 5 @guillermolasso published his most viewed video, “Preparing a Tigrillo”, generating 7.8 million views. This TikTok received ten thousand comments in a short time and reached half a million likes; however, this was not the post that received the most likes. With 540,000 likes, the post published on March 22 entitled #AndresDon’tLieAgain was not only the video with the greatest number of likes but it also reached the greatest number of comments, with 41,000 replies. In the @ecuarauz account, only three videos managed to surpass 100,000 likes and another seven were reached between 50,000 and 96,000 likes. The Correa candidate’s upload with the greatest impact was “#Adopt” that reached 2.4 million views and 174,000 likes, 5,298 shares, and 4,670 comments. The video clip that received the most comments on the @ecuarauz account was the one called “5 tips against cyberbullying” in which users expressed themselves 9,927 times. Finally, the most widely shared production was “We will strengthen dollarization,” in which the candidate committed to strengthening the official currency through linkage with the dollar. This video reached six thousand direct shares on other platforms (Fig. 6.4). Table 6.1 Total views, likes, comments and shares in the candidates’ videos (Authors)

TikTok accounts

@guillermolasso

@ecuarauz

Posts

40

43

Views

66,802,800

25,315,500

Likes

5,772,300

1,679,083

Comments

299,148

100,203

Shares

205,444

48,723

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Fig. 6.4 Top 5 most liked videos of each candidate (Authors)

6.4.4 Engagement For the @guillermolasso account, the best engagement averages were inversely proportional to the videos that had the least number of views and interactions. The TikTok video “Give me the opportunity (to be your president)” obtained a 14.74% level of engagement from followers. However, it was not just this post that exceeded 14 points, so did “Special gift” that had an average of 1.4 likes per thousand views and produced an engagement of 14.28%. The average engagement generated by all of the 40 @guillermolasso videos was 9.81%. Engagement of @ecuarauz was 7.23% with its 43 audio-visuals and none of the productions reached 10 points. His TikTok “Educación de primer nivel” where he presented his campaign promises to offer better education was the most important with 9.72%, followed by the video “One by one this April 11th” that had 9.17% (Fig. 6.5). There was only one variable in which @ecuarauz surpassed @guillermolasso: the average number of likes when measured proportional to the number of views. Arauz’s videos reached an average of 6.6 likes per thousand views in contrast to 0.92 for his rival. The most relevant was the “First level education” TikTok that obtained an average of 9.2 likes for every thousand views, eight times more than the most relevant video of his opponent.

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Fig. 6.5 Engagement reached by the candidates (Authors)

6.4.5 Video Length and Music Trends Videos from both candidates ran between 8 and 60 s. Table 6.2 shows all the videos along with their length. In 21 of 43 videos posted by @ecuarauz, original sound was generated corresponding to the storytelling of the candidate, including three productions that exceeded 100,000 likes: Adopt, First level education, and We will strengthen dollarization. @guillermolasso’s strategy was different: he used viral resources in two out of every three videos. The chosen audios were contemporary and had proven positive results regarding their use and popularity as other users turned them into trends. The five most representative TikToks of the campaign took advantage of the following audios: “Oh no” (Kreeppi), “My wife governs me” (La Banda Gorda), “Bad” (Michael Jackson), “Fack” (Eminen), and “Andrés don’t lie again” (José Trujillo). The last one is an urban rap which was created after the presidential debate took place and went viral by the tiktoker @trujijiji. Table 6.2 Candidates TikTok videos’ length (Authors) TikTok accounts (in seconds)

00–15

16–30

31–45

46–60

Total

@guillermolasso

19

8

8

5

40

@ecuarauz

18

16

4

5

43

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6.4.6 Hashtags TikTok videos from both accounts included hashtags in their post descriptions, although not all posts had them: @guillermolasso used hashtags in 80% of his posts, with #LassoPresidente2021 and #AndresDon’tLieAgain being the most common. Conversely, @ecuarauz resorted to them in a more sustained manner, using them in 95.3% of his posts, with #Ecuador and #AndresPresident being the most frequently used (Fig. 6.6).

6.4.7 Narrative Axis 6.4.7.1

Discrediting

The main narrative that Guillermo Lasso opted for on TikTok was discrediting his opponent. Of the 40 videos that he uploaded to his account, a quarter were aimed at criticising Andrés Arauz with sarcastic irony and discrediting his campaign. To weaken Aráuz’s candidacy, Lasso accused him of running a dirty campaign, held Arauz responsible for trying to end dollarization, blamed him for creating rumors about lower wages of domestic workers, and portrayed him as an anti-vaxxer as he had not been inoculated against COVID-19. The video with the greatest impact was Andrés, don’t lie again, released the day after the presidential debate. The story has Lasso as the central character who cannot pay $20 to the entrepreneur “Mustache” because his wallet is empty. These images accompanied by the trending song “Oh no!” (indicating that something wrong is going to happen), imply that Arauz had something to do with the disappearance of the money, as the night before during the televised debate broadcast he handled a 20-dollar bill in front of the cameras, trying to show his support for dollarization. In return, @ecuarauz uploaded a TikTok praising Arauz’s participation in the debate with the phrase “la rompimos,” a slang term used in soccer and other sports

Fig. 6.6 Ten most used hashtags during the Ballot (Authors)

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as a synonym for outstanding performance. However, a day later @guillermolasso tried to demoralize the Correísta party, using Arauz’s video in which he repeated the viral phrase “Andrés, don’t lie again” along with a group of young people. Once Arauz’s campaign started leading in the polls, @guillermolasso did not miss an opportunity to present his posts in the most striking way. “Excellent song” was one of Lasso’s most liked videos, satirizing one of @ecuarauz original clips that wasn’t related to the electoral race, as it had been published on December 15, 2020, even before the first round of elections began. In the video, Arauz is listening to music while leaning on the front part of a vehicle. With the objective of generating interactions between the users and him, the original video finished with him turning to ask the camera: “what music do you like to listen to?” In the @guillermolasso version, the video immediately cuts to Lasso, pretending to be in the back seat answering the question with a smartphone at full volume playing the song “Andrés, don’t lie again”. Another parody recalls the original video of @ecuarauz entitled “Adopt,” uploaded on March 1. In the video, Arauz rescues a dog from being hit by a car and calls to adopt but not to buy pets. Lasso, suggesting that Arauz is stealing the dog, shows a poster offering as a reward 1,000 dollars, referring to Arauz’s campaign promise to give one thousand dollars to one million families during his first week of office.

6.4.7.2

Family

A second frequent narrative has to do with the candidates’ families. A total of eight videos mentioned family values and household members. @guillermolasso dedicated a TikTok to his late mother, remembering her as a simple, fighting woman. He also talked about the seamstress who made clothes, including her children’s, selling them to contribute to the home’s finances. Lasso emphasized with his voice and text that his mother taught him the importance of the family and that happiness lies in the small joys of life. He toto did not miss an opportunity to highlight how his kind father assisted his mother in treating diabetes from which she had suffered. The father is brought into the family narrative in another video where Lasso describes in his own voice how his father lost his job but the family still pulled through. In the TikTok “Preparing a tigrillo” created with the trend—My wife governs me— Lasso appeared cooking and tasting a “tigrillo,” a popular dish on the Ecuadorian coast. This video, in which he appears with his wife, generated ten thousand comments in a short time and reached half a million hearts. Lasso’s wife had appeared in several other videos accompanying the candidate, or was mentioned by him, such as in the video where his brother gives him a truck, that Lasso remembers as his first car and part of his love story with his lifelong partner. Along with his mother, Lasso dedicates a TikTok to his wife with the description “Thank you María de Lourdes for your unconditional support.” He accompanied the text by the kiss emoticon and finished it with emotional scenes from Carl Fredricksen’s wedding and Ellie, characters from the successful Disney and Pixar animated film “Up: An Adventure from On High”. Finally, in another

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TikTok, @guillermolasso directly asks Ecuadorians to think about their children and grandchildren when choosing the new president.

6.4.7.3

Fashion and Approach to Young People

Lasso’s brothers were also part of his strategy. In one clip, they appear emulating the red shoes that the candidate wore to show in his TikTok debut. The look popularized by Lasso became an electoral fashion trend and motivated three other videos during the race. In the first, he debuted with red Techmerino shoes by Ermenegildo Zegna. In the second video, he was dressed in a suit explaining that this fashion is for Twitter, and then dressed in jeans and red shoes indicating that this look is for TikTok, all this accompanied by the background music of “Another one bites the dust” by Queen. In the last one, Lasso is with several young people from his campaign team, all wearing red shoes. In addition to the satirical song “Andrés, don’t lie again” or his wearing red shoes, young people participated in the conception and narrative of some videos. In one of them Lasso explained that he had no responsibility for the previous Ecuadorian economic crisis. He also published videos surrounded by young people in different circumstances, including some who had voted for other candidates in the first electoral round, drinking the “Michelasso”—paraphrasing the “Michelada,” a cocktail prepared with beer. He used influencers like @edumarurip to reach the young vote, doing dance steps and sharing his plans for education. In a different video, from user @tusalo47, he committed to providing scholarships, technology, technical careers, and connectivity for youth.

6.4.7.4

Inclusion

With more elaborate formats, some videos included the participation of minority representatives of society. Indigenous nationalities, African descendants, montubios (a cultural group found in the coastal regions of Ecuador) and mestizos were also represented, accompanied by the slogan “Let’s meet to achieve it,” where women, men, and children were shown walking in popular neighborhoods. Lasso published videos of his visits to the Sierra and Amazonia, but there were no videos in larger Ecuadorian cities. His campaign ended by avoiding opulent images and broadcasting a caravan of boats with Ecuadorian flags navigating the mighty Guayas River in Guayaquil. To commemorate women’s day, together with his wife Lasso invited his audience to recognize the value of women instead of giving gifts. In accordance with the inclusion narrative, he showed in a video his commitment to improve infrastructures and access to education to all populations. Finally, he dedicated a post about COVID19 vaccination in which his vice-presidential candidate, Alfredo Borrero, announced his promise to vaccinate 9 million Ecuadorians in the first 100 days of government.

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6.5 Conclusions The rapid emergence of social media as a critical tool for political communication and electoral success has fundamentally transformed the electoral landscape in Latin America. The Ecuadorian case is the first in Ecuador and Ibero-America in which TikTok was used as a key communication tool during an electoral campaign, providing robust evidence of the impact of TikTok on political communication. In a rapidly changing political environment, Lasso’s campaign team recognized the need to pivot and adapt their strategy during the crisis, highlighting the potential of TikTok to help politicians and candidates develop their political discourse, connect with their electorate, and debate ideas and proposals. Effectively using emotional appeals, humour, and viral trends, Lasso successfully engaged with young voters, resulting in a larger following rate than his opponent. Additionally, Lasso’s TikTok presence humanized his image through the power of important narratives for Ecuadorian culture such as family values and personal life while using a discrediting narrative to weaken his opponent’s candidacy. This research also highlights the differences in strategies employed by Lasso and Arauz. Lasso’s campaign relied on popular and contemporary audios, while Arauz’s videos featured original sound generated by the candidate’s storytelling. Both campaigns utilized hashtags, but Arauz used them more consistently. However, engagement rates were inversely proportional to the number of views and interactions. While our study demonstrates the potential impact of TikTok on political communication, further research is needed to fully understand its impact on electoral outcomes. Nevertheless, our research does emphasize the critical importance of effective communication strategies, particularly during times of crisis. This study contributes significantly to the broader discussion on the role of social media in political communication throughout Latin America. The findings underscore the growing significance of TikTok in electoral success and political communication in the region, emphasizing the need for political actors to adapt to new technologies and communication strategies while understanding and engaging with younger generations of voters. Future research should investigate the findings reported here in less polarized runoffs or in different political contexts and demographic profiles. Given the rapid evolution of social media, it is crucial to stay abreast of the latest trends and strategies for effective communication and voter engagement. Ultimately, the impact of social media on political communication underscores the importance of continued research in this area to better understand its impact on electoral outcomes and democratic processes.

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Vara, D. (2022, November 4) Brazil election marked by disinformation networks, says Carter Center. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazil-election-marked-by-disinform ation-networks-says-carter-center-2022-11-05/ Villavicencio, M. (2020, October 10). Political communication faces challenges in digital environments. Utpl.es. https://educacioncontinua.utpl.edu.ec/la-comunicaci%C3%B3n-pol%C3%ADt ica-enfrenta-desaf%C3%ADos-en-entornos-digitales (in Spanish). Xiao, L., Li, X., & Zhang, Y. (2023). Exploring the factors influencing consumer engagement behavior regarding short-form video advertising: A big data perspective. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 70, 103170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2022.103170 Zibell, M. (2017, February 17). After 10 years in office, besides a divided Ecuador, what else does Rafael Correa leave behind? BBC News Mundo. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-americalatina-38980926 (in Spanish). (in Spanish).

María Claudia Rivera Prado is an Ecuadorian professor who currently teaches at multiple institutions in Ecuador. She holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Valencia (Spain) and her research interests lie in the areas of education marketing, consumer behaviour, and new technologies. Kevin Lupiciano Barreto Coello is a journalist and researcher from Bahía, Ecuador. He is a skilled radio broadcaster and writer with expertise in disaster journalism and political consultancy. He has worked for a range of Ecuadorian government organizations and various municipalities. His dedication to excellence in journalism and his ability to provide astute political advice have earned him a reputation as a trusted and respected professional in his field.

Part III

Europe’s Far Right Plays TikTok: Parties’ Strategies and Users’ Reactions

Chapter 7

OK Boomer: “Political” Discussion and User Reactions to Political Communication in Matteo Salvini’s TikTok Laura Cervi and Santiago Tejedor

7.1 Introduction TikTok is the international twin of China’s mobile short video app Douyn (Kaye et al., 2021). Chinese tech giant ByteDance launched Douyin for the Chinese market in September 2016. The app has been presented in most markets outside China in 2017 and has become available worldwide as TikTok, after merging with Musically on 2 August 2018 (Savic, 2021). Since then, it has rapidly grown into one of the most popular social media, reaching over a billion monthly active users (Iqbal, 2022), becoming the highest-grossing app in the world in 2022 (Perez, 2022). Most important, 80% of its users are between the ages 16–34 (Iqbal, 2022), making TikTok Gen Z’s favourite social medium (Abidin et al., 2022). Although its connection to Musically might suggest that it is an entertainmentonly app, content on TikTok is becoming more and more heterogeneous, to the extent that some studies suggest that it is transforming into a sort of Generation Z’s global search engine (Epsilon Marketing, 2022), and their favourite news source (Iqbal, 2022). According to New York Times tech reporter Kalley Huang (2022), TikTok is increasingly becoming a “one-stop shop for information,” as users consider that on the app they find real people instead of “faceless websites.” Indeed, the platform is evolving from a place for pranks and viral dances to a Gen Z agora, where they discuss politics (Basch et al., 2020) and rally around social issues (Zeng & Abidin, 2021). It is, therefore, not surprising that together with journalists (Vázquez-Herrero L. Cervi (B) · S. Tejedor Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain e-mail: [email protected] S. Tejedor e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9_7

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et al., 2022) and marketers (Haenlein et al., 2020), political actors all over the planet are joining the app in an attempt to re-connect with the youngest audience (Cervi et al., 2021). An emerging stream of literature is looking at how different political actors use TikTok, but very little is known about how users react when exposed to political communication on the platform. Thus, this chapter aims at delving into how users react to the presence of a politician on TikTok. To do so, we focus on Matteo Salvini, leader of the populist right-wing Lega party in Italy, known to be one of the most active and followed European politicians on social networks (Bobba, 2019). Salvini, who joined TikTok in November 2019, has been among the first Italian politicians to join, and as of the time writing this article (January 2023) it has 832.800 followers and 11.1 million likes, turning him into Italy’s most followed politician on the platform.

7.2 TikTok and Politics 7.2.1 TikTok’s Affordances and Youth Political Engagement TikTok seems to have perfectly understood what Generation Z wants (Cervi et al., 2021). The platform enables users to create short videos using a wide selection of music, easy-to-use professional filters and editing services, that provide every user the possibility to create content. As noted by Zeng and Abidin (2021) TikTok’s affordances and cultural environment not only shape the vernacular and lingo of Gen Z’s political messages but also “how they form alignment” (p. 18). For instance, the duet feature empowers users to directly react by replying to others, with lip-syncing becoming an occasion to create personalized narratives on any topic. In addition, since the content is filtered, creating hyper-personalized, algorithmled experiences (Cotter et al., 2022), political interests and discussions can be framed around personal and/or intimate experiences, engendering “highly personalized spaces for everyday politics” (Highfield, 2016, p. 3), intertwined with the display of identity politics (Burns-Stanning, 2020). Last but not least, its algorithmic recommendation system, centred around the “For You” page, embeds a democratizing potential, providing every user the same possibility to go viral (Cervi et al., 2021), motivating users to express their political opinions and views in creative ways (Medina-Serrano et al., 2020, p. 264).

