The hunt for Tik Tok: The Media and Politics in the Age of Social Media

The hunt for TikTok is on – every player in the media and politics space is taking a swing at the fastest-growing social media platform. On the other hand, there is no platform on the media and political scene that has not been called out so far. Mark Zuckerberg is a familiar face in congressional hearings, and Elon Musk, since becoming the owner of Twitter, represents one of the more hated figures in what we used to call the public space.

Personally, I don't recall journalists and publishers having to answer politicians to such an extent. However, when it comes to social networks, our criteria are entirely different. The media is generally at war with social media platforms.

The motto "the media listens to its users" does not apply in a situation where social media does the same thing and listens to users' needs. In fact, I'd say they're doing it too well, especially TikTok, which has exploded in popularity over the past couple of years, particularly during the pandemic.

It was known that short video content would dominate mobile devices, but we could not have imagined this much dominance, marketing potential, and time spent on the platform. We create our personal media world and our own media diet, choosing what kind of information we want to consume. Along these lines, someone can exclusively watch dog content on social media and be suggested only "canine" content and products. This desire, which we can now freely call information isolation, is considered a media bubble that, according to research, is not quite as isolated as it is thought to be. However, anomalies of this system exist, such as spam, fake content, and the like.

In many studies on the need for regulation, such as for Facebook, there is constant mention of political content that is relatively unpopular on social networks, but one of the most discussed topics, and this stems from personal media consumption. Consequently, the political revolution certainly won't come through Instagram and TikTok. Twitter's role in political processes is an anomaly, not a rule.

Of course, it should be said that unwanted content is best fought by the platforms themselves, but they agree with the game. And to be honest, during the TikTok testimony, I thought that the most spears would be broken around potentially giving information to the Chinese government. In fact, the politicians from the committee were more sensitive to the content, which is something they would most like to regulate, of course.

Now let's talk a little about TikTok. When communicating with students and users, I often hear how this platform knows what they are saying, feeling, and thinking (!?). These are, of course, myths, but the truth is that due to the constant interaction we have with our cell phones, they "know" a lot about us.

What other platforms do, but also TikTok, is that they can "create an impression" of how we feel based on our mobile activity. Social media platforms use algorithms that analyze the videos we watch and like, the comments we leave, and what we share.

Domagoj Bebić is a associate professor of Strategic Communication and New Media
Linkedin: Domagoj Bebić