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ABSTRACT
The social media platform TikTok is increasingly becoming an important space for sharing and finding news and information, especially for younger people. Most scholarly research examining news sharing on TikTok has focused on practices by professional journalists and news organizations; however, these are only a small percentage of the actors who make up the news information sharing ecosystem on the platform. In particular, citizen journalists play a large role in creating and disseminating news on TikTok. Thus, I interviewed 14 TikTok citizen journalists to understand their news reporting practices. Findings suggest TikTok citizen journalists are guided by the platform logics and concerns around misinformation in the content they post on the platform. This study contributes to the literature on the role of citizen journalists and social media in shaping news disseminated online.
KEYWORDS: TikTok, citizen journalism, gatekeeping, gatewatching, newsworthiness, news values, algorithmic folk theories, misinformation
Introduction
In March 2022, The White House invited 30 high-profile TikTok users, or “creators” as they are called on the platform, Footnote 1 on a Zoom call for a briefing on war in Ukraine, like one given to professional journalists the week prior (Lorenz Citation 2022). A White House official said the decision to brief the TikTokers stemmed from the “millions of views” the creators garner (Janfaza and Klein Citation 2022). Similarly, The White House has partnered with high-profile TikTok creators to combat vaccine misinformation and disseminate information about signature legislative initiatives (Lorenz Citation 2021, Citation 2022; Sprunt Citation 2022).
In this way, the Biden administration signaled the importance of individuals outside of mainstream news, or citizen journalists, on TikTok as a source of news and information for millions of Americans. However, scholarly attention to TikTok news has primarily focused on professional news publishers and journalists, who only produce a small percentage of the news disseminated on the platform (Alonso-López, Sidorenko-Bautista, and Giacomelli
Citation 2021; Newman Citation 2022; Peña-Fernández, Larrondo-Ureta, and Morales-i-Gras
Citation 2022). Thus, since citizen journalists make up the majority of news sharing on TikTok, I conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 14 TikTok citizen journalists, to understand how these individuals determine newsworthiness and address misinformation when sharing news.
As one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in terms of its overall monthly active users and as a search platform for younger audiences, TikTok has become an important platform through which people are finding news from citizen journalists (Hutchinson Citation
2022; Newman Citation 2022; Perez Citation 2022; Wallaroo Media Citation 2023). Thus, it is important to understand the types and potential accuracy of citizen journalism users may encounter on the platform. This study adds to the literature on the role of citizen journalists and social media in shaping news disseminated online.
Defining Citizen Journalism
The term citizen journalism arose in the late 1990s to describe web-based, self-published news by an individual or groups of independent or non-professional journalists (Bowman and Willis Citation 2003; Bruns Citation 2011; Gillmor Citation 2004; Goode Citation 2009; Rosen, Citation 2006). Scholars have theorized citizen journalism as a form of civic participation and social activism through which everyday people contribute their perspectives, experiences, and opinions of news with and alongside mainstream journalism (Gillmor Citation 2004; Luce, Jackson, and Thorsen Citation 2017; Nah and Yamamoto Citation 2019). However, contestation still exists among scholars around how the term is used and defined (Chung, Nah, and Yamamoto Citation 2018; Wall Citation 2019).
No singular definition of citizen journalism exists (Mortensen Citation 2011; Wall Citation 2019). Some scholars define citizen journalism as the nonprofessional standing of an individual or organization, emphasizing citizen journalists’ “amateur” nature (Fröhlich, Quiring, and Engesser Citation 2012; Roberts Citation 2019). In contrast, others posit that citizen journalism is done by those not working within or being paid by a mainstream news organization, expanding the definition to include individuals with previous journalism training who are not working in a paid, professional capacity (Nip Citation 2006; Robinson and DeShano Citation 2011). Alternatively, other scholars have focused on the activities of citizen journalism, with some limiting their definition to individuals who actively engage in news reporting or analysis and others arguing that citizen journalism can encompass a range of activities beyond active reporting, such as sharing pictures and videos, reposting content, and commenting on news articles (Ahva Citation 2017; Bruns Citation 2016; Goode Citation 2009; Wall Citation 2017). Broadly, scholars have also questioned the appropriateness of the term, critiquing its ill-defined use of the word “citizen,” instead opting for terms such as “participatory journalism,” “civic journalism,” and “grassroots journalism,” (Vos and Thomas Citation 2023; Wall Citation 2017).