7.2.2 TikTok Activism TikTok’s momentum and its evolution towards a politically meaningful environment have awakened a growing interest in the media and in academia. Within the booming

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scholarly literature reflecting on the relationship between TikTok and politics (Abidin et al., 2022), it is possible to identify two emerging streams of literature. The first one focuses on the possibility that TikTok offers to grassroots movements and youth activism. Various studies have pointed out how the platform has been key for the popularization of the “Black Lives Matter” movement (Eriksson Krutrök & Åkerlund, 2022). In the same vein, TikTok has become one of the most relevant spaces for climate change activism (Basch et al., 2020; Hautea et al., 2021) and intersectional feminism (Steele, 2021). Other studies have focused on the #StopAsianHate movement during the Covid-19 pandemic (Jacques et al., 2022; Abidin & Zeng, 2020), and on how TikTok is successfully used by migrant communities both for identity building and for political discussion (Kaur-Gill, 2022). A promising sub-strand of this stream of research is investigating how TikTok’s peculiar affordances are engendering a new type of activism (Vijay & Gekker, 2021). Everything started in late 2019, when 17-year-old Feroza Aziz, from New Jersey in the United States, posted a short make-up tutorial in which, while curling her lashes, she called attention to the incarceration of Uighur Muslims in China, quickly going globally viral. Not only the video’s visual and auditory dissociation (Cho et al., 2020) represents a perfect example of “algorithmic resistance” (Karizat, et al., 2021)—the ability of users to avoid platform as well as state control by hiding political content in other formats to avoid or render difficult tracking and censorship (Tufekci, 2015) —it also perfectly embodies what has been defined as “playful activism” (Cervi & Marín-Lladó, 2022), characterized by the “hacking” of the platform’s affordances (Bucher & Helmond, 2018) to create politically charged playful performances that tackle hard topics in an (apparent) softer and more ludic way. Different works have reported examples of this emerging type of activism. During the so-called TikTok Intifada (Cervi & Marín-Lladó, 2022), young Palestinians successfully used the platform as a tool for resistance and a loudspeaker to claim Palestinian rights, mobilizing global support. In India, young people capitalized on TikTok’s light-hearted atmosphere to endorse the anti-caste protests (Subramanian, 2021), and LGBTQ + activism worldwide is increasingly counting on creative playful performances to bring about social justice (Simpson & Semaan, 2021). The app has also been used by creators to actively take part in official political campaigns. In the last British and US campaigns, “hype-houses” in support of candidates were created (Medina-Serrano et al., 2020). In the last American campaign, in particular, TikTokers successfully trolled Donald Trump: counting on an alliance with the wide K-Pop fans community, creators organized a false registration campaign for a Trump rally in Tulsa, resulting in many unexpected empty seats (Bandy & Diakopoulos, 2020; Cho, 2022).

7.2.3 TikTok Use by Political Actors Besides turning into the locus of youth political discussion, grassroots movements, and activism, TikTok’s burgeoning popularity has attracted political actors worldwide

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who are joining the app “to (re)connect with young people” (Cervi et al., 2021, p. 12). The second stream of literature, although scarcer in terms of academic production than the previous one, specifically focuses on how political and professional political actors use TikTok for political communication purposes. Studies have found that TikTok can help new or marginal candidates get in the spotlight during an election campaign (Muñoz, 2021). However, most works reveal that political actors tend to either struggle in adapting to the platform’s vernaculars and general techno-cultural environment (Cervi et al., 2021) or concentrate on the performativity side of the platform, rather than optimizing the possibilities it offers to generate a new/alternative form of (more) direct communication with the audience (Zurovac, 2022). For this reason, Bösch and Ricks (2021), analysing TikTok usage by German politicians, define it as a “missed opportunity.” Montúfar-Calle and colleagues (2022) reached a similar conclusion scrutinizing the last Peruvian political campaign. In Spain, Cervi and Marin-Lladó (2021) analysed political parties’ use of TikTok, discovering that very few of them have capitalized on the app’s affordances to strengthen dialogue with their constituencies. Instead, most of them used it as a unilateral instrument for promotion, leading to “politainment”— a portmanteau of the words “politics” and “entertainment,” referring to the use of entertainment formats, techniques, and strategies in political communication i.e., the blending of politics and entertainment into a new type of political communication (Nieland, 2008). Finally, recent research results point out that TikTok can also be a source of political polarization (Calderón et al., 2022) and hate speech (Weimann & Masri, 2021), possibly converting into a breeding ground for populist right-wing parties’ communication (Castro Martínez & Días Morilla, 2021). These two streams of research, although focusing on different aspects, share a common point of view: they are both supply-side centred, that is to say, they only look at the producers of content, ignoring the audience’s reaction. Although the production side is extremely important, because these works do not take users’ feedback into consideration, they miss the chance to assess the effects of political communication.

7.3 Method Although their usage is uneven, nowadays most Italian politicians have a TikTok account (Zurovac, 2022). As previously noted, Matteo Salvini, who published his first TikTok on November 12th, 2019 was the second Italian politician to join the app and currently is the most popular in terms of followers and likes. In this study we chose to focus on the comments responding to his first 52 TikToks—all the posts published between November 12, 2019 and May 13th, 2020. The reason for limiting the sample of our research to the initial posts is to disclose how the novelty of a politician’s presence was perceived by TikTok users. As the platform does not provide a commercial application programming interface (API) to analyse data on users and their behaviour, we have manually scraped it,

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collecting all the comments to the politician’s first 52 TikToks. All the retrieved comments have been stored in a spreadsheet. Our study has taken a mixed-method approach, combining computer-assisted and human, quantitative, and qualitative content analysis. Mixing computer-assisted and human coding techniques appears to be particularly profitable (Bazeley, 2010), as the former is more efficient in processing and analysing large corpora, while the latter is more suitable for deepening the analysis of contextual cues. The entire corpus of comments (n = 45,904) has been analysed using NVivo, a data analysis, computer software package that provides a workspace for researchers to store, manage, query, and analyse unstructured data (Phillips & Lu, 2018). Subsequently, we selected a sample, using systematic sampling, for the qualitative analysis. The systematic sampling technique is considered more accurate than simple random sampling in providing estimators (Sayed & Ibrahim, 2018). In our case, applying the Kth selection technique, the retrieved comments were divided by the “desired sample size,” resulting in 1 in every 20 articles being selected, ensuring that the sample was representative of the overall distribution of comments. The obtained sample of 2295 comments was thus manually analysed by the authors applying multimodal content analysis (Serafini & Reid, 2019). Taking a multimodal approach is particularly important to understand online environments’ meaning making (Jewitt, 2014), because on social media, and especially on TikTok, users combine different modes of communication (video, audio, text, images, emojis, etc.) into one, creating an integrated, multimodal environment (Highfield & Leaver, 2016). Each selected comment (both text and emojis) was coded for analysis. The codes for the analysis were generated through deductive and inductive approaches. Deductive codes were developed following prior literature. In order to generate additional codes enabling us to capture aspects not investigated in previous research, an inductive approach, informed by grounded theory principles (Birks & Mills, 2022), was also used. Initially, both authors coded 200 comments together, applying the pre-established literature codes and developing the inductive theme codes emerging from the comments. Later, as suggested by Weber (1990) and Cohen (1960), we doublecoded 10% of the comments to ensure consistent application of the codes and to jointly agree on additions, amendments, or changes to the codebook. This adapted codebook was then applied to the remaining comments. Finally, to ensure the reliability of the content analysis, following Milne and Adler (1999) overall findings were cross-checked a few weeks after the primary content analysis to ensure inter-coder reliability. The final Cohen’s kappa inter-agreement between both raters was 0.966, showing nearly perfect agreement.

7.3.1 Ethical Issues Interactions and comments were studied without researchers’ involvement in the discussions; therefore, informed consent was not required since the comments were

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public. However, following the ethical norms recommended by the Ethics Working Committee of the Association of Internet Researchers (Franzke et al., 2020) and complying with the European Directive on privacy and electronic communications’ requirements for researchers (Bennett, 2018), all data/comments have been anonymized and no identification and/or personal information from users has been analysed or retained. In the same vein, real or screen names have been hidden in images, as a measure of privacy protection, so that the content of the comments cannot be linked to the identity of the user.

7.4 Results 7.4.1 Content of the TikToks Preliminarily, we classified Salvini’s TikToks following Cervi and Marín-Lladó’s (2021) framework, that is videos have been classified according to their content. This operation was basic for our study, since it enabled us to investigate whether comments change depending on the content of the posts they provided feedback to. The a priori established content categories were “political,” “personal,” and “entertainment.” Political-Toks collect messages with an explicit political content (i.e., asking for the vote, discussing a political issue, etc.); personal posts represent the videos displaying Salvini’s private life without any relation to politics (family, hobbies, etc.); and entertainment posts involve videos whose content is only shared for entertainment purposes. In one TikTok, for instance, Salvini is displayed “hunting” for hard to find Nutella biscuits, capitalizing on a very popular (possibly marketing-initiated) trend at the time of the posting. Double checking the codes, we noted that the majority of the posts did not fall into any of the previous categories, since most of them, even though not explicitly talking about political issues, contained subtle political messages. For example, in different TikToks Salvini is shown eating foods considered typically Italian (such as pasta or prosciutto): this content, depending on the location and the intention, would theoretically fall either into the personal or the entertainment category. Nonetheless, a multimodal look unveils the fact that apparently neutral topics are in reality pretextually used for political purposes. Food, in this case, is verbally presented by the politician as Italian excellence and/or a marker of Italian identity, and posts referring to food are often accompanied by political hashtags such as #primaglitaliani (Italians first) with clear political connotations. Accordingly, another category, called “non-political TikToks with a subtle political meaning” has been created to collect this type of content. This category represents 41%, the majority of the posts, followed by personal content 31%, political with 15%, and entertainment with 13%. In this sense, it is possible to observe how Salvini tries to adapt to TikTok’s cultural environment by avoiding “straight-in-your-face” hard

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political topics, opting to focus on common-sense popular issues, mostly belonging to pop-culture (such as food, popular music, etc.), to portray himself as an ordinary man (Serazio, 2018), without renouncing the infusion of messages with a modicum of politics (depending on the case).

7.4.2 Comments Comments have been in primis labelled as positive, negative, and non-identifiable. A great majority of the comments were negative (68%), with only 28% positive and 6% non-identifiable. The latter are mostly represented by users tagging other users without any further wording or general exclamations such as “Mamma mia!” (Oh mother!), offering multiple interpretations that are impossible to decipher semantically in the absence of any other contextual information. After categorizing comments according to their positive or negative intention we investigated whether the positive/negative tone of the comments varied depending on the posts’ content. Interestingly, Fig. 7.1 shows that there is no considerable variation depending on the content of the post, with most comments being generally negative in all the categories. Positive comments are slightly higher in personal life-Toks and negative comments tend to be higher in posts with subtle political meaning. In other words, it seems that the content and/or the topic tackled by Salvini in each video is almost irrelevant regarding the users’ reactions. In the same vein, we divided comments into those related to the video they were commenting about and those disconnected from the content they provided feedback to –an astonishing majority of the former (87.7%). Therefore, it seems that again, the content of the post is irrelevant: users’ comments are almost completely detached from the content.

Fig. 7.1 Topic of the TikToks and comments (Authors)

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7.4.3 The Comments’ Main Themes We subsequently classified comments according to their main themes. In the first round of coding, following Cervi and Marín-Lladó (2021), comments were grouped according to their content: “political,” “personal,” and “other.” In political comments users make explicit references to politics or policy, understood as both ideology or administrative/governmental issues, related or unrelated to the content of the TikTok they are commenting about. Inspired by the framework of Stier and colleagues (2018), to be classified as “political” a comment had to meet at least one of the following criteria: expressing a position on one or more social issues, dealing with the political process, mentioning an institution, and/or indicating a voting intention. Personal comments are those that refer to Matteo Salvini as a person. Recognizing that a personal account, although belonging to a politician, is inherently personalized, these comments have been further subdivided in accordance with Metz and colleagues’ proposal (2020) that differentiate between “professional personalization and private personalization.” The first category collects content expressing opinions and judgements related to the official role the political actor occupies, that is to say comments about Salvini the politician; the second entails criticism/appreciation towards the private persona of the politician, including commentaries on his characteristics and traits (for instance, physical appearance) or referring to his personal life (family, hobbies)—that is to say it gathers comments on Matteo, the person. Under the category of “other” we collected all the comments with no reference to politics or to Salvini and/or unidentifiable. For instance, some users, as previously mentioned, simply tag other users, making cataloguing impossible. In the same vein, different types of “No comment” were retrieved, although one might interpret that “no comment” sarcastically, expressing rejection of Salvini. However, as it is impossible to clearly differentiate between these two possibilities they were coded as “other.” In addition, the thematic choice of Salvini’s posts, especially those collected under “entertainment,” fosters the presence—albeit statistically not very relevant— of non-political comments related to the specific topic of the post. In particular, the abovementioned video about Nutella biscuits—a new kind of chocolate cookie created in limited edition by Nutella, impossible to find in most stores—is the one that gathered many content-specific comments, with users remarking on their personal experience looking for the cookies or commenting on their taste, price, etc. After the first coding round, however, we realized that from a quantitative perspective, the most recurring comment was “OK Boomer” that isn’t related to politics per se, and does not necessarily refer to Salvini as a person (at least not clearly or directly), as it a sort of social media buzzword applicable to anyone recognized as not young. As noted by Gonyea and Hudson (2020), “OK Boomer” and the #okboomer memes have circulated in various media platforms, but they truly gained their memetic momentum on TikTok. This catchphrase seems to have emerged as Gen Z’s sarcastic reaction to adults’ criticism accusing their generation of being delusional, unable to grow up

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(Gonyea & Hudson, 2020)—epitomizing Gen Z’s intergenerational tension against Baby Boomers and their growing ageism (Meisner, 2020). In social media, especially on TikTok, it has mutated to a sort of all-purpose sarcastic reply used by young people to disarm members of older generations (Zeng & Abidin, 2021), perceived as old-fashioned, inappropriate, presumptive, or condescending (Ng & Indran, 2022). In the same vein, we detected a relevant number of comments about Salvini’s ubiquitous presence on social networks and general comments about politicians’ presence on TikTok. Thus, the quantitative presence of “OK Boomer” and of comments regarding the presence of Salvini—or, in general, political actors on TikTok and their qualitative importance—made us realize that none of our pre-established categories was able to grasp its meaning and function. Accordingly, we decided to create an independent category, defined as “metadiscursive comments.” All these comments, in fact, constitute a sort of reflexive metadiscourse about the medium itself, that on the one hand represents a typical characteristic of computer mediated communication—and particularly of social media discourse (Zappavigna, 2018)—while on the other hand is especially meaningful in the case here under analysis, since Salvini’s communicative strategy is primarily based on social media (Bobba, 2019; Cervi, 2019). This category ended up being the most frequent, gathering 42% of the total comments, followed by personal comments with 38% (in which comments about the political persona are prevalent). Pure political comments only came in third, representing 15.5% of the total, with the “other” represented by residual off-topic comments, or as previously mentioned, specific comments about entertainment. Figure 7.2 shows that, although metadiscursive comments were generically prevalent in all the categories, comments related to the politician as an individual, as expected, were higher in entertainment content and content displaying personal life, whereas comments related to Salvini’s political persona were prevalent in political messages. On the other hand, surprisingly, comments related to political issues were more frequent when the politician used apparently innocent topics to transmit political messages.

