Video killed the Instagram star: The future of political communication is audio-visual

Abstract

What does the growing popularity of audio-visual platforms and vertical video mean for visual political communication? I address the opportunities and challenges of TikTok and related platforms for news media, political actors, citizens and researchers, and briefly discuss possible avenues for future academic work. These include questions related to source credibility and media literacy, the assessment of attention versus exposure, political learning and personalization. I argue that how our field engages with these questions will be decisive in the near future.