Mr Branding: TikTok is Now the Frontier for Political Discourse

Monday, August 26, 2024

TikTok is Now the Frontier for Political Discourse

Over the decades information broadcasting has been through several shifts that completely changed how we view content, particularly news. At first, it was the radio that was the primary source of information for most people, then came the newspaper and later digital networks like news channels. It wasn’t until the last decade that social media became prominent in its ability to share news within seconds from multiple sources at the same time. In the last few years, Twitter (not known as X) took over and in the last 2 years, the spot is equally taken by TikTok.

Despite TikTok being famous for its short spam entertainment clips. A Pew Research Center survey has shown that almost 50% of TikTok users under 30 use the app to get news updates regarding politics. TikTok is so popular among the masses that American presidential campaigns for the 2024 elections are also advertised on the app for voter outreach.

The survey also showed that 48% of the people who are between the ages of 18 to 29 use TikTok for political news and issues. While 36% of people between the ages of 30 to 49 use TikTok for political updates. Additionally, the stats also include TikTok being used by 22% of users aged 50 to 64 years and 24% of those aged 65 and older getting the political news.

TikTok is the frontrunner for political news sharing as compared to other social media platforms. 7% of the age groups of 18 to 29, 8% of the 30 to 49, and 50 to 64 years old used social media platforms for politics as the figures make up only 2% of the TikTok users sharing news who belong to the age group of 65 and older.

Furthermore, a total of 36% of TikTok users post on the platform, out of which 44% of the age group of 30 to 49 post on the app. Whereas, 37%of those who are between 18 to 29 and 26% of those 50 to 64 years old ever post on TikTok.

What's more interesting about the survey is that the researchers also found that 84% of the TikTok users say that they ever encountered posts that are related to current events and 80% have ever seen other people sharing their opinions about those current events. Moreover, 57% of the users on TikTok see the news articles reported, posted, shared, or linked and 55% ever see the content of breaking news of an event as it's happening. However, users under the age of 30 are more likely to see the content relevant to public opinion about current events than any other age group.

The insights from the survey regarding TikTok being the front runner for political content viewing, the researchers were more intrigued to understand whether or not democracy itself is impacted by the platform users and if yes then in what ways. One thing that the researchers pointed out right away was the fact that American politics was impacted by the debates that went around TikTok, particularly for the young voters.

Comparatively, 33% of TikTok users think that the political discourse on the platform is a good thing for advancing democracy compared to 17% against this notion, while 49% beg to differ that it has no impact on the overall status of democracy. Meanwhile, 45% of the 30 and under age group thinks that TikTok and political discussion on the platforms is a good thing, in comparison to 30% for 30 to 49 years old, 23% for 50 to 64 years old, and 15% for 65 years old and older.

Oftentimes just like X, TikTok becomes a warzone for political bashing and debates between Republicans and Democrats which even led to the attempts by lawmakers to ban the app over national security issues. However, the March survey of the Pew Research Center found that there are very few differences between political parties on TikTok on the subject of how democracy is overall impacted.