7.4.4 In-Depth Analysis of Comments After analysing the general content of the comments, we probed deeper into the most recurring themes of the negative and the positive comments. Figure 7.3 displays the main themes of negative comments, the great majority of which are represented by “OK Boomer,” which as previously explained represents Gen Z’s contrast with older generations. In this sense, it is possible to confirm the Zeng and Abidin (2021) thesis about the salience of intergenerational politics on TikTok. The following most recurrent comments tackled Salvini’s massive presence on social networks. As previously noted, the politician seems omnipresent in all social media (Cervi, 2020). His social media success has been attributed to “La Bestia” (The

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Fig. 7.2 Topic of the TikToks and comments (Authors)

Fig. 7.3 Main themes of negative comments (Authors)

Beast), a software created by the party’s former community manager, Luca Morisi, that through sentiment analysis can instantly measure posts’ success, topics that arise from the comments, and the characteristics of the users, in order to efficiently segment and target the following publications according to the reactions of the public (Diamanti & Pregliasco, 2019). Moreover, within a hybrid media system (Chadwick, 2013), where new and old media are intertwined and their logics complement each other, social media presence also serves as a loudspeaker to influence the agenda of traditional media. Accordingly, Salvini is also omnipresent in legacy media. For instance, during the 2018 electoral campaign, he beat television records by becoming the most talked about politician

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Fig. 7.4 Translation: why are you also here? (matteosalviniufficiale, 2019)

Fig. 7.5 Translation: a Politician Should Not be on a Children’s App (matteosalviniufficiale, 2019)

on TV, and the fifth most talked about individual, just after Pope Francis (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, 2019). As illustrated by Fig. 7.4, users criticize the politician for being in every media. Many comments pointing at the general inappropriateness of the presence of politicians on an app mainly inhabited by young or very young people have also been retrieved. Figure 7.5 displays a user openly declaring that no politician should “invade” an app dedicated to children. Therefore, we can conclude that a great majority of the comments represent a metadiscourse about TikTok, portraying it as a free space that should not be infiltrated by political actors. Figure 7.6 lays out the main themes of positive comments. Exactly as in the previous case, within positive comments political issues represent a marginal minority, demonstrating that political discussion is hardly present. Likewise, content referring to politicians or Salvini’s presence on the platform are marginal. The most recurring positive feedback refers either to Salvini’s political persona or to his personal traits. Personal as well as political compliments mostly adopt the language of fan culture (Street, 2019), to the extent they pose a challenge in trying to differentiate the personal from the political persona. Users hardly ever comment on specific political attributes, such as capacity and/or on political success; they mostly provide an emotional display of affection towards the political leader. Figure 7.7 exemplifies this phenomenon, showing how a supporter defines Salvini as “fantastic,” expressing his/her/their emotional attachment by adding paratextual cues in the form of hearth or in-love face. In this sense, it is possible to state that TikTok fosters the process of fandomisation of political supporters (Street, 2019). Salvini’s TikTok supporters idolise him in the exact same way as fans deify their fan objects such as Pop stars or sportsmen (Sandvoss, 2013), exhibiting the same blind support displayed by sports/celebrity fans (Dwyer et al., 2015). As pointed out by Dean (2017), fandom mostly differs from political partisanship as the affiliation of fans belongs to individual politicians. Fans love their politicians based on their character, way of speaking, physical appearance,

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Fig. 7.6 Main themes of positive comments (Authors) Fig. 7.7 Translation: fantastic! (matteosalviniufficiale, 2020)

or individual background (Canovan, 1999), showing less interest in political ideology or policy proposals. Within this category, as displayed by Fig. 7.8, many comments related to Salvini’s internet/political nickname, “Il Capitano,” have been retrieved. Capitano in Italian means captain; besides its obvious military meaning—mainly referring to the Dux, the one who leads the army—in the Italian language this word is mostly used in sports, specifically in soccer, to indicate the captain, the leader of a soccer team. This nickname was created by/for Salvini within his large Facebook community (Diamanti & Pregliasco, 2019) and its frequent use by TikTok commenters constitutes further proof for the thesis of the fandomisation of political support. The same can be said about the fandomisation of detractors: exactly as political fans display blind support for the political persona independent of ideology, anti-fans (Barnes & Middlemost, 2022) behave like “haters,” showing unconditional emotional rejection. As noted, after the metadiscursive comments about the presence of politicians on TikTok, the second most recurrent negative comments are attacks against Salvini’s Fig. 7.8 Translation: go captain…you’re a myth!!! (matteosalviniufficiale, 2019)

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Fig. 7.9 Translation: when I see you I have the impulse of putting two fingers in my throat (matteosalviniufficiale, 2019)

political persona that do not entail political criticism but rather a more emotional animosity against his person. Most of these attacks express personal feelings towards Salvini (anger, disgust, etc.) or voice the intention to leave TikTok because of his presence. Within this category, 10% of the comments displayed incivility. Acknowledging that understanding civility can be both subjective and cultural-based, criteria for assigning an uncivil code have been drawn from Papacharissi’s well known proposal (2004) and include, among other things, ad hominem attacks, stereotyping, incitatement to violence, cursing, and inflammatory language. In this case, most of the uncivil comments were insults and the use of vulgar language. The comment illustrated in Fig. 7.9 shows a user declaring that whenever she sees Salvini she feels the impulse to vomit. Finally, in both cases, political issues represent a marginal percentage of the total amount of comments. Most of the comments tackle immigration—a sort of trademark of Salvinian discourse—and LGTBQ + rights. In this sense, it is important to note how more than half of the negative comments collected under this category (57.4%) use humour as a tool for articulating political meaning. The political function of humour is not something new (Pérez Rastrilla, 2015). Nonetheless, social media affordances generate a peculiar techno-discursive dynamic (Khosravinik, 2018) in which humour has become one of the key elements to understand digitally mediated political engagement (Highfield, 2016). On the one hand, humour enables the release of negative emotions, creating liberating feelings (Glas et al., 2019), on the other, it transforms hard and/or painful issues into something more digestible (Takovski, 2020). Thus, this type of humorous content can be placed in the category of “seriously funny” (Davis et al., 2018) since humour (absurdity, parody, etc.) is used as a tool to express feelings and/or to expose injustice. Figure 7.10 shows a user’s reply to a video portraying Salvini resting under the shadow of an olive tree. The users warn Salvini to keep his eyes well opened as “olive trees are black,” using absurdity to call him out as a racist. Figure 7.11 displays a comment in which a user gives Salvini a “present,” offering him many emoticons representing black people, again using ridicule to call him a racist.

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Fig. 7.10 Translation: pay attention, Savini, Olive trees are black (matteosalviniufficiale, 2019)

Fig. 7.11 Translation: Salvini, I have something for you…There you are! (matteosalviniufficiale, 2019)

7.4.5 Emojis Social media scholars have disclosed how social media engender new types of lingo and vernacular: without any doubt, besides platform-based slang and jargon, emojis are the most widely diffused internet language (Park et al., 2014). Emojis (a neologism obtained from merging the Japanese words for picture and character) are pictograms, or a “set of expression symbols” (Bai et al., 2019) used in electronic messages and web pages to make up for the lack of non-verbal cues in computer-mediated communication. Although cultural differences in their use and interpretation have been retrieved (Park et al., 2014), thanks to their intuitive visual nature emojis constitute a sort of universal language (Alshenqeeti, 2016) that overcomes linguistic barriers, enabling users to display their emotional state or to add emotional tone to messages, generating a paralanguage that by adding layered meanings to text, constitutes—and can be studied—as a proper visual form of rhetoric. Figures 7.12 and 7.13 illustrate the distribution of respectively negative and positive emojis. In the first, the most frequently retrieved emoji is the “clown face,” followed by angry and “puke” faces. While the latter represents a typical display of disgust, the first is especially interesting as it entails a reflection of the moral values and the politician’s authenticity. Most of the “clown faces” have been retrieved in connection with text criticizing Salvini for “wasting his time on the app instead of working for the country.” Other comments, statistically less prevalent but no less interesting, use the clown as a metaphor for someone who hides his/her/their real appearance behind a mask, thus inauthentic, stressing the importance of authenticity and/or the perception of authenticity in social networks, and especially on TikTok (Becker, 2021). Curiously, the “running man” emoji is used in 11.5% of the comments. As previously mentioned, many users ironically declare their intention to abandon TikTok after Salvini’s “invasion.”

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Fig. 7.12 Most frequent negative emojis (Authors)

Fig. 7.13 Most frequent positive emojis (Authors)

As per the positive comments, most of them use the most popular faces expressing love and affection. It is also interesting to observe that 13% of the users compliment Salvini with a “Cup” emoji, representing him as a champion. The frequency in the use of this sport-themed emoji reaffirms the presence of an environment of political fandom in which the political actor is “the champion,” the idol to be worshipped by his supporters. Finally, we calculated the inter-user interaction rate, measuring the percentage of comments that engage with other comments. The results show that less than 1% of the comments reply to other users’ comments, showing that there is practically no dialogue nor interaction among users. In any case, it is important to remember that our research only focuses on the first 52 posts dating back to 2019, when TikTok was not as popular as it is today and the presence of politicians was not as normalized. Accordingly, these results should be double-checked and confirmed by further studies looking at whether the level of interaction and discussion have improved with the passing of time.

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7.5 Conclusions In this chapter, we have analysed users’ reactions to the presence of a politician on TikTok, using the case of Matteo Salvini. Being the first to delve into this topic, our work must be accordingly considered as an exploratory study. Therefore, our findings are inherently perfectible. Our results show that Salvini was definitely not welcomed on TikTok, since a wide majority of the retrieved comments were negative. Interestingly, however, almost all these comments lack a political component, rather focusing on a metadiscourse about the medium itself. The criticism, in other words, seems geared more towards intergenerational politics (Zeng & Abidin, 2021) than politics tout court. As seen, the most recurrent comment is “OK Boomer,” showing that TikTok users are not that interested in criticising specific political positions, but rather preferring to call out the politician’s presence itself as “alien”—an adult, professional, political actor—in what they consider “their own” safe and untouched environment. Political discussion and debate in its traditional sense (i.e., debate about political issues) is practically absent, substituted by fandom style emotional reactions. The politician is either treated as a celebrity to idolize (Street, 2019) or as “the enemy” to be insulted, no matter what he does/says (Click, 2019). As highlighted, positive comments mainly comprise loving emojis or soccer-stadium-like supportive slogans, and negative comments work in the exact same way. Users behave like “haters,” who immediately react against whatever the hated subject does, ridiculing, insulting, or threatening him/her/them. In both cases, this emotional display leaves very little space for reasoned debate and potentially no space for moderate discussion. This aspect is confirmed by the limited interaction among users. Our results, in this sense, confirm previous studies predicting the increase of what has been alternatively defined as pop politics (Mazzoleni & Sfardini, 2009) or politainment (Nieland, 2008). Politainment aims to engage, entertain, and persuade audiences by using techniques such as humour, drama, and emotional appeals. Some authors (Berrocal-Gonzalo et al., 2014) see it as a form of the banalization of politics (Serazio, 2018), in which complex issues are reduced to simplistic narratives and political concepts disappear in favour of soundbites and emotions. Others argue that it can be a powerful tool for increasing political engagement and interest, especially among young people who may be disengaged from traditional political discourse (Riegert & Collins, 2016). In the case of the analysed TikTok’s comments, we can properly talk about a reductio ab stadium of political conversation, which instead of consisting of different ideas/opinions arguing political issues is characterized by the sole emotional display of support/animosity against political actors. This emotion-based fan/anti-fan-type of support, similar to what happens in sports fandom, inherently entails the risk of increasing polarization (Click, 2019). Nonetheless, our findings reveal that users also show great capacity to reflect on the social media they use with a certain amount of political knowledge when they

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criticise the politician for being omnipresent in social networks, employing humour and sarcasm to expose the politician’s ideology. On the one hand, these aspects suggest that users enjoy TikTok for being a free space, and therefore consider any form of professional politics as inappropriate interference, posing a dilemma to both politicians and political communicators as to how to communicate efficiently within this space. On the other hand, their humoristic replies and sarcastic ridiculing certain political positions might constitute a new form of playful political engagement, worth further scrutiny in future studies. Accordingly, it is important to stress that the current study’s limitations. The first directly derives from the selected sample: by focusing only on the first TikToks published by Salvini our results are static and cannot provide an account of the eventual evolution of political discussion. Further studies should analyse a wider time period to confirm our findings or alternatively whether the presence of politicians on TikTok has become more accepted and/or more normalized, leading to an improvement in the quality of political discussion. In the same vein, although Salvini can be considered a by-the-book example of a Web 2.0 populist (Cervi, 2019), our findings might apply only to his specific case. Therefore, more comparative research is needed. In addition, and most important, as previously pointed out our results suggest that the acceptance of this politician on TikTok has been predominantly negative. Nonetheless, the current hyper-mediatized environment, and the subsequent quest for visibility, naturally increases the entertainment side of political communication, with political actors “even willing to satirize themselves” (Higgie, 2015, p. 64), as long as it brings more visibility. In this sense, being cringy could be both a visibility-increasing strategy and a tool to strengthen the perception of spontaneity, authenticity, and ordinariness—fundamental for any political actor, especially for populist politicians (Gerbaudo, 2018). Accordingly, it is critically important for future works to employ alternative research methods, such as focus groups or in-depth interviews with users as well as communication professionals to assess the quantitative and the qualitative impact of this new form of visibility construction.

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Laura Cervi is a Serra Húnter Associate Professor of the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences and a member of the Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación Research Group at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. Her main research interest is political communication and its relationship to new technologies, with a focus on TikTok. She is a member of the TikTok Cultures Research Network. Santiago Tejedor is Professor and Director of the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) where he teaches, studies, and researches. He coordinates the Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación, a recognized and consolidated research group.

Chapter 8

Alternative TikTok Tactics: How the German Right-Wing Populist Party AfD Plays the Platform Marcus Bösch

8.1 Introduction Social media and content platforms have fundamentally transformed political communication in the twenty-first century (Lipschultz, 2022). Politicians, partisans, and parties have to adapt to ever new ways of engaging with their audiences in order to reach and recruit voters. Like radio and television or other more traditional media before, current forms of media coin the way in which we communicate (Wu, 2011). Over the last few years, a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance has created a unique digital media environment (Miltsov, 2022). It brought new affordances, a specific language, and a new form of political communication (Medina Serrano et al., 2020) to its more than one billion users (TikTok Newsroom, 2021) since its international launch in 2017. Contemporaneously, in Germany a right-wing populist party entered the parliament for the first time in over half a century (Medina Serrano et al., 2019). Although right-wing populists have been established in other Western European countries for many years (Netherlands, France, Italy, Austria), Germany has long been considered a populism-free island in Europe (Schroeder & Weßels, 2020). As TikTok quickly became one of the most popular social media platforms in the world (Brandon, 2022), the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) conquered not only the federal parliament but entered all state parliaments and the European parliament. Likewise, it became the German party with the widest reach in the digital space (Hillje, 2022).TikTok has rapidly developed from a punchline for jokes about “kids these days” into a formidable force in politics with a viral potential “higher than YouTube” (Guinaudeau et al., 2022). With more than one billion monthly active users it has become too big to ignore for political parties. In M. Bösch (B) HAW Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9_8

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Germany, the general elections 2021 served as a harbinger with five out of seven political groups flocking to the platform, setting up accounts (Bösch & Ricks, 2021). Despite the claims that they were not about to use TikTok (Röhlig, 2022), no party in the federal parliament uses TikTok more intensively than the AfD (Schipmann et al., 2022) that has built up the most far-reaching social media channels in the German party landscape. Yet social scientific research of AfD messages on social media is still in its infancy (Hillje, 2022). This especially holds true for TikTok where political use of the platform is still understudied (Cervi and Marín-Lladó, 2021). In this chapter I analyse strategies and features of the AfD’s astounding success on TikTok to better understand platform affordances in a constantly transforming political communication landscape.

8.2 Objective and Hypothesis Building on previous work (Bösch & Ricks, 2021), the unique digital media environment the platform provides (Miltsov, 2022) is explored to describe new forms of political communication (Medina Serrano et al., 2020) that arise on TikTok. No previous work has systematically analyzed the use of TikTok by the AfD, that by first glance operates differently than other political parties. The AfD is not playing by the TikTok book (DIE DA OBEN!, 2022). Whereas other parties hire external agencies to compete with the latest challenges on the platform (Der Spiegel, 2019), AfD politicians mostly avoid entertainment-based formats and do not use creative styles and narratives that normally reach higher levels of engagement (Zamora-Medina, 2023). Unlike all German parties in the Bundestag that are active on TikTok (@spdbt, @fdpbt, @linksfraktion) the AfD remains without an official parliamentary group account. It was blocked by TikTok in May 2022 due to hateful behaviour and repeated violations of TikTok’s community guidelines, leaving the party without an official TikTok centre. Several AfD delegates disguise their party affiliation behind coded or suggestive language in the user handles (Schipmann et al., 2022). Instead, an army of ambiguous fan-accounts helps to spread narratives to very different target audiences (Papakyriakopoulos et al., 2018), utilizing different persuasion techniques ranging from so called pick me up girls (Seidel, 2022) to rudimentary slideshow templates filled with low-quality images of the AfD logo together with the typography “LOVE” garnished with the national anthem—audio-visual content that would be expected in a Facebook group rather than on TikTok. In addition to the empty core, the disguised delegates, and the army of fans, inauthentic usage behavior were in evidence before the 2021 German general election (Schwarzer, 2020). Journalists tied these to foreign powers. Already in April 2019 the news magazine Der Spiegel reported that Russian government emails showed evidence of how Moscow was seeking to exploit the Alternative for Germany party in its propaganda war. The right-wing populists appeared to be voluntary accomplices

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(Der Spiegel, 2019). All these observations lead to three research questions that shall be further investigated in the analysis: RQ01: The AfD and its representatives are among the most successful German political accounts. What special features can be observed in the AfD’s TikTok use in contrast to other German parties? RQ02: What role do fan accounts play in the distribution of AfD content? Which features are decisive here? RQ03: What indicators can be identified of hidden campaigns to support the AfD?