Thus, recognizing the contested nature of this term, I adopted a broad definition of citizen journalism in this study. Following Wall’s (Citation 2019) definition of citizen journalism as “citizen news collectors position themselves at the borders of the journalism field and engage in journalistic practices” (16), in this study, I define citizen journalists as individuals or groups working outside mainstream news organizations, who purposefully engage in some news sharing or analysis on TikTok, acting as mediators and conduits to the news.
Gatekeeping, Citizen Journalism, and Social Media Logic
Research on citizen journalism has predominantly examined its relationship to professional journalism, particularly their differing editorial and reporting practices. The editorial process through which professional journalists search for and select news stories is called “gatekeeping” (Shoemaker and Vos Citation 2009; White Citation 1950). Studies have found that professional journalists’ gatekeeping decisions are often subject to multiple gatekeepers, restricting individual subjective decisions to the norms and constraints of the larger news organization (Clayman and Reisner Citation 1998; Shoemaker and Vos Citation 2009). These gatekeeping decisions are predicated on institutionalized understandings of “newsworthiness,” often determined by an event’s inclusion of one or more news values, which, in traditional news media, were found to include attributes such as (but not limited to) timeliness, novelty, frequency, geographic and cultural relevance to the audience, extreme valence (i.e., good and bad news), celebrity, and entertainment (Galtung and Ruge Citation 1965; Harcup and O’Neill Citation 2001).
Further, while foundational news values were developed when journalists had limited direct contact with their audiences, the advent of digital news publishing and the use of web-based analytics tools and social media metrics to track audience behavior has given audiences an expanded role in influencing journalists’ understandings of newsworthiness (Heinderyckx and Vos Citation 2016; Tandoc and Vos Citation 2016). The increasing importance of social media for news sharing has emphasized emergent news values that reflect audience’s social media news reading and sharing behaviors, such as drama, conflict, human interest, positive emotion, and shareability or stories likely to generate sharing and commenting (García-Perdomo et al. Citation 2018; Harcup and O’Neill Citation 2017; Welbers and Opgenhaffen Citation 2019). However, these influences are selectively applied, and conceptualizations of newsworthiness are still filtered through institutionalized norms within news organizations (Nelson and Tandoc Citation 2019; Shoemaker and Reese Citation 2013; Tandoc and Vos Citation 2016).
Conversely, citizen journalists outside established news institutions have more autonomy in determining newsworthiness. Bruns (Citation 2005, 2018) argues that citizen journalism ignited a shift from gatekeeping to “gatewatching,” in which citizen journalists observe the news published in mainstream news outlets and decide what to share, comment on, and report on their own platforms. Studies have found that while some citizen journalism publications reflect mainstream news values (Tse and Spiezio Citation 2022), others focus on more “soft news” values, including news that is good/positive, culturally relevant, and personalization or “higher potential for personification an event” (Borger, van Hoof, and Sanders Citation 2019, 466; Carmichael et al. Citation 2019; Paulussen and D’heer Citation 2013). Thus, citizen journalists on TikTok, working outside mainstream newsrooms, have the power to reshape what stories get amplified in the public discourse through secondary or post-publication gatekeeping, promoting certain stories over others in line with their own standards of newsworthiness (Hermida Citation 2020; Singer Citation 2014; Thorson and Wells Citation 2016). In turn, citizen journalists can influence the social and political views of news consumers who view citizen journalists as more trustworthy than mainstream media (Browning, Merlino, and Sharp Citation 2021; Nah and Chung Citation 2012).
