TikTok and the new language of political communication

IF 1 Q2 CULTURAL STUDIES

Cultura Lenguaje y Representacion-Revista de Estudios Culturales de la Universitat Jaume I Pub Date : 2021-11-21 DOI:10.6035/clr.5817

L. Cervi, S. Tejedor, Carles Marín Lladó

{"title":"TikTok and the new language of political communication","authors":"L. Cervi, S. Tejedor, Carles Marín Lladó","doi":"10.6035/clr.5817","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Introduction: Political parties struggle to reconnect to Young people by using social networks. Acknowledging that 2020 has been the year of TikTok, most Spanish political parties have joined this social network: Podemos, with 191.400 followers and 3.1 million likes, is the most followed political party on this platform. Method: Using multimodal content analysis, this paper aims at analyzing how the party is using this social network, and for which purposes, placing the attention on how Podemos has adapted to TikTok specificities in terms of both language and technical affordances. Results: Results show that while the party perfectly adapts to TikTok’s specific language and technical affordances (special effects, etc.), instead of focusing on entertainment, the platform’s main genre, it uses TikTok as a showcase for political activities, failing in favoring a renovating relationship with users. However, politics is represented through the “game frame”, that is to say, dramatized as a battlefield between Good and Evil, which strengthens the populist dichotomous vision of the world, endorsing emotional response. Conclusion: In this sense, it is possible to conclude that, although Podemos mainly displays political content, this content falls into the category of politainment. Considering that present trends in usage rates suggest that the short-video format is the future of social media, we might expect an increase in politainmement content.","PeriodicalId":42176,"journal":{"name":"Cultura Lenguaje y Representacion-Revista de Estudios Culturales de la Universitat Jaume I","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"23","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cultura Lenguaje y Representacion-Revista de Estudios Culturales de la Universitat Jaume I","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.6035/clr.5817","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"CULTURAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 23

Abstract

Introduction: Political parties struggle to reconnect to Young people by using social networks. Acknowledging that 2020 has been the year of TikTok, most Spanish political parties have joined this social network: Podemos, with 191.400 followers and 3.1 million likes, is the most followed political party on this platform. Method: Using multimodal content analysis, this paper aims at analyzing how the party is using this social network, and for which purposes, placing the attention on how Podemos has adapted to TikTok specificities in terms of both language and technical affordances. Results: Results show that while the party perfectly adapts to TikTok’s specific language and technical affordances (special effects, etc.), instead of focusing on entertainment, the platform’s main genre, it uses TikTok as a showcase for political activities, failing in favoring a renovating relationship with users. However, politics is represented through the “game frame”, that is to say, dramatized as a battlefield between Good and Evil, which strengthens the populist dichotomous vision of the world, endorsing emotional response. Conclusion: In this sense, it is possible to conclude that, although Podemos mainly displays political content, this content falls into the category of politainment. Considering that present trends in usage rates suggest that the short-video format is the future of social media, we might expect an increase in politainmement content.

查看原文本刊更多论文

抖音和政治沟通的新语言

简介:政党努力通过社交网络与年轻人重新建立联系。意识到2020年是抖音年，大多数西班牙政党都加入了这个社交网络:Podemos拥有19.14万粉丝和310万个赞，是该平台上最受关注的政党。方法:使用多模态内容分析，本文旨在分析当事人如何使用这个社交网络，以及出于何种目的，将注意力放在Podemos如何在语言和技术支持方面适应TikTok的特殊性上。结果:结果显示，虽然该党完美地适应了TikTok的特定语言和技术支持(特效等)，但它没有把重点放在平台的主要类型娱乐上，而是把TikTok作为政治活动的展示，未能倾向于与用户建立新的关系。然而，政治是通过“游戏框架”来表现的，也就是说，它被戏剧化为善与恶之间的战场，这加强了民粹主义的二分世界观，支持了情感反应。结论:从这个意义上说，我们可以得出结论，虽然Podemos主要展示的是政治内容，但这种内容属于政治娱乐的范畴。考虑到目前的使用率趋势表明短视频格式是社交媒体的未来，我们可以预期政治娱乐内容会增加。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Cultura Lenguaje y Representacion-Revista de Estudios Culturales de la Universitat Jaume I CULTURAL STUDIES-

CiteScore

1.00

自引率

25.00%

发文量

审稿时长

24 weeks

期刊介绍： CULTURE, LANGUAGE AND REPRESENTATION (CLR) is a biannual scholarly publication devoted to the field of Culture and Linguistics Studies, whose scope is aimed at the international academic community. Alternatively, each issue deals either monographically with a relevant aspect of the linguistic representation of culture in its various manifestations (social, political, educational, literary, historical, etc.) or encourages interdisciplinary and innovative approaches to language and culture research. The Journal is committed to academic and research excellence by publishing relevant and original material that meets high scientific standards. Submission of a paper will be taken to imply that it is unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. Articles will undergo an independent evaluation by two external referees, who will advise the Editors on the suitability of their publication. Publishing elsewhere an article included in CLR needs the author''s acknowledgement that it has first appeared in the Journal. If in doubt, authors are advised to contact The Editors.