8.3 Theoretical Framework and Methodological Approach While the quick rise of TikTok and the controversies around it have attracted the interest of a quickly growing scholarly community (Zeng et al., 2021), TikTok studies have not yet established conceptual or methodological traditions (Miltsov, 2022). Building on Martin Fuchs’ (2023) exhaustive list of German politics on TikTok, I applied an exploratory user-centric research methodology (Grandinetti & Bruinsma, 2022) based on the walkthrough method as the main data-gathering procedure (Light et al., 2018). Opening an unbiased, research-dedicated TikTok account, I followed AfD politicians and fans, actively engaging with content by watching and “liking” to train the algorithm in order to display more related content. A qualitative selection of “information-rich cases” (Sandelowski, 1995) was executed to apply multimodal content analysis (Zeng & Abidin, 2021) on selected videos. To back up observations by numbers, a quantitative approach was taken by comparing publicly available data like the view count, likes, shares, and comments. This zooming-in analysis is by no means exhaustive, but should be seen as another initial foray into a broader understanding of TikTok politics (Bandy & Diakopoulos, 2020), and the TikTok tactics applied by political actors.

8.4 Results and Discussion Taken together, the AfD and its members have more accounts on TikTok than any other German party (Fuchs, 2023). In September 2022, the AfD clearly dominated the top 10 of German politicians on TikTok regarding follower count (5 out of 10) and view count (4 out of 10) (Fuchs, 2022). Especially Ulrich Siegmund, an AfD politician and member of the state parliament in Saxony-Anhalt, is remarkable for several reasons to be further explored. With 227,800 followers (September 2022) he leads the list as the most followed German politician on the platform. He is far ahead of Thomas Sattelberger with 147,800 followers (FDP) and Dr. Wolfgang Heubisch with 114,500 followers (FDP), ranking second and third. With former member of the

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federal parliament Sattelberger having resigned from office in 2022, three members of state parliaments—including Uwe Dorendorf from Lower Saxony with 106,800 (CDU)—now lead the list. Regarding number of views, another German state politician Lutz Liebscher from Thuringia (SPD) ranks number one with 29,737,200 views, Siegmund (AfD) is ranked two with 23,825,100 views and Heubisch (FDP) is ranked three with 18,795,900 views. Interestingly, state politicians seem to perform better on TikTok than their colleagues at the federal level. Several reasons might be responsible for this. Compared to their federal colleagues, state politicians often miss the national media stage and have to rely on their own channels. And while being a politician is a stressful job, state politicians might have more time resources. Meanwhile, many members of the federal parliament have built far-reaching accounts on other platforms like Instagram and do not rely on TikTok whereas state politicians prioritize targeting younger voters via TikTok as the voting age for state parliaments and local elections is 16 and not 18 years in some German states.

8.4.1 TikTok Strategies in State Parliaments Due to TikTok’s architecture as an algorithmic-driven content platform the view count is more important than the number of followers. While you can follow people on TikTok, you might as well spend the entire time on your algorithmic-curated “For You Page” actively watching or avoiding watching videos by swiping up the screen, further influencing your future video feed. Therefore, I chose the three most watched videos of the three most viewed political accounts (Liebscher, Siegmund, and Heubisch) as “information-rich cases” in order to apply a multimodal content analysis to learn more about features that can be observed in the TikTok use of the AfD in contrast to the other German parties. This, in order to answer RQ01: What special features can be observed in the TikTok use of the AfD in contrast to other German parties? (Fig. 8.1). Since TikTok’s beginning the company behind it has provided hints on how to properly use the platform to increase views, likes, and impact. All of these mainly revolve around the idea to play by the rules of the platform. And this does not only mean “stick to 9:16 aspect ratio” (TikTok, 2022) or to add video information, that “might include details like captions, sounds, and hashtags” (TikTok, 2020). TikTok promotes an entertainment first-approach: “TikTok is a global entertainment platform that enables brands to meaningfully connect with people at scale” (TikTok Works, 2022). TikTok explicitly states that brands are more successful if they turn their content to cater the needs of the audience, which means “to put it simply, people want their TikTok experience to be fun” (TikTok Works, 2022). Therefore, many successful TikTok creators rely on using trending sounds and joining challenges. Challenges on TikTok are campaigns (or trends) that invite people to create their own videos based on performing a specific task, choosing a specific visual effect or applying a special sound.

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Fig. 8.1 Screenshots of three TikTok accounts further examined. From left to right: Wolfgang Heubisch (FDP), Lutz Liebscher (SPD) and Ulrich Siegmund (AfD)

Obviously this strategy is working in the political realm, as Zamora-Medina (2023) states: “However, when political parties incorporated creative styles and narratives, emotionality and soft content narratives into their communicative repertoire, their videos scored higher levels of engagement.” Soft content narratives here describe entertainment-based formats and content that lead not only to a higher engagement rate but to better overall visibility in an algorithmic recommendation system that values and promotes norms (by amplifying the content to appear in others’ feeds), resulting in a wealth of content that ends up being aesthetically similar (Abidin et al., 2021). “Creative styles” should therefore be expected in successful TikTok videos by political actors including the use of 9:16 video ratio, hashtags, and sounds. The three most viewed videos of the three most viewed political accounts will now be analyzed to learn more about the use of specific features.

8.4.1.1

“Che La Luna” with Dr. Wolfgang Heubisch, FDP (117.7K Followers, 3.5M Likes)

Wolfgang Heubisch is a German politician for the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). He was born in 1946 and his TikTok bio reads: Member and Vice president of the Bavarian state parliament. His account is verified by TikTok due to the blue check mark symbol next to his user handle @wolfgang.heubisch. Heubisch joined

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TikTok on Nov. 26, 2020, at the age of 74. Since then he has posted 150 TikTok videos (until early 2023), already earlier becoming “a TikTok star” as written in Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany (Osel, 2021). According to another press article, Heubisch leaves to his employees the design of his videos, the selection of music, and picking up on current trends (Huesmann, 2021). His third-most viewed video from December 13, 2022, received 2.2 million views (TikTok, 2022)—a POV-TikTok video. POV stands for “point of view.” TikTok creators who make videos with the POV hashtag aim to showcase a situation that unfolds in real-time. It takes place from your point of view as the audience (Imagor, 2021). The video is titled: Du hälst eine Rede, aber die AfD ist auch da (You give a speech, but the AfD is there too). Heubisch mimics speaking to an audience (probably in parliament), he is wearing a suit and tie, and gestures with his hands, lip-syncing the song “Microwave Popcorn” by American comedian and musician Bo Burnham (2023). In December 2022 a section of the song where Burnham gets frustrated with himself went viral on TikTok as a source for lip dub videos joking about frustrating or one-sided conversations or having a conversation that a third party is chiming into. The popular sound on TikTok has been used in more than 363K videos by the beginning of January 2023 (Burnham, 2023) and has an entry on Know Your Meme (Hamilton, 2021) a Meme and Trends platform that has been named Encyclopaedia Britannica of Memes by the Wall Street Journal (Winkie, 2023). The text under the 12-s long video reads: Bodenlose Zwischenrufe und Nachfragen, die man von rechts zu hören bekommt… Da kann man meist nur den Kopf schütteln #politik #politiktok #noafd #neinzurafd (Bottomless interjections and inquiries that you can hear from the right… You can usually only shake your head #politik #politiktok #noafd #neinzurafd). Here Heubisch and his team showcase platform-specific literacy. By applying a common video adjustment (“POV”), using a trending sound (“Bo Burnham”), and employing these to convey a political statement while achieving a striking audiovisual contrast of a 70-plus German politician in a suit singing about making popcorn in a microwave. Furthermore, the youthful and very zeitgeisty expression “Bodenlos” (bottomless) clearly targets a younger audience that might be taken by surprise and feel positively entertained. Heubisch’s second most watched video dates to January 14, 2022, and acquired 2.3 million views (TikTok, 2022). It is called “Dinge im Bayrischen Landtag, die einfach Sinn machen” (Things in the Bavarian state parliament that simply make sense). Heubisch can be seen in front of the state parliament doing the Italian “pinched fingers” gesture to the song Che La Luna by Louis Prima with Sam Butera & The Witnesses that has been used in more than 1 million videos. Heubisch is then seen at various places in the building showing things that might be more or less useless like a closed sauna, a collection of printed newspapers, huge stairs with a red carpet, and the seats of the AfD in parliament. The use of the sparkle-emoji before and after the words “make sense” puts an emphasis on it and turns ironic the entire statement. This emoji alone shows TikTok-literacy again given the fact that emojis play a meaningful role as some come coded with double meanings or serve as signifiers to demarcate TikTokers from the so-called Boomers (Burge, 2021). Yet again, the sound that is

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used points to a common trend on TikTok (Things That Just Make Sense) a series of TikTok house or room tour videos that begin with the phrase “random things in my X home that just make sense,” followed by a showcase of weird or unique things in their home. The videos, becoming popular in April 2020 due to one tour of a Japanese home, inspired a series of ironic parodies on TikTok (Hamilton, 2022)— further evidence of how Heubisch’s team members use the platform according to its self-proclaimed rules. Heubisch’s most viewed video from January 19, 2021, had 2.5 million views by January 2023 and is titled “Wie ich mir einen AfD-Antrag durchlese” (How I read through an AfD application) (TikTok, 2022). It shows him throwing away a crumbled-up paper several times while shaking his head in disbelief. The nine-second long video uses the sound “Wiii” by an artist called Jesus that has been used in more than 730 thousand videos and points to an original video that shows animals like a panda, a dove, dog, and frog falling from various obstacles. The sound is frequently used by Nigerian German influencer Noel Robinson who became famous on TikTok for videos showing him lifting his hoodie to reveal a voluminous Afro hairstyle making strangers laugh and marvel with a dance routine. Noel (@noelgoescrazy) has acquired more than 387 million likes and is most likely well known to most German TikTok viewers. This is important because it adds another layer to Heubisch’s video underlining his statement against the AfD, a party that is well known for racist narratives. The text under Heubisch’s video reads: “Ich respektiere die Meinungen aller Parteien, außer einer!” (I respect the opinions of all parties except one!). In summary, Heubisch and his team successfully apply platform-specific trends, sounds, and signifiers since they play by the TikTok-book as described above. Apart from that, it is notable that all three videos include the AfD as a clear reference point, with two videos having the AfD as the central and only topic. This will be further analyzed below.

8.4.1.2

The “Whistle” with Lutz Liebscher, SPD (87.1 Thousand Follower 4.1 Million Likes)

Lutz Liebscher is the “most successful [German] TikTok politician” according to a press report (Seifert, 2022). The 37-year-old Social Democrat has a verified account (@lutz.liebscher). His TikTok bio reads: “Member of the Thuringian state parliament Jena, SPD .” He joined the platform in September 2020 and since then posted 110 videos until early January 2023. Liebscher’s third most-watched video with 1.9 million views (TikTok, 2022) shows him in parliament walking towards the camera wearing a suit. The video (posted on Jan. 12, 2022) is only seven seconds long. A text overlay reads: Wenn jemand schreibt: Ich habe nichts gegen Ausländer, ABER… (If someone writes: I have nothing against foreigners, BUT…). Liebscher then grabs an invisible flute, plays a tune, and is then teleported out of the picture. He is using the then famous Captain sound by the artist Nutcase22, including an infamous whistle. TikTok even made a special filter for the sound making it a featured meme of the month with more than 2.3 billion views (TikTok, 2022). In the video Liebscher seems

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very relaxed, masterfully applying the teleportation effect. He implements a trending challenge and utilizes it for his political message. The hashtags used by Liebscher include #neinzurassismus (no to racism) and #noafd. Liebscher’s second most watched video (2.4 million views) from September 26, 2021, is a horizontal YouTube-video from the account of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (TikTok, 2021) showing CDU politician and then leader of the Christian Democratic Union, Armin Laschet, voting during the 2021 general election accidentally showing his filled-in ballot paper. The video is titled: POV: Wenn du Kanzler werden willst, aber noch nicht mal richtig wählen kannst (POV: If you want to be chancellor but can’t even vote properly). The text under the video reads: “Geheime Wahl—Laschet-Edition” (Secret election–Laschet edition) and includes hashtags and an emoji. This video is an exception on Liebscher’s account. It is the only horizontal video and one of only two of 110 videos not showing Liebscher himself. The most viewed video of Liebscher has 3.3 million views, was posted on October 28, 2021 (TikTok, 2021), and shows him lipsyncing to a remix of the German rapper SSIO. The text overlay reads: “Wer glaubt, dass die AFD irgendwelche Probleme löst, glaubt auch, dass Zitronenfalter Zitronen falten” (Anyone who believes that the AFD will solve any problems also believes that brimstone butterflies fold lemons; the literal German translation of brimstone butterflies is “lemon folder”). Meanwhile the lyrics include the lines: “Wait, I have to vomit. Okay, we can start: I piss on the mic and the music sounds fatter.” Liebscher grins and gestures to the camera. The comments include the statement: “Hab Ich gerade einen SPD Politiker gesehen der Ssio gesungen hat? Das Ich das nochmal erleben darf ” (Did I just see an SPD politician singing Ssio? That I do experience something like this), and “Ihr wisst wie man jugendliche erreicht” (You know how to reach young people). To sum up, Liebscher playfully makes use of current sounds (SSIO), memes (Whistle) and trends (POV), applying these to his political messages (anti-racism, anti-CDU and anti-AfD). Like Heubisch, he plays by the book to reach a TikTok savvy audience who seems to embrace his effort as can be seen by the numerous comments and the view count. Both politicians embrace performative skills featuring dance routines, lip-syncing, or comedy skits. According to Zeng et al. (2020), this can be considered the most typical “TikTok-native” content which is “often multimodal, with a trendy soundtrack in the background and text stickers in the foreground.” A stark contrast to the AfD-content as we will see next. For now, one can see that the AfD and its agenda are yet again the dominant topic in two of the most viewed videos, giving exposure without its own direct own effort.

8.4.1.3

“The Courage of Truth 90” aka Ulrich Siegmund, AfD (255,700 Followers, 2.5M Likes)

Ulrich Siegmund is the German politician with the most followers on TikTok. The 32-year-old AfD politician has been a member of the state parliament of SaxonyAnhalt since 2016. Together with Oliver Kirchner he has been serving as AfD group

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leader and opposition leader since August 2022, posting 61 TikTok videos from his first one on March 11, 2021. His account is notable in several ways. First and foremost, the account name and handle are very different from Heubisch und Liebscher. Both of them use their first name and last name separated by a dot as a user handle (@lutz.liebscher, @wolfgang.heubisch) and state their name right underneath. Siegmund’s handle is @mutzurwahrheit90 (The courage of truth 90). Until the second half of 2022 he did not include his name, but the word “Tik Toker,” nor did he add a biography (Webarchive, 2022). For people who were not familiar with his face, his party affiliation and profession were unclear unless they were inthe-know. The slogan “The courage of truth” is a dog whistle—the use of coded or suggestive language in political messaging to garner support from a particular group (Goodin & Saward, 2005). It is used in AfD’s political communication (AfD NRW, 2017), printed on lanyards (AfD-Fanshop, 2023) and the name of a book (Lichtzeichen, 2023) by AfD politician Joachim Kuhs. Siegmund recently added a Vorsitzender AfD-Fraktion im #ltlsa #Wahrheit #Freiheit bio: #Mut (#Courage Chairman AfD parliamentary group in #Truth #Freedom #ltlsa). Furthermore, he replaced the word “Tik Toker” with his name after extensive press coverage (Schipmann et al., 2022). Siegmund is not the only AfD politician disguising his party affiliation. Account handles like @wahrheitkannwehtun (truth can hurt) by Matthias Büttner, @ralfunzensiert (Ralf not censored) by Ralf Stadler, or @sichertdeutschland (Save Germany) by Martin Sichert—all not verified by TikTok—leave it unclear at first sight that they are all actual members of state parliaments. The AfD Berlin press officer, member of the Berlin House of Representatives, and deputy chairman of the AfD parliamentary group Ronald Gläser (@ronaldglaeser) uses his real name but his TikTok bio gives no hint that he is an AfD member: Irgendwas mit Medien in Mitte. Ohne Tempolimit, Denkverbote und Gendergaga (Something with media in {Berlin} Mitte. Without speed limits, bans on thinking and gender gaga.). This is unusual for politicians of other German parties but not surprising for the AfD. Right wing populism based on a “thin-centered ideology” (Mudde, 2010) considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic camps: “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite.” By avoiding presenting themselves as holding political office, Siegmund and others position themselves as part of the “pure people” that “speak plainly” (“Klartext sprechen”) as was seen in the now deleted account @httsprichtklartext by Dr. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, member of the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt and activist in the extreme right wing party. But it is not only Siegmund’s user handle and TikTok bio that are noteworthy. It is his content. Siegmund does not apply “TikTok-native” content—no platformspecific trends and no sounds. In his third-most-watched video (2 million views), he records a 9:16 selfie statement (24 s) in the Bundestag (TikTok, 2022) on February 13, 2022, addressing his “dear friends” from the “presidential elections in Berlin.” He stands on a balcony and shows the parliamentarians chit-chatting before the election, although all chairs have been carefully moved to ensure the Covid safety distance. Siegmund—standing afar on a balcony—uncovers this, distances himself visually