Further, while early citizen journalism took place on websites and blogs, today, citizen journalism increasingly takes place on social media, giving these platforms an increasingly important role in shaping citizen journalists’ gatewatching activities. Social media platforms provide citizen journalists with built-in technological features that allow them to easily share news reporting, analysis, and opinions (Bruns Citation 2018). Still, the type and kinds of news citizen journalists publish often differ across social media platforms. For instance, citizen journalism became prominent on X (previously Twitter) following the development of the hashtag feature to mark, index, and spread information around a specific topic (Bruns Citation 2018; Bruns and Burgess Citation 2015). However, newsworthiness on text-based platforms like X differs from citizen journalism on visually-based platforms like Instagram or YouTube, where citizen journalists prioritize sharing news stories with audio-visual elements (Al Nashmi Citation 2018; Borges-Rey Citation 2015).
Thus, the “social media logic” or the “processes, principles, and practices through which these platforms process information, news, and communication” (5) differentially shape citizen journalists gatewatching practices on each platform (Dijck and Poell Citation 2013). Dijck and Poell (Citation 2013) posit elements of social media logic can include programmability, or communication and interactions privileged on a platform, popularity, or the mechanism a platform uses for boosting popularity, connectivity, or the socio-technical affordances of a platform, and datafication, or the real-time data made available by platforms. Thus, as an emergent social media platform, this study examines how TikTok, one of the largest global social media platforms with over 1 billion global monthly active users across 150 countries, 60% of which, are part of “Generation Z,” Footnote 2 with its particular social media logic, shapes citizen journalism on the platform (Konstantinovic Citation 2022; Perez Citation 2021; Wallaroo Media Citation 2023).
The Social Media Logic of TikTok
Programming “Fun” on TikTok
TikTok was originally created to share one-to-three-minute videos Footnote 3 of lip-syncing and dancing (Boffone Citation 2021). As such, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, branded it as a “fun” platform with the stated mission to “inspire creativity and bring joy” (TikTok, Citation n.d.). Thus, Abidin (Citation 2019) posits music, original sounds uploaded by users, and audio memes in the form of TikTok-native “challenges,” in which users use a specific piece of audio to perform a funny meme or dance, are a privileged logic on the platform (Schellewald Citation 2021; Zulli and Zulli Citation 2022). However, as the platform has grown, news organizations, professional journalists, and everyday citizens have increasingly used it to share news (Abidin Citation 2019; Amos Citation 2022). In turn, journalism scholars have become increasingly interested in how this programmability logic of being fun or funny on the platform, reinforced by the communicative forms of memes, sounds, and viral challenges, shapes what and how news is shared on TikTok.
Studies of news on TikTok have focused on how professional news organizations and journalists have adopted TikTok’s particular social media logic for news sharing. Studies of professional news content on TikTok have found digital native and smaller news publishers and individual professional journalists adapt to TikTok’s social media logic by engaging in viral challenges and creating audio memes, using platform-specific features, and sharing “fun” everyday videos (Newman Citation 2022; Peña-Fernández, Larrondo-Ureta, and Morales-i-Gras Citation 2022; Vázquez-Herrero, Negreira-Rey, and López-García Citation 2022). Also, engaging the popularity element of social media logic, individual journalists increasingly use TikTok in an “influencer” capacity, using their accounts to share news they covered professionally and reinforce their brand (Amos Citation 2022; Vázquez-Herrero, Negreira-Rey, and López-García Citation 2022).
