Scoop eller scroll? En kvantitativ innehållsanalys av journalistik på TikTok

Abstract

Title: Scoop or Scroll? A Quantitative Content Analysis of Journalism on TikTok Authors: Alma Karlsson, Alma Nauclér and Michelle Nelhans Level: Bachelor thesis in Journalism Term: HT 2024 Supervisor: Mathias Färdigh The aim of the thesis is to examine what type of journalistic content is published on TikTok by the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet and the British tabloid Daily Mail. Our intention is to explore how the content is presented and how journalism has adapted to TikTok as a social media platform. TikTok's unique format, featuring fast-paced and attention-grabbing clips, highlights the growing importance of social media as a platform for journalism to reach its audience in an increasingly digitalized world. The study relies on the news values theory and the theory of social media logic in order to gain a deeper understanding of which news are published by media organizations on TikTok, and specifically which news values are met. It also examines how the content is adapted to the platform through elements such as text and audio. Through a quantitative content analysis, we examined 332 TikTok videos published on the accounts of Aftonbladet and Daily Mail. The analysis was conducted using the statistical software, SPSS. We then compared the results with existing research and our selected theories in order to identify which topics and news value criteria were most common, and how the news adapted to TikTok’s format. Our findings reveal a number of patterns in the results of the analyzed news content; negativity, virality and audience familiarity. The study found that a majority of the analyzed material had a negative tone, often consisting of bad news. Additionally, the content heavily provokes emotions, most frequently negative ones. Both news outlets tended to include surprises and engaging audiovisual content in order to potentially achieve virality. Furthermore, Aftonbladet adopts a more personal approach in its TikTok content, frequently featuring a reporter, while Daily Mail tends to be impersonal and content-focused. For Aftonbladet, the most common news topics were crime/law and order, entertainment, and accidents. For Daily Mail, the most common topics were politics, entertainment, and crime/law and order.