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from the “corrupt elite,” and adds hashtags like #wahrheit (truth) and #doppelmoral (double standard). What he does not state is that he himself is a member of this Federal Assembly responsible for electing the Bundespräsident (Federal President). Addressing his “Liebe Freunde” (dear friends) in the video he supports an identification process meant to construct in-group favouritism and out-group hostility (Bos, 2012). This happens without applying TikTok native elements like sound, text, or any kinds of visual layers. The video addressing “the pure people” is all “pure.” Siegmund’s second-most watched video (2.5 million) is a 15-s horizontal selfievideo filmed by Siegmund in a shopping center in Magdeburg on December 10, ” (2G Gaga in retail ) 2021(TikTok, 2021). Titled “2G Gaga im Einzelhandel he narrates to the camera that he cannot go into a watch shop but can enter a sweets shop due to corona-regulations and therefore decides to buy chocolate. No additional sound is used. This video, just like the first one, appears to be produced for use on various platforms and can be found on Facebook as well. No platform specific elements were used. No sounds, no trend, no challenge. Siegmund only applies the rolling on the floor laughing emoji. Just like its relative the laughing crying emoji, this emoji is discussed as a so called “boomer emoji” in the context of TikTok. For many commentators, the skull emoji has become the “acceptable way to laugh on TikTok,” according to a widely cited article on the website Emojipedia (Burge, 2021). Siegmund knowingly or unknowingly positions himself in a TikTok related out-group. While Heubisch (74) and Liebscher (37) do their best to perform in a TikTok-specific way, the youngest politician in the list (32) willingly or unwillingly appears as “a boomermillenial” or as someone who is not kowtowing to platform affordances by posting a horizontal video on a platform that explicitly asks for a 9:16 ratio, not using sounds or trending Emojis. The AfD politician’s most watched video (4.2 million) from November 21, 2021, is again horizontally filmed. It is a parliamentary speech 2:28 min long, uploaded on different platforms (TikTok, 2021). On his TikTok account, 24 videos out of 60 are parliamentary speeches. Liebscher has none and Heubisch only one out of 150. The video is much longer than all other videos described above. It is highly atypical regarding “Tik-Tok native” videos from both the other politicians. With 96,200 shares it is not only the most viewed but most shared video of all nine videos (Fig. 8.2) To sum up, the analysis shows that AfD members are successful in spreading their messages on TikTok as evidenced by high numbers of views, likes, and shares. The audio-visual strategy applied stands out in stark contrast to what TikTok recommends and what other parties apply. Instead of using trending sounds, challenges, and signifiers, AfD politicians do not play by the book, as their content many times does not qualify as TikTok-native. When playful politics (Mortensen & Neumayer, 2021) becomes the norm, and political parties outbid themselves in embracing the vibe of the platform (Chayka, 2021) in order to connect with potential voters with in-group affiliations (Vizcaíno-Verdú & Abidin, 2022), the AfD positions itself intentionally outside. This underlines the AfD’s populist ideology. While “the elite” pays people like Heubisch’s assistant or agencies like the SPD (Der Spiegel, 2019) to come up with dance moves for 74-year-old politicians, the AfD unwraps the “Covid Gaga” and the

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Fig. 8.2 Screenshots of three TikTokvideos by Ulrich Siegmund (AfD), Wolfgang Heubisch (FDP), and Lutz Liebscher (SPD)

elite’s “Doppelmoral” (double standard). This is done in a “pure” way by just talking to the camera, and without the need to get acquainted with a full cultural, reference system (TikTok literacy). Instead of invisible flutes and profanities (“Piss on the mic”) the AfD aims for #Wahrheit (truth) #Mut (courage) and #Freiheit (freedom)—rather vague and nonspecific concepts that make it easy to join the AfD in-group. AfD politicians therefore actively hide their party affiliation in order not to be identified with “them,” but as a “Freund” (friend). The AfD’s populism works as a political mobilization strategy. Four to five out of six most watched videos of the SPD and FDP candidates address the AfD—a successful example of content distribution through owned and earned media (Hillje, 2022). The AfD gets reach on TikTok through others spreading their message, even if it is framed as wrong or worth rejecting. Results from prior examination are echoed here: the AfD creates the most interactions across platforms and thus also achieves greater reach among the parties on social media (Medina Serrano et al., 2019). This holds true for TikTok as well. However, it is not only political opponents who spread AfD narratives but also a heterogeneous mix of fans and sympathizers. Their role will be observed next.

8.4.2 The Fan Army The platform logic of TikTok and other platforms leads to posts with a high engagement rate being better ranked and therefore reach more people. Populist content

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coined through emotionalization, simplification, dramatization, scaremongering, provocation, and breaking taboos (Hillje, 2022) is very much suited to be spread, seen, and interacted with in general, as the view-numbers per hashtag show. The Hashtag #AfD had 1.2 billion views in January 2023 and much more than other German party abbreviations like #CDU 457.4 million, #Grüne (Green) 487.5 million and #DieLinke (the Link) with 192.8 million. The Social Democrats #SPD with 4.2 billion and the #FDP with 1.2 billion are special cases due to the fact that both abbreviations are used very differently outside Germany. The first 100 videos shown under the hashtag #AfD on a mobile device with a German test account can doubtlessly be identified as related to the German party. However, under the hashtag #SPD the first 100 videos have no visual connection to the German party. They mainly show a Thai YouTuber named SpriteDer SPD. For the #FDP, 35 videos are visually related to the German party. Others mainly reference a Portuguese swear word. Besides unintentional reach through videos by political opponents as earned media, AfD-content research so far suggests that AfD sympathizers are particularly active social media users, with user engagement that is unprecedented in the German political landscape (Schelter et al., 2016). This is an observation that can be made regarding TikTok too. On that platform, many accounts without explicit party affiliation recycle and spread AfD-content in various forms. With 10,500 ollowers and 159,400 Likes the account @propangaspeter was identified during the data collection Deutsch bis auf die Knochen” (German process. The bio reads: “ to the bone). The blue heart is used as a clear identifier of AfD affiliation. Individual videos of the account can reach up to 469,800 people when promoting AfD party member Alice Weidel as the desired new chancellor (Meine neue Kanzlerin). The account not only spreads unique content but recycles official party material as well. A video of an Ulrich Siegmund speech is shared here, expanded with the text “AfD,” a blue heart emoji and a 3D GIF of a turning “Ok Hand” on top. The emoji OK Hand can also be used as a symbol of White Supremacy depending on context (Kelly, 2018). This might be a coincidence—or not. There are many accounts like these sharing the peculiarity that they can’t be traced back to actual people. These accounts recycle party or fan content and fuel the algorithm leading to more TikTok users being able to see AfD-related content on their individual For You pages. The complexity and sheer number of the AfD fan accounts demand further nuanced analysis. The range of different audio-visual aesthetics is notable right from the start, indicating that the AfD in-group is fragmented along age structure and social media habits. Besides more anonymous accounts like @propangaspeter there are underage influencers (Manemann & Lehmann, 2021) and pick me girls (Seidel, 2022) targeting AfD sympathizers by applying platform specific challenges with an AfD twist. Besides the variety of actors there is a variety of styles and techniques ranging from fashwave style aesthetics (Storyful, 2021) to cheap slideshow templates. An account with the handle @alternatie2003 (6810 Followers, 68,000 Likes), and the AfD-logo as an account photo, posts simple slideshows to promote the party. A video from October 2022 shows four badly cropped AfD-Logos that are arranged behind each other. To the sound of the German national anthem these four logos are

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alternately shown while each letter of the word “L O V E” is highlighted underneath. This video, including the hashtags #afd_team #afdfraktion and #glücklich (happy), has been viewed more than 2000 times. It indicates the variety and the trial-and-error approach of many pro-AfD-accounts. Other slideshow videos on the account have been viewed more than 220,000 times. Every single one of these helps to spread AfD content. The AfD’s strategy is to make use of social media as much as possible and get its content to go viral (Medina Serrano et al., 2019). The party accomplishes this on TikTok through the activity of its fans and foes. A masterclass of virability can be observed under the hashtag #weidelknecht (61.4 million views). It indicates an imagined same-sex love affair between AfD’s leader of the party Alice Weidel and Die Linke-politician Sarah Wagenknecht. TikTok users are outdoing themselves with creative audio-visual remixes of TV snippets of both woman flirting, adding viral TikTok sounds like a slowed down version of the Glass Animals song Heat Waves (TikTok, 2021) to produce a multi-perspective, multi-layered soap opera for fun. Not all videos are pro-AfD but nonetheless help spread the word. Fan accounts play a central role in distributing AfD content and narratives in many different forms to “play the algorithm” and to target different user groups. While AfD politicians disguise their party affiliation, AfD fans employ hashtags, challenges, sounds, and signifiers like the blue heart emoji and other identification marks to mark in- and out-groups. Many times, it remains unclear who are the persons behind these accounts and if their behaviour is authentic. Previous research has proven that pro-AfD social bots were active on Facebook and Twitter (Medina Serrano et al., 2019). Besides this, clearly fake accounts like btw21 spreading AfD narratives could be detected on TikTok before the German federal election in 2021 (Schwarzer, 2020).

8.4.3 Fake Accounts Inauthentic user behaviour can most likely be proven in connection with the AfD (Hillje, 2022). But what indications of hidden campaigns to support the AfD can be identified on TikTok? I identified a fake account spreading pro-AfD content before the German federal election in 2021 (Bösch & Ricks, 2021). The results are presented here again to better provide context to the observations above. The German Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament, has an internet presence and social media accounts including an official YouTube channel with 71,3K00 subscribers and an official Twitter account with 12,400 followers. It also seems to be a TikTok account with 13,800 followers and 128,500 likes. However, the Bundestag does not have a TikTok account. TikTok’s Community Guidelines prohibit posing as another person or entity in a deceptive manner: “Do not pose as another person or entity by using someone else’s name, biographical details, or profile picture in a misleading manner” (TikTok, 2022). There are exceptions for fan, commentary, or parody accounts. But the account @derbundestag is not a fan, commentary, or parody

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account. The observation shows that it is being used to spread pro-AfD propaganda while appearing to be an official account of a central institution of German democracy. In my analysis of the account, I found several details that reinforced the illusion that this was an official, authentic account of the German parliament. First, the description of the account says: “Deutscher Bundestag…Parlamentarische Sommerpause bis zum 07.09” (The German Bundestag…Parliamentary summer break until September 7), with a link to the official website. Second, the account has a large following and reach: 13,800 followers and 128,500 likes. The account’s posts are mostly video clips of parliamentary speeches, featuring well known German politicians, including former German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel and Claudia Roth, Vice President of the German Bundestag. These video clips seem to have been taken from the Parlamentsfernsehen (parliamentary television), a public service run by the Bundestag that offers livestreams and on-demand coverage of parliamentary debates. The parliamentary television makes all its image material available free of charge and free of third-party rights, as long as the content is used strictly for educational purposes. In my analysis of the account, I observed that AfD politicians and messaging are featured prominently in video clips. Of the overall total 77 videos that the account posted between April 7 and August 10, forty-two (54.5%) featured an AfD politician as the main speaker. For context, the AfD holds a mere 12.6% of the parliament’s seats. If this were an official parliamentary account, one would expect the coverage to be more balanced. Some videos show politicians who do not belong to the AfD but react to issues raised by AfD representatives. Only twelve videos in total have no direct, clearly related AfD-content. The videos posted by this account feature perspectives that reflect AfD viewpoints, critical of refugees, Covid measures, environmental protection, and gender equality. The account was taken down by TikTok after extensive press coverage (Rudl, 2021). It can be assumed that @btw21 and @derbundestag are not the only imposter accounts that mimic official sounding accounts or others spreading pro-AfD narratives. Further research is needed to learn more about the environment that harbours the manifold types of AfD content and creators and masterminds behind it. For now, one can conclude that there are several indications of well designed, pro-AfD campaigns intended to influence public opinion that do not shy away from breaking platform guidelines.

8.5 Conclusion Politicians, partisans, and parties are in a constant process of adapting to a transformational, political communication environment produced by ever new platforms and new practices. As seen above, TikTok has been added to the list of platforms for spreading political messages to reach and interact with voters and to compete in the arena of political discourse. The German right-wing populists party AfD—according to follower and view counts, and hashtag use—is very successful in spreading narratives and in dominating

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the political discussion on the platform in Germany. As seen above, politicians from SPD and FDP appearing in 4 to 5 out of 6 of the most watched videos use the AfD as a reference point. The most successful politicians from traditional parties like SPD and FDP play by the TikTok book embracing an “entertainment first-approach,” making use of trending sounds and joining challenges, not shying away from routines including dancing, using profanities, and engaging in other performances sometimes unthinkable in the twentieth century. Similarly, they demonstrate TikTok literacy through the use of specific emojis or sounds charged with several invisible layers of cultural meaning. While these strategies are applied successfully in the political realm, given the latest analysis (Zamora-Medina, 2023) they are by far the only way to gain visibility, attention, and interaction on TikTok, as the AfD demonstrates. The audio-visual strategy applied by AfD politicians stands in stark contrast to what TikTok recommends and what other parties apply. AfD politicians do not play by the book; instead of fun, dancing, and profanities, in their own narrative the AfD aims for #Wahrheit (truth) #Mut (courage) and #Freiheit (freedom). This plays into the AfD’s populist ideology that separates society into “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite” (Mudde, 2010). While this elite tries hard to adapt to the platform, AfD politicians disguise their ties to the political system and position themselves with the group of “pure people” among TikTok users addressing them as friends. AfD politicians leave it to a wide range of diverse fan accounts to further spread and echo their messages to different fragmented target audiences. Rather than playing by the TikTok book the AfD and their fans play the algorithm to ensure a wide reach of AfD-related content. Moreover, while it is not yet clear the degree to which inauthentic behaviour, bots, and fake accounts are utilized here, individual cases can be detected. The above analysis highlights the complexity and technically-infused ephemerality of political communication in the early twenty-first century. Further research is needed to uncover the AfD’s successful and multi-layered approach specifically, and in general to better unwrap populist party strategies on TikTok.

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Marcus Bösch is a research fellow at HAW Hamburg and enrolled as doctoral researcher at University Münster. He currently investigates computational propaganda, synthetic media, and memes. Marcus is a trained journalist and has worked with Deutsche Welle, Germany’s International Broadcaster for more than fifteen years. He publishes the leading subscriber newsletter Understanding TikTok.

Chapter 9

The Spanish Far Right’s Use of TikTok: The Case of Vox in the 2022 Regional Andalusian Election Campaign Andrea Castro-Martínez, José Luis Torres-Martín, and Pablo Díaz-Morilla

9.1 Introduction The new communication paradigm brought about by digitisation (Scolari, 2009) is based on a multitude of structures, formats, and narratives characterising the current media ecology that has led to options for new audiences in which to participate (Jenkins et al., 2013). This new context enables messages to be received, created, and constructed collaboratively (Fernández-de-Arroyabe-Olaortua et al., 2018; ArjonaMartín et al., 2020). Therefore, the concept of the traditional public sphere has been profoundly altered (Curran, 2005; Garnham, 2020). Today, the digital public sphere (Dahlgren, 2018) fosters users’ active participation and expression as they engage in a dynamic context (Durmus, 2021; Kim et al., 2021) in a way that impacts cultural and social practices (Turner, 2021) meaningfully. Social networks play an essential role in these new communicative practices, as they are a consolidated space for users to express themselves and establish different interrelationships among digital communities (Dhaoui & Webster, 2021). Brands also leverage platforms to foster engagement (Martínek, 2021; Santos et al., 2022) via content offered on them (Sánchez-Cobarro et al., 2020), the conversations they host, and the emotional connection they foster (Harrigan et al., 2018; Dwivedi et al., 2019). A. Castro-Martínez (B) · J. L. Torres-Martín · P. Díaz-Morilla University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain e-mail: [email protected] J. L. Torres-Martín e-mail: [email protected] P. Díaz-Morilla e-mail: [email protected] P. Díaz-Morilla EADE University and University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Málaga, Spain © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9_9

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Political actors are no strangers to this new communication scenario and leverage it through different actions (Kreiss & McGregor, 2018). This chapter focuses on the farright Spanish political party Vox’s use of social networks, particularly TikTok during the 2022 regional elections for the Andalusian Parliament. It is worth noting that Andalusia is a critical region at the political level, both in terms of its size (8 provinces) and more than 8.5 million inhabitants (Instituto de Estadística y Cartografía de la Junta de Andalucía, 2022). This is accentuated by the fact that traditionally, since the return of democracy to Spain, Andalusia has been an autonomous community with a majority left-wing electorate, governed by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party from 1982 to 2019. For these reasons, Andalusia is an electoral area of maximum importance in national terms.