Communicating through the FYP
The technological feature or connectivity social media logic that distinguishes TikTok from other social media platforms is its “For You Page” (FYP) algorithm. While most social media platforms show users content based on an underlying algorithm, the content shown is based on who users follow. Conversely, the FYP is an algorithmically-generated feed of content from across the platform curated for each user based on their personal interests, data such as past interactions, location, and device type, and video data such as hashtags and captions (TikTok Citation 2020). The FYP is the default page on TikTok, meaning most user interactions on TikTok are not with personal follower networks but through the FYP (Bhandari and Bimo Citation 2022; Zulli and Zulli Citation 2022). Therein, the FYP plays an outsized role in what content users encounter on TikTok and in allowing creators to reach a larger audience. In this way, the design of the FYP affords user connection through making content that speaks to other users’ interests.
(Folk) Theorizing the FYP
However, despite TikTok documentation about the input data that shapes the FYP algorithm, as with most social media curation algorithms, the FYP algorithm is proprietary, and thus all potential elements underlying the FYP are unknown to users. For this reason, many TikTok users have developed what scholars term “algorithmic folk theories” of how the FYP algorithm operates (Lee et al. Citation 2022).
The concept of algorithmic folk theories denotes the various understandings of algorithms users operationalize when engaging with algorithmically-curated platforms (Eslami et al. Citation 2015, 2016). The term “folk theory” aims to capture the non-authoritative and informal nature of these understandings (DeVito, Birnholtz, and Hancock Citation 2017; Eslami et al. Citation 2015). Nevertheless, these understandings shape user behavior on these platforms, as they aim to make their content visible to other users (DeVito et al. Citation 2018; Eslami et al. Citation 2016).
Folk theories of the FYP algorithm are a critical part of TikTok’s connectivity social media logic that could shape how journalists conceptualize what is newsworthy for the platform. While studies of news on TikTok have not specifically taken up the concept of algorithmic folk theories, previous research found professional journalists’ algorithmic folk theories have increasingly become a critical component in their evaluations of newsworthiness (Peterson-Salahuddin and Diakopoulos Citation 2020). Additionally, Newman (Citation 2022) found professional news publishers on TikTok believe the FYP algorithm rewards them for maintaining “authenticity” in their posts, which they conceptualized as following the existing logic of the platform or “making a TikTok that looks like a TikTok” (13).
However, professional journalists and news publishers have a limited reach on TikTok and are only a small part of the platform’s news ecosystem; most news on TikTok is published by influencers, activists, and individuals acting as citizen journalists (Literat, Boxman-Shabtai, and Kligler-Vilenchik Citation 2022; Newman Citation 2022; Peña-Fernández, Larrondo-Ureta, and Morales-i-Gras Citation 2022). Given the outsized role of citizen journalists in disseminating news on TikTok, this study investigates what news values they use to assess newsworthiness, especially as they may relate to the platform’s social media logic.
R1: What news values do citizen journalists prioritize in their gatewatching practices on TikTok, and how may these relate to TikTok’s particular social media logic?
R2a: What are TikTok citizen journalists’ algorithmic folk theories about the FYP?
R2b: How and to what extent do TikTok citizen journalists perceive their FYP folk theories influence the types of content they share on the platform?
TikTok and Misinformation
Scholars have also raised concerns about misinformation on TikTok (Alonso-López, Sidorenko-Bautista, and Giacomelli Citation 2021; Kong et al. Citation 2021). Mis-and-disinformation are defined as the unintended and purposeful spread of untrue information, respectively (Lazer et al. Citation 2018). Due to the low barriers to posting content on social media, scholars have become increasingly concerned with the proliferation of mis-and-disinformation on these sites (Allcott and Gentzkow Citation 2017; Vosoughi, Roy, and Aral Citation 2018). Professional journalists and news organizations use a variety of strategies to verify information such as relying on trusted sources, including government institutions other news sources, and trusted individuals on social media, verifying information with eyewitnesses, and using couched language when verification is not possible. However, citizen journalists working outside of a news organization are not beholden to these same practices (Brandtzaeg et al. Citation 2016). Thus, journalism scholars have argued that verification may be a journalistic boundary separating professional and citizen journalists (Hermida Citation 2015).
