This research project is funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) under the funding scheme: Social Consequences of Digitalisation. ​​

​

The TACTik project studies the entire lifecycle of news on TikTok– from its creative production and reporting strategies to its impact on young adults’ news interpretation and journalists’ self-perception.

​

The rise of TikTok journalism has raised critical questions: How do journalists adapt to

stay relevant to younger audiences? How are far-right alternative media and influencers

reshaping the news landscape? Does platform journalism alter perceptions of news

credibility? More broadly, how does TikTok change both the production and

consumption of news, and does this shift affect how we value information?

The TACTik project aims to investigate the complex consequences of TikTok journalism

by examining its production, news narration strategies, and audience expectations.

​

Using a mixed-methods approach, the three-year project combines:

​

1. Ethnographic studies on TikTok journalists’ creative practices and self-perception,

2. Computational analysis of large-scale TikTok video data to identify news storytelling strategies and their relation to truth claims, and

3. Biometric analysis with interviews to explore young adults’ perceptions of TikTok news.

 

TACTik collaborates with the German Funk Initiative and Fojo Media Institute, and conducts

large-scale, semi-automated narrative analysis of social media news videos. With the novel

methodological approach, the project establishes a new research agenda, deepening

our understanding of how news evolves and how information flows in an increasingly

diverse media landscape— an essential factor in safeguarding democratic processes.

​