9.2 New Digital Strategies Applied to Political Communication Social platforms are new channels through which political actors relate to citizens. Although they usually do so by reproducing the traditional model (Amado & Tarullo, 2015), they improve democratic participation levels (Comorera, 2017). Rúas Araújo and Casero-Ripollés (2018) detected a dual effect on political communication, explaining that new communicative practices and strategies have been introduced for political actors while simultaneously providing citizens with the mechanisms to produce content and discourses enabling them to participate in political conversations. Thus, the political use of social networks emerges among the established ones (Rodrigues, 2020) as they shape a space in which the exercise of politics can be redefined (de Aguilera & Casero, 2018) and also as a factor for setting the political and communication agenda (Nulty et al., 2016; Sierra & Lavín, 2019; Martín et al., 2020). Serrano-Oceja et al. (2019)) conducted a study on the 2019 Spanish general elections, finding that politicians used social networks content to achieve their communication goals and influence press consumption. Users and politicians manage social networks for different purposes. Public dialogue is absent (Carratalá & Galán, 2016) when users employ them to express their discontent and politicians exploit them as channels for self-promotion (Marcos García, 2018). However, it is possible to use social networkseven politicians’ personal profilesto meet the populace’s demands and draw institutions closer to the public (Castro-Martínez et al., 2021). Citizens have found a new way to filter and redistribute content of interest through social networks: “There has been a significant shift in the way in which citizens access information. Citizens in social networks have now become “secondary gatekeepers”, who re-disseminate information and set up a social filter that competes with the no longer hegemonic professional filter of journalists and the media” (Masip et al., 2019, p. 7).

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On the other hand, offline behaviour reflects participation in online political conversation (Vesnic-Alujevic, 2012; Min, 2015), so that these mechanisms, especially populism, are exploited by traditional actors who use social networks to articulate, legitimise, and render ideologies visible (Engesser et al., 2017). Their arguments and positions are usually presented as politainment (Berrocal-Gonzalo et al., 2014), taking advantage of these platforms to get closer to the young electorate (Hendricks & Denton, 2010) through images (Liebhart & Bernhardt, 2017), audiovisual resources (Lalancette & Raynauld, 2019), and personalisation through figures of the leaders (Orejuela, 2009). Vox emerged from anonymity because it skilfully managed social networks, among other factors. For Arroyo (2020, p. 716), the emergence of Vox is compatible with an authoritarian populist cultural reaction due to elements such as the radicalisation of conservative sensibilities in the face of the advance of social-liberal values, the rise of Spanish nationalism due to immigration, the feminist movement, the abandonment of traditional Catholic values, pessimism about the political and economic situation, and the breakdown of the two-party system. In the case of Spain, appealing to the unity of the country—in historical, geographical, identity-based, and sentimental terms—is a discourse that has traditionally been owned by right-wing and extreme right-wing parties, to the exclusion of the rest of the ideological spectrum. This is due to the origin of the conservative parties in the democratic Spain that emerged after Franco’s death, that arose precisely from the upper echelons of the dictatorship itself, rendering the national question one of its fundamental ideological pillars (Saz, 2003). In this context, conservative positions in Spain show a greater concern for territorial unity and higher levels of Spanish nationalist sentiment (Arroyo, 2020)—used by Vox to determine its identity and construct its narrative. Vox ceased to be a residual minority party in less than a year (Berlanga & Ortiz, 2021). By adapting its use of Instagram two months before the 2019 elections, Vox appealed to young audiences’ communication codes, presenting itself as a civil resistance movement through its discourse, with “political polarisation strategies, nativism, the cult of the norm, hyper-leadership and simplifying loaded language” (Aladro & Requeijo, 2020, p. 203) predominating (Aladro & Requeijo, 2020, p. 203). The profile of Santiago Abascal, the party’s leader, emphasises his agenda, political multi-dimensionality, and includes personal content to make his ideology and figure stand out on this network (Sampietro & Sánchez-Castillo, 2020). In general terms, Vox’s messages tend to be simple and effective, easily forwardable by emphasising humour (García, 2019). Although the party adapts its stylistic resources to each network, it usually expresses itself belligerently, makes calls to action, belittles and ridicules its opponents, and in the case of TikTok, posts brief items, informal content, and uses emoticons and visual effects (Castro-Martínez & Díaz-Morilla, 2021).

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9.2.1 The Keys to TikTok’s Success TikTok’s popularity has grown exponentially, reaching over one billion users by 2022, ranking it the sixth-largest social network worldwide (We Are Social & Hootsuite, 2022). It is a highly attractive platform for brands, celebrities, and influencers who use it as part of their marketing and communication strategies (McGorry & McGorry, 2017; Qasem, 2021) to connect with the drivers of its growth, the millennial audience, whose expansion on social networks is notable, as well as with other age segments (Puro Marketing, 2022). The key to its success lies in creative self-expression (Guarda et al., 2021) and the entertainment value of its user-generated short videos (Torres-Martín & Villena, 2020; Rach, 2021; Chu et al., 2022), the reason why many brands have opted to develop content on this platform (Qasem, 2021; Barta et al., 2022; Chen, 2022; Yuan et al., 2022). The use of music, challenges, and memes is of great interest (Darvin, 2022; Vizcaíno-Verdú & Aguaded, 2022), as well as other practices that some organisations are developing on the platform (Sidorenko et al., 2021). However, one of the most important factors is the relevance of user-generated content. Its monetisation (Zeng et al., 2020) is favoured by its algorithm and “for this reason, the importance of the content creator is elevated as a vital element to increase user engagement and render the platform interesting to brand sponsorships” (Rach, 2021, p. 36). As for its political use, TikTok relies on the quick consumption of light-hearted content (Ballesteros, 2020); for Guinaudeau, Vottax and Munger (2020, p. 1) this has made it “a formidable force in American politics.”

9.3 Method This study is part of the scholarly area exploring new political communication strategies, specifically focusing on the Spanish far-right’s strategy in the digital sphere. It focuses on the political party Vox’s use of the social network TikTok during the Andalusian regional elections that took place on June 19, 2022. This chapter’s general objective is to analyse Vox’s digital strategy on TikTok for that electoral campaign (GO). Therefore, the analysis period covers a time span from pre-campaign to the end of the electoral campaign i.e., from May 1, 2022 to June 18, 2022. Different secondary objectives are also set out. – Secondary objective 1 (SO1): to describe the impact that Vox Spain’s official account (vox_espana) has had on the community during the analysed period. – Secondary objective 2 (SO2): to identify the party’s formal and narrative resources in their TikTok publications. – Secondary objective 3 (SO3): to examine experts’ perspectives on Vox’s use of digital tools for its political strategy, specifically in the case of TikTok and the parliamentary elections in Andalusia.

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A case study (Sánchez-Amboage et al., 2022) with a mixed method (Bellotti, 2015) that combined a quantitative and qualitative approach was chosen to achieve these objectives. The data collection tools used were quantitative monitoring of the party’s TikTok profile metrics, content analysis of the publications during the study period (for which a table was used), and six in-depth interviews with experts in political communication. The content analysis table is based on previous works by Castro-Martínez and Díaz-Morilla (2021), Castro-Higueras et al. (2021), and Knobel and Lankshear (2007). The variables are operationalised (Table 9.1) through different analysis categories. Among other issues, it identifies aspects related to the formal and narrative resources used in publications, their audio-visual elements, how they foster interactivity and participation, and the language used. This analysis has been applied to all twenty-five posts made on the party’s official account during the study period—the total universe of messages posted on the social network. The expert interviews were conducted on the telephone between June and November 2022. They were based on a semi-structured questionnaire that served as a guide to address various topics of interest. This questionnaire is divided into three main blocks: Vox’s digital activity and use in the regional elections under investigation, the use of TikTok during this period, and the party candidate’s communication strategy during these elections. The experts’ profile varies and includes both Table 9.1 Table of analysis of publications on TikTok Formal resources

Audio visual elements

Image/video Graphs/signs/effects Audio Text Emoticons Gift Links Memes (political/social commentary/jokes from various subcultures/absurd humour/hoax spreading/other

Resources for interactivity

Tags Calls to actions Mentions Surveys

Narrative resources

Types of narrator Language used Main and supporting characters Relationship between text and image

Source The table was created by the authors based on Castro-Martínez and Díaz-Morilla (2021), Castro-Higueras et al. (2021), and Knobel and Lankshear (2007)

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men and women from academia, research, political consultancy, and professional political activity.

9.4 Results Twenty-five publications were posted on Vox Spain’s account during the analysed period (Table 9.2). Their length ranged from 10 s (video 6) to 5 min and 26 s (video 15). Regarding interactions, the one with the most likes had 37,300 (video 8) as of October 22, 2022. Interestingly, this publication does not feature Vox’s candidate for the Andalusian regional elections, Macarena Olona, but rather the party’s leader Santiago Abascal. On the other hand, the least likedvideo 24 from June 14, receiving only 348 likesalso featured Abascal, in which he appeared greeting some supporters at a rally in Lucena (Cordoba). Regarding the comments, the video from May 31 (video 11) received 780 comments and was the most discussed by the community. The video from June 10 (video 20), in which an unidentified candidate for the party makes a televised intervention in one of the debates on Canal Sur (Andalusian regional TV station) during the electoral campaign, received the least number of comments. The publication rate is irregular, although it speeds up from the start of the election campaign on June 2: there were 14 posts compared to 11 in the previous month. There is more than one post per day on Vox Spain’s TikTok account just on three occasions: May 28; June 4 and 10. The posts on June 4 coincide with one of the campaign’s important events, a rally in the Seville square where an iconic photograph was taken of Abascal on a bench, in which national and regional leaders had gathered together seven years earlier. The posts’ audio-visual elements analysed here as part of the formal resources used, are dominated by moving images, mainly of the candidate and the party’s president at rallies, party events, and television interventions. Video 6, from May 22, is an exception as it is based on a series of images of Macarena Olona contrasted with her political opponents. The latter stands out in terms of graphics, labels, and effects. Texts are inserted into the video such as “Vox the workers’ party” (video 1), “Santiago Abascal makes a fool of Pedro Sánchez”1 (video 8), “We will repeal all the laws of the left” (video 9), “We want a change in direction for our country!” (video 10), “Socialism has betrayed the humblest” (video 13) or “Macarena Olona destroys feminism” (video 16). Only two of them expressly mention Andalusia or Andalusians: “When is the PSOE going to return all the money it has stolen from Andalusians?” (video 20), and “The #cambioreal (real change) in Andalusia is just around the corner” (video 22). Notably, these signs are usually accompanied by recurring emojisSpanish flag, biceps, and applausesuperimposed on text of the party’s electoral poster for this election, in which the party’s corporate green predominates,

1

Pedro Sánchez has held the office of prime minister in Spain since 2018. He joined the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) in 1993, that supported him as its prime ministerial candidate.

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Table 9.2 Messages posted on the social network (Authors) Publication no.

Date

Duration

Likes (as of 22/10/2022)

Comments (as of 22/10/ 2022)

1

01/05/2022

1,

7484

328

2

06/05/2022

48,,

2827

109

3

11/05/2022

2, 34,,

7740

334

4

17/05/2022

42,,

14.8K

503

5

20/05/2022

2, 53,,

1330

44

6

22/05/2022

10,,

3181

89

7

24/05/2022

3, 34,,

1434

72

8

27/05/2022

32,,

37.3K

497

9

28/05/2022

59,,

3327

121

10

28/05/2022

2, 19,,

645

25

11

31/05/2022

1, 12,,

13.1K

780

12

2/06/2022

3, 06,,

5017

164

13

3/06/2022

3, 19,,

651

25

14

4/06/2022

54,,

3535

98

15

4/06/2022

5, 26,,

943

38

16

7/06/2022

2, 43,,

8216

243

17

8/06/2022

1, 02,,

1859

28

18

9/06/2022

3, 49,,

787

15

2049

59

1032

14

19

10/06/2022

33,,

20

10/06/2022

31,,

21

11/06/2022

1, 27,,

1574

40

22

14/06/2022

4, 13,,

613

36

23

15/06/2022

1, 30,,

1326

30

24

16/06/2022

1, 30,,

348

19

25

18/06/2022

2,

763

33

along with the colours of the Spanish flag and party supporters carrying the national insignia. Concerning the sound, vocal audio predominates in 21 of the 25 videos analysed (84%). Abascal and Olona’s voice is featured in 19 of the videos, together and separately. Ambient sound also predominates, while music is used in only 10 publications (40%), either in the foreground or background. Some of the songs are recognisable: “Gangsta Paradise” by Coolio, “Me fui de vacaciones” by Bad Bunny, or the central theme from the original soundtrack by Vangelis of the film “The Mission.” The caption “Original sound-Vox Spain” always appears in the videos’ accompanying text. Few words feature in the posts’ texts. Most of the time there are tags or hashtags (88%). The following texts accompanied videos 4, 5 and 7, respectively: “What

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happens when Abascal makes a roadside stop,” “We want a safe Spain,” and “With the real Spain. Macarena Olona in Salobreña.” These hashtags are the only resources for interactivity in the publications; the most used are #VOX, #VivaEspaña, #SantiagoAbascal and #MacarenaOlona. Other elements that could encourage feedback and engagement with the community, such as calls to action, mentions, and polls, do not appear in the sample analysed. Regarding narrative resources, the narrator does not appear; instead, the main characters convey their message vocally. Their language indirectly alludes to their left-wing political adversaries as they do not mention names and surnames, instead mentioning “the communist minister,” “the minister for equality,” “the subsidised trade unionists,” etc.), blatantly using anti-union and anti-communist terminology (video 2). However, the full name of their right-wing electoral rival, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, the current Andalusian regional president, is mentioned. Other characteristics of the language used which stand out in these TikTok videos are the workers’ discourse (found in videos 1, 2, 4, 13 and 23), the fight against gender equality legislation and the traditional family (videos 3, 14, 16 and 25), youth labour precariousness (videos 17, 18, 19, 21 and 25), and anti-immigration, as immigrants are blamed for the citizens’ lack of safety (video 5). Anti- (so-called) “ideological laws of the left” and bipartisanship are the mainstay of these videos (video 2, 9, 10, 12, 20 and 25). Likewise, the far-right party claims the ability to set the country’s political agenda (video 15), but in turn also claims to be the victim of its political opponents’ attacks, mainly due to a controversy surrounding the validity of the last-minute census registration of the party’s candidate in Salobreña, a town in Granada (video 7 and 16). Videos from the sample were posted during the pre-campaign and election period for the 2022 Andalusian regional elections. Despite this, Vox’s electoral candidate, Macarena Olona, equally shares the limelight with the party’s president Santiago Abascal, as both are featured in 11 items (44%). By contrast, the remaining 12% features other party officials and candidates. The two leading figures appear side by side in only four videos. In most of them, Olona plays a secondary role (in videos 1 and 9), and the candidate’s statements are not even included. Vox’s masculine leadership is reaffirmed in video 8 when Santiago Abascal alludes to testosterone in reply to the president of Spain, Pedro Sánchez. Finally, concerning the relationship between the texts accompanying the videos and their themes, it must be noted that in 22 of the 25 cases studied (88%) the texts solely consist of a succession of previously mentioned hashtags. One of the remaining three incites clickbait (“What happens when Abascal makes a roadside stop”: video 4). The other two allude to the main topic addressed in the video by appealing to the electorate or an electoral slogan: “We want a safe Spain!” (video 5) and “With the real Spain. Macarena Olona in Salobreña” (video 7). The analysis of the experts interviewed shows that they agree the party has found a powerful voice on social networks, as the communication is segmented by type of audience adapted to each platform and is consistent with their overall approach as “they communicate through social networks just as they do in traditional media. I

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don’t think they are different, they respond to a general strategy” (expert 2, personal communication, November 6, 2022). Thus, “rather than sharing their proposals, they see social networks as a space where they can share their political harangues, urging users to mobilise” (Expert 4, personal communication, November 3, 2022). Their activity on TikTok primarily targets young people, Generation Z and Millennials—coordinated with the rest of its profiles. Still, it stresses the use of audiovisuals: “it effectively connects with audiences looking for quick solutions to big problems. The use of typographic, symbolic, and semiotic elements is particularly adept at impacting the user” (Expert 3, personal communication, October 25, 2022). Vox repeatedly offers recaps in its publications that consist of “extracting its main spokesperson’s statement or a powerful headline and disseminating it through the platforms. They resort to audio-visual material to grab the audience’s attention, among other resources i.e., they consciously edit any material that falls into their hands to ‘ignite’ the public’s or audience’s spirits” (Expert 1, personal communication, June 15, 2022). In this sense, “it is an innovative strategy in terms of aesthetics, not so much in the content of their messages” (Expert 6, personal communication, October 18, 2022). The experts agreed that this platform was used effectively and carefully in terms of formal language because “they understood the language of this social network and that to reach the youngest, it is necessary to do so this way, through these social networks. They know their language and resources and have used them following their usual strategy” (Expert 2, personal communication, November 6, 2022). Among the resources used in their messages, the experts wanted to point out the “quick transitions that correlate content, clear typographies with reduced and impactful text, a predominance of bright colours and a style that calls for constant action” (expert 3, personal communication, October 25, 2022). Leaders continuously use the strategy of political agenda setting (expert 2, personal communication, November 6, 2022): “They have been proactive and approachable, they have maximised the party’s strong ideas and constantly belittled competing parties” (expert 1, personal communication, June 15, 2022). Expert 5 (personal communication, September 10, 2022) stressed that the usual trend is to communicate “always discrediting others without being self-critical or proposing viable and real solutions.” All agree that the communication tone is casual, direct, and concise. They use an informative or educational approach to address the party’s ideology, whose main themes are migration policies, nationalism, feminism, or abortion. “Especially immigration, but it has also gone up against other politicians by criticising their management […]. In general, they are quite coherent with their identity and always tackle the same issues” (expert 2, personal communication, November 6, 2022). Expert 5 sums it up by explaining that they use “national themes brought down to the provincial level” (personal communication, September 10, 2022). This use of arguments on social networks is echoed in other areas, as they resort to “national issues that generate confrontation and seek a media echo from mass publication on social networks. Many of the issues that the political party initiates and that end up becoming news begin on social networks” (expert 6, personal communication, October 18, 2022).