Studies of news and information on TikTok have raised concerns about the perceived proliferation of mis-and-disinformation. Alonso-López, Sidorenko-Bautista, and Giacomelli (Citation 2021) found that mis-and-disinformation on TikTok often came from individual users, highlighting a potential link between citizen journalists and the potential for mis-and-disinformation. Further, Newman (Citation 2022) found that many professional journalists embrace TikTok to combat the perceived spread of unreliable news on the platform. Thus, on TikTok, verification could be a journalistic boundary that separates professional and citizen journalists.
R3: What, if any, practices do citizen journalists on TikTok implement to address mis-and-disinformation in their reporting?
Methods
I conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with citizen journalists on TikTok, which allowed me to ascertain the thought processes behind TikTok citizen journalists gatewatching practices and evaluations of newsworthiness as they relate to the platform, FYP algorithmic folk theories, and verification practices.
Recruitment
Given the broad definition of citizen journalism operationalized in this study, individuals I identified to participate included TikTok users who used their accounts to post news content and were not associated with or employed by a professional news organizations. I used three approaches to find potential participants for this study: First, I relied on my knowledge as a TikTok user and news consumer to identify citizen journalists on the platform. Second, I asked colleagues who work in social media, information, and news research for suggestions for potential participants. Finally, to account for the potential biases in the first two strategies, I used the search feature on TikTok using the keywords “news,” “information,” and “learning” to find accounts associated with this content through captions and hashtags. Citizen journalists identified were directly invited to participate in the study via a public email address or social media handle if they predominantly used their TikTok page to share news, did not work for and were not associated with a professional news organization, were over 18, and spoke English. Since previous literature has argued reach on TikTok is dictated by gaining visibility through individual videos getting on other users’ FYP, as opposed to follower count, while noted, follower count was not a determinant of inclusion in this study (Abidin Citation 2019; Newman Citation 2022).
Participants
Recruitment resulted in 13 interviews with 14 citizen journalists on TikTok who responded to my outreach from October–February 2020 (see Table 1). Footnote 4 Most participants (n = 10) had no professional journalism experience, and three participants had previous professional journalism experience but were not working, associated with, or employed by a professional news organization at the time of the interview. Most participants were in the U.S., except for one participant in Canada. While this is a generally small sample, the broad range of news topics participants contributed to, and various backgrounds related to news work revealed overarching patterns and reached theoretical saturation.
Interviews lasted an average of 86 min, took place on the video conferencing platform Zoom using a password-protected link, and were in English. Before each interview, I sent participants an oral consent form for review, approved by the IRB at a large Midwestern university. At the beginning of each interview, I read the participants the consent form and asked them to state whether they agreed to participate. All participants agreed to let me record the interview. I also gave participants the option of being identified by their real or known name, their publicly available TikTok handle (if different from their real name) or being interviewed confidentially; three participants, the co-creators of @Spectacles.news and @datdamndasher, opted only to be identified by their TikTok handle and one participant, P13, requested to conduct the interview confidentially. Interview questions focused on participants’ gatekeeping or gatewatching practices, what news values they prioritized on TikTok, and how they addressed the potential for misinformation in their reporting. After each interview, I sent each participant $30 as remuneration.
Analysis
I transcribed interviews using an automated transcription software service and reviewed each transcript for accuracy. I coded transcripts using qualitative thematic coding (Strauss and Corbin Citation 1997). I derived codes deductively from the literature on citizen journalism, gatekeeping/gatewatching, news values, social media algorithmic folk theories, and verification, and inductively as new themes arose across the interviews (Gibbs Citation 2007). I constantly compared codes until I established a final set of codes.
Findings
R1: What news values do citizen journalists prioritize in their gatekeeping or gatewatching practices on TikTok, and how may these relate to TikTok’s particular social media logic?
While participants used many traditional and social media news values in their gatekeeping and gatewatching, such as novelty, geographical and cultural relevance, celebrity, drama, and conflict, the news values they considered most were entertainment and personalization.
