Delivering news in 60 seconds : U.S. news publishers' motivations and practices on TikTok
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This study investigates U.S. news publishers' strategic approaches to TikTok, examining their motivations for platform adoption and evolving content practices in the context of short-form video journalism. As traditional news organizations navigate the platform's unique ecosystem--characterized by algorithm-driven content delivery, entertainment-focused features, and predominantly younger audiences--they face significant challenges in translating journalistic values into 60-second vertical videos. Through in-depth interviews with social media managers and content producers across diverse news organizations, complemented by content analysis of their TikTok outputs, this research identifies distinct strategic orientations driving publishers' platform engagement: audience expansion and diversification, brand rejuvenation, platform-specific experimentation, and creator-driven audience development. The findings reveal a fundamental tension between institutional adaptation and journalistic integrity as news organizations respond to platform imperatives that often prioritize entertainment over information. While TikTok offers unprecedented opportunities to reach younger, more diverse audiences through innovative storytelling techniques, it simultaneously shifts power dynamics in news distribution, potentially requiring compromises in content presentation, topic selection, and editorial independence. This study contributes to our understanding of platform-specific journalism by examining how traditional news values are being reconfigured within emerging digital spaces, while raising critical questions about the long-term implications of platform dependency for news organizations and the broader information ecosystem.
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M.A.