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Regarding the strategy to introduce their candidate, Macarena Olona, the experts agree that it was based on portraying her as just another Andalusian, not an “imposter.” She wanted to appear more approachable to differentiate herself from the usual politician. However, one of the experts pointed out that at the discursive level, “they did not convey their candidate’s potential through social networks, especially on TikTok” (expert 3, personal communication, October 25, 2022). Regarding the handling of the controversy surrounding Olona during the campaign, such as excessive use of Andalusian folklore or the legitimacy of her candidacy facing alleged fraud, the experts maintained that it was not carried out in a coordinated effort as apparently it was undertaken “without a strategy. It seems to have been done on the fly without planning” (expert 2, personal communication, November 6, 2022). In addition, there wasn’t an “adequate communicative response to the issue of census registration beyond attacking institutions. The Andalusian folklore was overdone and does not bring the candidate closer to her potential voters” (expert 3, personal communication, October 25, 2022). Vox Andalusia’s social network silence from just before the elections until the month afterwards also reflects this incoherence at a strategic level, an approach that experts criticised and believe did not constitute a strategy. Instead, it is the result of the circumstances and lack of planning. The opportunity to sell the party’s brand beyond that of the candidates was wasted (expert 3, personal communication, October 25, 2022), as “it makes no sense, if you are on social networks, you have to be there all the time unless you give a justified reason” (expert 2, personal communication, November 6, 2022). “This strategy shows that they have not understood the potential that social networks have acquired in recent years. These platforms have become necessary spaces for political actors’ communication who must take care of them like other offline campaign actions, such as rallies or interventions are taken care of in traditional media. Many citizens no longer attend or follow these events and are only informed through mobile devices. If you don’t master this space and are not present in it, you inevitably do not exist” (Expert 4, personal communication, November 3, 2022).

9.5 Discussion and Conclusions The dynamics brought about by the digital public sphere (Dahlgren, 2018) have affected political communication (Kreiss & McGregor, 2018; Rúas Araújo & CaseroRipollés, 2018). New strategies and approaches have been adopted, as social networks are channels for political actors to emotionally engage with their audiences. The results coincide with previous studies that highlight the use of simple, concise, clear and light-hearted content meant for quick consumption (García, 2019; Ballesteros, 2020); polarisation strategies, hyper-leadership, and simplified language (Aladro & Requeijo, 2020; Sampietro & Sánchez-Castillo, 2020); calls to action, belittling or ridicule, use of video, and TikTok’s own stylistic and narrative resources

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(Castro-Martínez & Díaz-Morilla, 2021); and ultimately, the use of social networks as a self-promotion strategy (Marcos García, 2018) and agenda setting (SerranoOceja et al., 2019; Martín et al., 2020) instead of seizing the opportunity to open a channel for public dialogue with the electorate (Carratalá & Galán, 2016). This research achieves its general objective by determining Vox’s digital strategy on TikTok for the 2022 Andalusian elections (GO). It also describes the official account’s impact on the community (SO1) and determines the formal and narrative resources used by the party in its publications on TikTok (SO2). Regarding the former, and specifically concerning the audio-visual elements, the party leaders’ image and vocal sound predominate, as well as the insertion of signs in the videos and the colours of both the national flag and the party’s corporate colour, green. The video editing is sober, has few effects and flashy transitions, and the music is secondary, as it usually emphasises the leading actor’s words in them. The other notable, formal resource that explicitly promotes interactivity with the community is hashtags or tags. However, the same ones are used repeatedly#SantiagoAbascal, #MacarenaOlona, #VOX, y #VivaEspañaregardless of the post’s message. As far as narrative elements are concerned, the figure of the narrator is absent in favour of emphasising the party leader’s words. He tends to not mention the names of left-wing political rivals and include the main lines of action of the extreme rightwing’s political programme at a national level: climate and gender violence denial, anti-immigration narrative as the main factor causing citizen insecurity, praise for the unity of Spain and the traditional family model versus the “ideological” laws of the left, and working-class language to attract the disenchanted working-class vote. However, the discourse almost completely ignored Andalusia’s specific problems and its economic, social, and cultural particularities. Vox’s electoral candidate, Macarena Olona, was not given the limelight, instead, her figure is overshadowed by the national leader, Santiago Abascal. This is particularly evident in the videos in which both are present, as Olona is relegated to the background and is not given the floor. Finally, in 22 of 25 posts the managers of Vox Spain’s TikTok account added no narrative value to the texts accompanying the publications, since they were limited to the succession of the hashtags mentioned above. Finally, the secondary objective 3 (SO3) is met by identifying experts’ perspectives on Vox’s use of digital tools in its political strategy, and specifically in the case of TikTok and Andalusia’s parliamentary elections. The consulted experts highlight the party’s good use of the platform for the elections analysed, as it was employed to target a young audience, mainly Generation Z, but also Millennials. This was achieved in a coordinated way through its activity on other networks and its coherency with the rest of its strategies on traditional media. The experts emphasise the use of audio-visuals, aesthetics, and the channels’ language. Concise and straightforward messages are constructed highlighting their arguments and key issues. These make the figure of their leader stand out by adopting an approachable and casual tone, belittling other candidates and parties, and attempting to appear more approachable and thus differentiating themselves from traditional politics.

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However, Vox has made strategic communication errors unrelated to the use of TikTokother than the absence of publications after their electoral defeat, that experts consider an unjustifiable decision. Those communication errors come from its offline activity and improvisation in response to the controversies faced by Olona, such as the criticism of her legitimacy as a candidate or falsely using Andalusian folklore as a sign of identity. After the Andalusian electoral process in which Vox did not meet her initial expectations, Macarena Olona left her political party on July 29, 2022, initially citing medical problems. However, her disagreements with the leadership of her party and, more specifically, with the leadership of Santiago Abascal, had become clear beforehand. Subsequently, those disagreements were made public by Olona herself in many public statements. The limitations of this research are due to the very nature of its focusa specific case study in a regional area. Despite being a regional election, it is relevant because it reveals dynamics and communication strategies that can be extrapolated to national politics. This is due not only to Andalusia’s political weight within Spain and its historical political orientation towards the left, but also to the fact that it was an electoral event prior to the national elections in which Vox ran for the first time with a female candidate. It is relevant for exemplifying a populist and extreme right political party’s use of a social network targeted at the young public. The communication strategies in the digital sphere applied to politics constitute a relevant area of study that has developed widely due to the rise in reactionary movements worldwide. Future lines of research can be developed regarding aspects such as practices used on different platforms, political party leaders’ use of social networks, the topics addressed in the user communities’ conversations, the development of filter bubbles, and contact networks or links, as well as similarities and differences between extreme right-wing movements in other geographical areas.

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Andrea Castro-Martínez PhD in PR and Advertising. She has been a lecturer and researcher at the University of Málaga since 2016. She holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication and in Advertising and PR. She has worked in different media. She is author of more than sixty publications. Her research fields are public relations, strategic communication, internal communication, and organisational happiness. José Luis Torres-Martín PhD in Audiovisual Communication from the University of Málaga. He has worked as a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Audio-visual Communication and Advertising of the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the University of Málaga since 2011. He is the author of over thirty publications. His research interests are transmedia narratives, social networks, and gender studies. He has also worked in the media sector for 16 years.José Luis Torres-Martín, PhD in Audiovisual Communication from the University of Málaga. He has worked as a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Audio-visual Communication and Advertising of the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the University of Málaga since 2011. He is the author of over thirty publications. His research interests are transmedia narratives, social networks, and gender studies. He has also worked in the media sector for 16 years. Pablo Díaz-Morilla PhD in Communication. He is the Director of the BA Hons in Advertising and Brand Design at EADE University of Wales in Málaga and Director of the Design Degrees at IDM León XIII. He is President of the International Network of Design Principles and Practices, under the auspices of Common Ground Research. He works as Lecturer at UMA and UNIR and is a playwright with several national awards.

Conclusions

TikTok has come—and it looks to stay—as an indispensable tool for political propaganda, especially associated with electoral campaign agitation. This social medium, welcomed sceptically as one more entertaining device for our age of supposed apolitical youth, has demonstrated its versatility and adaptability to contemporary partisan and populist, political propaganda needs. All the chapters of this book relate to its rapid and unexpected growth, far beyond the apparently self-imposed target age group and limited functionality initially assigned to it by its creators and owners. With shared fascination and certainty, contributors to this real-time research book have provided evidence for TikTok’s expansion, both to middle-age users and for purposes other than pure entertainment. Most of them, if not all, also predict its lasting durability as the preferred network to reach massive audiences with political aims. TikTok’s recent astonishing and rapid success (We are Social & Hootsuite, 2023), however, does not guarantee its future, as the platform faces several challenges, also described in this book through assorted case studies from different countries and continents aiming to cover diverse political and sociological realities. The first and most threatening one has more to do with TikTok’s Chinese origin than with the purely technical, political campaigning possibilities it offers, as Young Joon Lim and Lynse Larance Guerra discuss in Chap. 5. In that sense, this book identifies a second level of propaganda yield associated to the social network, one linked to the state propaganda war between the United States and China in their struggle to gain or retain influence in a world that has already left behind America’s unitary, world hegemony commencing after the end of the Cold War. With the excuse (and fear) of possible Chinese and third party misuse of the valuable data TikTok is able to collect from its fast-growing users (Horowitz & Check, 2022; Eichensehr, 2021), prohibitions and restrictions have emerged here and there. Besides the obvious ones in the US and its closest allies (Maheshwari & Holpuch, 2023; Spada & Popli, 2023), contributors to this book have also identified less geostrategic but local or trans-border-oriented censorship, such as in India

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and Bangladesh (Chap. 4). State intervention in the use of social media in general indeed deserves further research, and not just because of TikTok’s final fate, but also due to the need to better understand the geopolitical side of new ICTs, the former constituting just one more example of the latter in an increasingly conflicted and technologically dependent world. The other still open and very important question is what will have more influence: TikTok in the way political propaganda is performed or state regulation forcing the social network to adapt its functions e.g., regarding the length of videos? Right now, and especially in critical situations like the one faced by Guillermo Lasso in Ecuador’s presidential election run-off (analysed in Chap. 6) politicians have adapted the 30 s TikTok standard videos, even in a somehow clumsy way, to what users of the application expect: a certain casual informality associated with home-made videos. Projecting a natural image and proximity to constituents is what politicians such as Matteo Salvini, despite the audience’s negative reactions revealed by Laura Cervi and Santiago Tejedor (in Chap. 7), and European far-right parties like AfD in Germany (Chap. 8), and Vox in Spain (Chap. 9), are looking for when using TikTok as a communication tool. Maybe the appearance of approachability, naturalness, and spontaneity that TikTok transmits explains why local politicians and populist outsiders seem to get more benefits from the platform than well-established, mainstream candidates, used to conventional communication approaches and with the resources to produce professional videos rather than the TikTok’s amateurish ones, as Marcus Bösch highlights (Chap. 8). Further research, with a larger sample of case studies, could confirm this pattern suggested in some of the book’s chapters. Nevertheless, an increasing colonization of the network by politicians’ traditional means of communication cannot be immediately ruled-out as there are also evident signs that some of them are extending the duration of their propaganda videos to take advantage of the ten-minute maximum the platform allows. In so doing, they are able to move away from superficiality and incorporate more hues to political debates that currently are universally criticized precisely because of its current oversimplicity. All these lead to several possible conclusions, opening new research fields around TikTok and its political use. What has already been identified is that in general the platform is following a pattern already well-established by the history of social communication studies. Initially rejected or despised by politicians, as Ana Salazar recalls in Chap. 3, every age’s new ICT ends up being adopted enthusiastically, and sometimes transformed by politicians. Gutenberg’s printing press and later radio, TV and more recently the internet, are cases in point. TikTok, however, presents a superior challenge for politicians as it is a network thought to communicate through informality and body language (Chap. 4), even in those longer clips closer to the 10-min maximum length the platform allows. As Moreno and Gerbaudo conclude (Chap. 2), in TikTok the body is the real articulator of the propaganda message. This, of course, opens wide research paths not just regarding the way different politicians develop a variety of strategies to address this critical issue when conveying messages through TikTok, but also intersects the pathbreaking field of neuro-propaganda research (Rubio & Sapag, 2014).

Conclusions

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Studying political communication on TikTok can teach us important lessons about contemporary politics and the way in which it has turned the body into a sign, and into a battlefield. It can also contribute to updating media history—in this case, new media—and the way they shape social communication trends and ultimately society itself. As reflected in Chap. 1, scientific research on TikTok is here to stay.