News as Entertainment
Many participants said newsworthy stories, especially for TikTok users, were ones where they could incorporate a funny or entertaining angle. A.B. Burns-Tucker said:
If I can give it a humorous twist or give humorous commentary to kind of make the medicine go down a little better, that generally also helps me in choosing which news I cover.
Similarly, P13, who discusses news on TikTok in a “girly” cadence, said that she often covers financial news because “It’s quite easy to make funny … there’s always a fun joke in that.” Thus, for many participants, newsworthy stories for TikTok had a clear, entertaining angle that they could use to engage audiences.
Participants said emphasizing the entertaining elements in their reporting also helped catch users’ attention in an endless scroll of content on TikTok. For instance, Jarred Vincent suggested:
If you can do this with lipstick and sunglasses and … “greetings from the dictator of the house of petty,” if you can merge that with something that people will look at and you catch their attention, you can get your message across that way.
Similarly, Tiffany Jones noted, “I think you could do any kind of news on TikTok, but you gotta make it interesting.” In this way, participants expressed that to gain popularity on TikTok, where users are often exposed to an endless scroll of content through the FYP, privileging entertainment as a news value was a strategy to help them attract visibility and gain a following on the platform. These comments also highlight how entertainment, as a news value, is not limited to a particular type of content but rather about finding stories that offer “opportunities for humorous treatment” (Harcup and O’Neill Citation 2017, 1482).
Some participants also discussed entertainment as a news value on TikTok compared to other social media platforms. For instance, the creators of @Spectacles.news said they posted two versions of a story on the war in Sudan. While the version on YouTube was very serious, on TikTok, they gave the story a more entertaining spin through references to Sasha Baron Cohen in the movie “The Dictator”:
Something like what’s happening in Sudan is very serious … but when we put it on TikTok, we sort of moved away, I think, in particular, from the discussion of Sudan and moved to a … pop culture reference was at that level of abstraction.
Thus, participants articulated how TikTok’s particular social media logic, as a platform for sharing memes and dances, privileged entertaining news.
Personalization
Several participants also said that they focused on news stories with personalization angles, or stories of personal interest to them. Ken Hughes said that in selecting stories, he often “goes with [his] gut,” posting stories he has a strong connection to or opinions on, noting these stories also tend to garner more views. Similarly, @datdamndasher noted he tends to focus on stories he cares about, stating, “it will really show in terms of the output.” In this way, personalization became a key way for citizen journalists on TikTok to determine newsworthiness, as they prioritized news that was not just for their audiences but also “for them.” In this way, the focus on personalization enabled by the communicative social media logic of the FYP influenced participants to focus on news that personally interests them in the hopes the FYP would deliver it to similarly interested audiences.
Additionally, some participants said determining newsworthiness based on personal interest allowed them to use their expertise. For instance, Vincent, a nurse by training who often reports public health news noted, “If I put something out there, I need to … respond like I have the education to back it up.” In this way, prioritizing personal interest as a metric of newsworthiness allowed citizen journalists to talk about and report on topics they were knowledgeable and passionate about.
Conversely, many participants said they would avoid covering topics they did not have the educational background or lived experience to discuss. For instance, P13 noted, “If I just straight up don’t understand it, I won’t do it. NFTs … people have been asking for a long time for me to cover those. I’ve read about the topic, and I don’t get it.” For this same reason, a handful of participants said they avoided covering topics involving marginalized communities they were not part of to avoid coming across as ignorant or spreading misinformation.
R2a: What are TikTok citizen journalists’ algorithmic folk theories about the FYP?
Participants had varying and sometimes conflicting algorithmic folk theories about what the FYP liked and disliked. However, most often, participants believed the FYP algorithm promoted or suppressed content based on (1) engagement, (2) their use of TikTok features, and (3) topical preferences.
Engagement
The most pervasive algorithmic folk theory across participants was that the FYP surfaced videos to users based on engagement. As one of the co-founders of @Spectacles.news explained:
My impression of how it works is it serves your video to a number of people. If you get a good percentage of likes in your first bit of circulation or bit of viewership, it will serve it to a wider audience.
Similarly, Brandon Gonez commented, “We don’t necessarily fully understand the algorithm. What we do understand, though, is that the algorithm loves engaging content.” In this way, participants believed the more views, likes, comments, shares, and other forms of engagement they got on their videos, the more visible it would be on the FYP.
TikTok Features & Sounds
A handful of participants also noted that the FYP algorithm “rewarded” them for staying within TikTok’s specific social media logic by using new or TikTok-specific features, such as editing transitions, using trending sounds, and keeping videos short. For instance, P13 said, “If a sound is doing really well on TikTok, I add it to my video. But I put the volume all the way to zero, so you can’t hear the sound, but it’s still registered as you are using the sound.” In this way, participants believed that drawing on the platform’s privileged programmable elements would make them more visible in the FYP.
Topical Preferences
Participants believed that the algorithm rewarded them for focusing on topics TikTok audiences were more engaged or interested in. For instance, some participants said the FYP promoted videos covering big or trending events. Some participants also believed that by sticking to their topical “niche,” the algorithm was likely to push out their content to their “algorithmic community.” For instance, Indie P. Jones said:
Once you get put into a certain TikTok algorithm, it doesn’t like you to break out of it. So, I do a lot of news content a lot of commentary … But if I, for example, make a video about my foster kittens or anything like that, that tends to be very low views, because it has different hashtags … So that takes me out of my algorithm, and I think TikTok just doesn’t throw it out there as much.
Conversely, many participants theorized that the FYP algorithm did not promote news content that is “vulgar” or “violent” (Gonez), such as stories including murder, violence, war, and rape. Thus, participants suspect the FYP would suppress or not circulate their videos if they covered these topics as an aspect of the platform’s content moderation; some participants suspected this was also rooted in trying to keep TikTok content light in line with its “fun” branding.
R2b: How and to what extent do TikTok citizen journalists perceive their FYP folk theories influence the types of content they share on the platform?
Many participants said these algorithmic folk theories had no bearing on what content they covered, often due to the lack of clarity around how the FYP operates. Additionally, some participants said they did not actively consider the FYP in their reporting because, in line with the belief that the algorithm curates news “for you,” if they continued to make news that was of interest to them, it would also be of interest to others:
Seeing how that algorithm was really playing out, it was like, well, clearly, if I love news and I love informational content … there’s probably an audience out there who is just like me … If people … looking for this content, whether it’s geographically or just interest-wise, could get that content delivered because the algorithm is so smart, why not produce that type of content? (Gonez)
Here, again, the algorithmic folk theory that the FYP creates news “for you” supported citizen journalists’ prioritization of personalization as a news value.
Subverting Content Moderation
The aspect of the FYP participants were most aware of when posting news stories was the potential to be suppressed for covering more violent or vulgar content. For instance, Myka Hinton said that when she covers a story, she thinks may get flagged, she tries to frame it in a more innocuous way:
I feel like if it really is something that is sensitive in nature that, I know like there really is no way for me to go around this in a way that like still holds the integrity of the information … that’s when I will use like substitute names or … some other sort of analogy that you clearly understand that this is what it is … so that way it doesn’t get flagged.
Thus, by using “coded” language, Hinton and other participants aimed to cover stories they perceived as unfriendly to the algorithm without being flagged by the platform’s content moderation policies.
Participants also changed video captions to evade suppression, believing the FYP algorithm monitored the captions for “banned” words. As Tiffany Jones said, “There are things that it doesn’t like … we have words to substitute for suicide we say ‘unliving,’ for bomb, I say ‘boom,’ for gun, you need to say ‘weapons.’” Taking it a step further, Indie P. Jones said she would use a third-party application to make captions and re-upload the video to TikTok. Participants noted they would verbally say these “banned” words but would used the caption to “trick” the algorithm into thinking they weren’t. In this way, participants relied on platform-based linguistic practices and features to communicate stories in a way that would not get the video suppressed or demoted in the FYP.