References

Eichensehr, K. (2021). United States pursues regulatory actions against TikTok and WeChat over data security concerns. American Journal of International Law, 115(1), 124–131. https://doi. org/10.1017/ajil.2020.98. Horowitz, B., & Check, T. (2022). TikTok v. Trump and the uncertain future of national securitybased restrictions on data trade. Journal of National Security Law & Policy, 13(1), 61–111. Maheshwari, S., & Holpuch, A. (2023, May 23). Why countries are trying to ban TikTok. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/article/tiktok-ban.html. Rubio, Á., & Sapag, P. (2014). Neuropolitics: Brain knowledge as a starting point to new ways of doing politics. In J. T. Álvarez (Ed.), Social Neurocommunication: Applying the findings of neurosciences (pp. 159–180). Media XXI. Spada, M., & Popli, N. (2023, March 16). Why the U.S. and other countries want to ban or restrict TikTok. Time. https://time.com/6263851/why-us-wants-to-ban-tiktok/. We are Social & Hootsuite. (2023). Digital report 2022. https://wearesocial.com/es/blog/2022/01/ digital-2022/.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9

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Index

A Abascal, Santiago, 171, 174–176, 179, 180 Activism, activist, 8–10, 61, 62, 73, 74, 88, 91–93, 95, 103, 128, 129, 157 Addiction, addictive, 86, 92, 94–96, 105 Advertise, advertisement, 48, 106 Affective link, 32, 36, 37 Affective network, 76 Affordances, 13, 23, 27, 32, 42, 43, 49, 128–130, 139, 149, 150, 158 Africa, 119 Algorithm, 41, 44, 45, 47, 86–88, 95, 96, 104, 105, 112, 128, 151, 160, 161, 163, 172 Alternative for Germany, see AFD Alternative for Germany (AfD), 149–163, 186 Andalusian elections, 179 App, 3, 13, 21, 27, 33, 44, 51, 63, 64, 69, 81–84, 86, 87, 91, 92, 96, 104, 127–130, 137, 140 App affordances animoji, 23 emoji/emoticon, 140 memoji, 23 photo, photograph, 49 Appropriation, 31, 70 Arauz, Andrés, 8, 108–115, 117, 118, 120 Argentina, 7, 9, 105, 106 Asia, 61, 62, 76, 77, 91 Audience, 4, 10, 23, 25, 26, 32–34, 42, 43, 47, 48, 51, 53, 72, 73, 81, 87–90, 93–95, 103, 105, 106, 109, 111, 112, 119, 128, 130, 142, 149, 150, 152, 154, 156, 163, 169, 171, 172, 176–179, 185, 186

Australia, 7 Authoritarian, authoritarianism, 65, 66, 70, 71, 75, 171 Aztec, 22

B Banalization, 142 Ban, banning, 62, 63, 68, 73–75, 84, 85, 97, 157 Banerjee, Mamta, 63, 64, 66, 75 Bangladesh, 11, 62–65, 67–76, 186 Bangladesh Awami League, 69 Bangladesh Nationalist Party, 69 Benjamin, Walter, 23 Biden, Joe, 84–87, 89, 93, 94, 97 Black Lives Matter, 9, 10, 129 Body communication, bodily communication, 23–28, 32 Bollywood, 67, 76 Bolsonaro, Jair, 9, 29–31, 106 Boric, Gabriel, 9, 28, 51 Brazil, 4, 8, 9, 30, 105, 106 Brexit, 88 BTS, 92 Bukele, Nayib, 4, 8, 9, 51, 107 ByteDance, 10, 21, 53, 62, 64, 73, 83–85, 92, 96, 104, 127, 149

C Camera, 28, 35, 75, 117, 118, 155, 156, 158, 159 Campaign, campaigning advertising, 4, 96

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. Pérez Rastrilla et al. (eds.), Fast Politics, The Language of Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9

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192 electoral, 8, 9, 31, 103, 106, 107, 120, 136, 172, 174, 185 fundraising, 96 media, 104, 106, 108 political, 4, 6, 9, 37, 42, 49, 72, 76, 94, 112, 129, 130, 185 propaganda, 12 Candidate, 4, 8, 21, 26, 31–34, 48, 86, 87, 93, 94, 96, 103, 104, 106–111, 113–116, 118–120, 129, 130, 159, 173, 174, 176, 178–180, 186 Capriles, Enrique, 105 Castillo, Pedro, 9, 169, 171, 178 Celebrity endorsement, 9 Censorship, 62, 129, 185 Challenge, 11, 22, 24, 27–31, 33–35, 42, 43, 48, 50, 51, 106, 111, 137, 150, 152, 156, 158, 160, 161, 163, 172, 185, 186 Chandlee, Blake, 81, 96 Charisma, 25, 29, 30, 67 Chávez, Hugo, 8, 26, 105–107 Chilean plebiscite, 46 China, 7, 10, 11, 24, 53, 64, 73, 83–85, 89, 90, 127, 129, 185 Choreography, 22, 27, 51 Cinema, 26, 27, 52, 53 Citizenship, 66, 67, 69, 70 Climate change, 10, 88, 92, 94, 129 Clothes, clothing, 69, 118 Collboni, Jaume, 28, 29 Colombia, 4, 7, 8, 28, 34, 106 Communication campaign, 6 cultural, 23 institutional, 3–5, 33 non-verbal, 25, 140 political, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 21–27, 36, 37, 42, 45, 47, 49–52, 103, 107, 111, 120, 128, 130, 143, 149, 150, 157, 163, 170, 172, 173, 178, 187 strategy, 6, 11, 12, 42, 43, 46, 47, 49, 50, 120, 172, 173, 180 Conflict, 45, 52, 53, 71, 74, 85, 89, 90, 109 Correa, Rafael, 107–109, 114 Corrupt, corruption, 34, 63, 70, 74, 157, 158, 163 COVID-19, 11, 44, 67, 73, 81, 82, 87, 88, 104, 117, 119, 129 Cultural diplomacy, 12 Cyberbullying, 11, 114 Cyberspace, 9, 107

Index D Da Silva, Luiz Inácio “Lula”, 8, 106 Data, 9, 10, 41, 44–46, 64, 84–86, 88, 95, 97, 112, 130–132, 151, 160, 173, 185 Democracy, 67, 71, 74, 76, 86, 162, 170 Democrat, 10, 93, 94, 155, 160 Democratic Party, 10, 93 Dhallywood, 76 Digital, digitization, 23, 24, 30, 36, 42, 44, 61, 62, 64, 66, 75, 76, 83–86, 90, 92–94, 97, 103, 105–107, 110, 149, 169, 170, 172, 173, 178–180 Digital divide, 64 Digital politics, 73, 77 Discourse intertextual, 29 metadiscourse, metadiscursive, 135, 137, 138, 142 political, 6, 11, 47, 51, 63, 68, 74, 76, 92, 94, 120, 142, 163 Domestic politics, 10 Domestic scenario, 33 Douyin, 3, 11, 24, 47, 104, 127 Duque, Iván, 106, 107 Durán Barba, Jaime, 106, 109

E Echo chamber, 95, 96 Ecuador, 7, 8, 34, 104, 105, 107, 108, 111, 119, 120, 186 Election, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 21, 28, 31, 33, 34, 48, 49, 63, 69–73, 75, 76, 85–88, 93, 96, 97, 103, 105–110, 113, 118, 130, 150, 152, 156, 157, 161, 170–174, 176, 178–180 Electoral scene, 8 Entertain, entertainment, 3, 10, 13, 21, 22, 32–35, 42, 43, 47–49, 53, 62, 65, 67, 71, 76, 82–84, 86, 96, 127, 130, 132, 134, 135, 142, 143, 150, 152, 153, 163, 172, 185 Espionage, 11, 84, 87 Europe, 7, 23, 149

F Facial expression, 25–28, 31 Fake account, false account, 161, 163 Family, 33, 34, 36, 50, 51, 82, 91, 109, 118, 120, 132, 134, 176, 179 Fandomization, 137, 138

Index Fan, fan culture, 51, 62, 65, 67, 75, 92, 137, 138, 142, 150, 151, 159–163 FAO, 3, 11 Fernández, Alberto, 9 Fernández, Cristina, 106 Film, 25, 27, 52, 76, 118, 175 Free Democratic Party, see FDP Free Democratic Party (FDP), 151–153, 159, 160, 163 Frequency, 112, 141 Fujimori, Keiko, 28, 33, 34

G Gag, 22, 29 Generations Gen Z, Generation Z, 21, 44, 90, 92–94, 96, 127, 128, 134, 135, 177, 179 Millennial, 44, 177, 179 Geopolitical, geopolitics, 8, 10, 44, 186 Germany, 52, 149, 150, 154, 157, 160, 161, 163, 186 Gesture, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 37, 49, 52, 69, 75, 154, 156 Goldfish effect, x Google googling, 5, 6, 41, 81, 83, 84 Govern, governance, 65, 66, 68, 70, 73, 85, 116, 118 Government, 11, 12, 34, 48, 50, 52, 53, 65, 68, 69, 74, 76, 84, 85, 87–90, 97, 103, 119, 150

H Hasina, Sheikh, 63–65, 68, 69, 72, 73, 75 Hate speech, 70, 130 Health, 11, 12, 88, 103 Hervás, Xavier, 8, 110 Heubisch, Wolfgang, 151–159 Hollywood, 52 Hyper-visibility, 61

I Identity, 9, 63, 67, 73, 128, 129, 132, 171, 177, 180 Ideology, ideological, 26, 36, 65, 67, 70, 83, 86, 92, 105–107, 109, 134, 138, 143, 157, 158, 163, 171, 176, 177, 179 Image, macro, 30 Immigration, 139, 171, 177 India, 7, 10, 11, 62–69, 71–76, 129, 185 Indonesia, 7, 11

193 Influencer, 4, 9, 27, 36, 43, 49, 50, 62, 63, 71, 72, 74, 76, 93, 106, 119, 155, 160, 172 Information Technology Act, 73 Interaction comment, 131 engagement, 112 follower, 112 likes, 174 views, 115, 120 International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 3 International organisation, 3, 4, 7, 11, 12 International politics, 10 International scene, vii Israel, 7 Italy, 51, 128, 149

J Jingle, 31, 32 Jinping, Xi, 86

K Kast, José Antonio, 28, 34

L Lasso, Guillermo, 8, 34, 104, 108–114, 117–120, 186 Latin America, 5, 7, 8, 13, 21, 24, 28, 105, 120 Leader, 23, 26, 28–30, 32, 33, 35–37, 62–65, 67, 69, 71–74, 77, 105, 108, 128, 137, 138, 156, 157, 161, 171, 174, 177, 179, 180 Lega, 128 Lenin, 108 Liebscher, Lutz, 152, 153, 155–159 Like, 8, 11, 27, 31, 43, 50, 61–65, 67–69, 71–76, 83, 85, 93, 95–97, 104, 108, 109, 111, 112, 114–116, 118, 119, 128, 130, 138, 142, 149, 151–158, 160–163, 174, 178, 186 Lip-synch, 29 López Obrador, Andrés Manuel, 9, 107

M Macri, Mauricio, 106 Macron, Emmanuel, 4, 51 Maduro, Nicolás, 9, 34, 105, 106 Malaysia, 7

194 Marketing, 6, 24, 50, 67, 75, 89, 103, 127, 132, 172 Maya civilisation, 22 Media digital, 61, 149, 150 logic, 22, 23, 25, 31, 32 magazine, 63, 150 mainstream, 9, 33, 92 multimedia, 23, 25, 41 newspaper, 52, 154, 156 radio, 89, 107, 149, 186 television, TV, 32 traditional, 44, 47, 53, 89, 107, 136, 149, 176, 178, 179 Mediated culture, 61 Meloni, Giorgia, 4, 51 Memetic culture, 30 Meta, 82 Mimic, mimicking, 27, 61, 75, 154, 162 Mobilise, mobilisation, 9, 10, 52, 74, 177 Modi, Narendra, 63–65, 72 Moving corporeality, 22, 25, 28, 30 Museum, 12 Music, 4, 12, 13, 24, 28, 34, 44, 49, 51, 64, 66, 67, 104, 112, 116, 118, 119, 128, 133, 154, 156, 172, 175, 179

N Narrative techniques, vii Nationalism, 11, 65, 67, 71, 72, 76, 171, 177 National security, 10, 11, 83–85, 87, 88, 94, 97 NATO, 10

O Olona, Macarena, 174–176, 178–180 Oracle, 84, 85, 87

P Pakistan, 11, 74 Palestine, 7, 9 Partisan, 149, 163, 185 Party far-right, 176, 186 left-wing, 109 right-wing, 71, 72, 130, 171 Pérez, Yaku, 10, 43, 109, 111, 139 Performance, performative, 22, 23, 26–28, 32–37, 43, 45, 46, 49, 62, 63, 65–67, 70–72, 104, 112, 118, 129, 156, 163

Index Peru, 7–9, 28 Petro, Gustavo, 8, 28, 34, 106, 107 Phogat, Sonali, 75 Piñera, Sebastián, 9 Playback, 22, 29–31 Podcast, 44 Point of view, see POV Point of view (POV), 130, 154, 156 Polarise, polarisation, 10, 171, 178 Politainment, 42, 43, 47–50, 130, 142, 171 Political actor, 4, 5, 12, 13, 47, 48, 89, 120, 128–130, 134, 135, 137, 141–143, 151, 153, 170, 178 debate, 45, 47, 186 opponent, 90, 106, 159, 160, 174, 176 participation, 11, 13, 62, 67, 69, 70, 103 supporter, 137 Pop politics, 43, 50, 142 Popular culture, 10, 23, 25, 37 Populism, 71, 74–76, 149, 157, 159, 171 Post, posting, 31, 34, 61, 63, 83, 86, 92, 95, 96, 104, 106–109, 111–115, 117–119, 130, 132–134, 136, 141, 157, 158, 160–162, 171, 173–175, 179 Presidential elections, 4, 8, 29–31, 34, 86–88, 90, 92–94, 104, 105, 107, 109, 111, 112, 157, 186 Profile, 9, 43, 45–47, 49–51, 75, 108, 120, 162, 170, 171, 173, 177 Prohibit, prohibition, 162, 185 Propaganda disinformation, 85–87, 89 fake news, 88 fascism, fascist, 22 manipulation, 52 misinformation, 86, 87, 91 political, 4–6, 13, 28, 33, 52, 53, 89, 90, 185, 186 Protest, 9, 10, 66, 129 Public opinion, 52, 83, 85, 87–89, 94, 162

R Raghavan, Prabhakar, 41 Religion, religious, 62, 65, 68, 71, 72, 74, 76, 86, 108, 109 Republican, 10, 71, 85, 86, 91, 93, 94 Republican Party, 10, 71, 85, 86, 91, 93, 94 Resist, resistance, 10, 11, 52, 53, 66, 67, 74, 75, 129, 171 Return on Investment, see ROI index

Index Riefenstahl, Leni, 52 ROI index, v Roussef, Dilma, 105 Russia, 7, 9, 53, 86–90 S Salvini, Matteo, 4, 128, 130, 132–143, 186 Satire, 118, 143 Scroll, scrolling politics, 42, 43, 51, 73, 95 Selfie, 23, 51, 157, 158 Self-representation, 23, 25, 37 Sharma, Himanta Biswa, 63, 64, 67, 73, 75 Siegmund, Ulrich, 151–153, 156–160 Slogan, 21, 47, 48, 63, 64, 67, 72, 86, 105, 119, 142, 157, 176 Smartphone, 27, 53, 61, 90, 95, 96, 118 Social Democratic Party, see SPD Social Democratic Party (SPD), 152, 153, 155, 156, 158–160, 163 Social media facebook, 4, 10, 13, 22–24, 41, 42, 45, 46, 68, 81–84, 86, 90, 91, 93, 94, 103–108, 138, 150, 158, 161 instagram, 4, 22, 24, 25, 33, 36, 41, 43, 45, 53, 66, 81–83, 86, 94, 103–106, 108, 152, 171 snapchat, 24, 82, 94, 103, 106 twitch, 24, 30, 31 twitter, 4, 10, 13, 22, 23, 42, 43, 45–47, 66, 68, 75, 81–84, 86, 90, 91, 93, 94, 103–109, 119, 161 youtube, 4, 10, 13, 25, 42, 44–46, 63, 68, 81–83, 86, 94, 103–108, 149, 156, 161 Social movement, vii Social network, 10, 25, 42, 43, 45–47, 52, 53, 103–108, 110, 113, 114, 128, 135, 140, 143, 169–173, 175–180, 185, 186 Song, 22, 23, 25, 27, 31, 34, 49, 64, 66, 117–119, 154, 161, 175 Soundtrack, 28, 33, 34, 156, 175 Spain, 7, 48, 51, 130, 170–172, 174–176, 179, 180, 186 Sport, sporting, 4, 25, 34, 103, 108, 117, 137, 138, 141, 142 Storytelling, 10, 50, 116, 120 Subversion, 88 T Target, targeting, 4, 23, 30, 33, 36, 43, 86, 87, 89, 90, 95, 103, 105, 136, 150,

195 152, 154, 160, 161, 163, 177, 179, 185 Teenager, 45, 81, 91–93 TikTok features authenticity, 36 code, 42, 43, 51 comedy, 10, 12, 27, 156 creative, creativity, 10, 21, 24, 76 dance, 32 emotion, 10, 30, 31, 43, 62 humour, 69 simplicity, simple, 12, 118 TikTok, tiktoker, tiktoking, 3–13, 21–37, 41–53, 61–76, 81–97, 103–105, 108–120, 127–143, 149–163, 170–174, 176–180, 185–187 Torrent, Roger, 28, 29 Transmedia, 42 Trump, Donald, 10, 26, 48, 83–87, 89–94, 129 TV series, 22, 23, 25, 27, 37

U Uganda, 7 Ukraine, 7, 52, 53, 87, 88, 90, 92, 94 United Nations, 3, 26 United States of America, 10, 12 User, 3, 10, 12, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 41, 43–45, 47, 49–51, 53, 61–76, 81–88, 91–96, 103–105, 107, 111–114, 116, 118, 119, 127–134, 136, 137, 139–143, 149, 150, 153, 157, 160, 161, 163, 169, 170, 172, 177, 180, 185, 186

V Venezuela, 9, 34, 105 Victim, 10, 176 Vietnam, 7 Violence, 68, 89, 91, 139, 179 Viral, virality, 10, 12, 22, 24, 29–31, 33, 42, 47, 51, 66, 67, 74, 82, 92, 94, 116, 118, 120, 127–129, 149, 154, 161 Virtual, 30, 62, 64, 69, 71, 72, 75, 107 Voters, 8, 9, 26, 34, 47, 48, 50, 62, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, 86, 87, 89, 91–94, 96, 111, 113, 120, 149, 152, 158, 163, 178 Vox, 170–180, 186

196 W Wagner, Richard, 23, 28 Walmart, 84, 87 World Health Organization, 3, 11 Y Youth, 4, 9, 10, 13, 41, 61, 63, 64, 68, 119, 128, 129, 176, 185

Index Z Zelensky, Volodimir, 52, 53 Zia, Begum Khaleda, 63, 64, 69, 75 Zuckerberg, Mark, 82