R3: What, if any, practices do citizen journalists on TikTok implement to address mis-and-disinformation in their reporting?
Relying on Multiple News Sources
Most participants verified information by relying on their trust in mainstream media. For instance, Hughes noted:
If I find [a story] on the AP, I find one on Reuters, I guess the advantages, I can kind of work off their backs a little bit and say, “Hey look, this is the story. This is where I read it. I read it on AP, I read it on Reuters, I read it on BBC.”
In other cases, participants checked information from perceived less trustworthy news sources against information from what they felt were more reliable sources:
I have certain websites that I naturally go to because they … get it right 90–95% of the time. And then I also have other blogs like Love B Scott or Mediatakeout or Bossip where they might hit maybe 60–65% of the time in terms of it being factual. So, I’ll try to cross-reference it with the more notable blogs. (@datdamndasher)
While the benchmark and number of sources participants required themself to find information from before reporting a news item changed from participant to participant, participants saw this strategy as the best way to ensure the information they delivered was accurate.
Using Couched Language
Participants also said they would use couched language if they were talking about unverified information:
One thing you learn is don’t speak in absolutes if you don’t know what you’re talking about, if you’re not quite sure, or if you don’t have the evidence to support … it’s more like open-ended but still giving facts relevant to the topic. (Burns-Tucker)
Similarly, fashion journalist Mosha Lundström Halbert said that when talking about information she was unsure about, she would openly “ask people to correct [her]” or say, “I think this is,” to signal her lack of authority over a specific piece of information.
Source Transparency
Some participants made the sources they used in their reporting available to their TikTok audiences. The creators of @Spectacles.news said that after they finish a video, they create a list of sources for each claim made in the video and make it available on their website, noting, “We don’t have the same institutional credibility, so we have to be very assiduous about citing sources.” Similarly, Jules Suzdaltsev said that he releases the script and a list of sources for each video, stating, “I want people to be able to do exactly the same research in the exact same way that I did it.” By providing sources, participants aimed to create transparency around their own biases in the reporting process and allow viewers to fact-check and verify their reporting for themselves.
Additionally, many participants said they used the TikTok-specific “greenscreen” feature, which allows creators to show images behind them to show their sources. Vincent said about using the greenscreen, “That’s my evidence. I don’t believe that you should be able to say, ‘This study showed this.’ Well, show me the proof.” Expanding on this, Indie P. Jones asserted:
It [ greenscreens] lends legitimacy to the story that I’m telling. And at many points, I’ll even tell people to pause and read what I’ve posted above my head. It is important to me that people know that I’m not just telling a story to get them riled up.
In this way, participants used TikTok-specific features to provide additional sourcing for their reporting to buttress claims of misinformation.
Addressing Misinformation Post-Publication
All participants acknowledged that no matter how diligent they were, it was still possible for them to make an incorrect claim unintentionally and, in turn, spread misinformation, especially given the short video format on TikTok, which forced participants to condense information. Since TikTok does not allow users to edit a video once uploaded, participants had varying strategies for addressing misinformation after posting a video. Some participants said they use the comments to update information or make corrections:
You used to be able to pin comments, and if there was something that I realized I misspoke or there’s new addition to the story that maybe it was too late in the night and I didn’t have time to make a video about it, I would then write a comment explaining what the new information was and pin it so that way people could see it. (Hinton)
Thus, while participants saw comments as one avenue for addressing misinformation, Hinton’s comment highlights how frequent changes to platform features, such as getting rid of pinned comments, could hinder these efforts.
Other participants said their responses existed on a sliding scale depending on the potential impact of the misinformation. Indie P. Jones said if it were a small change, she would make a correction in the comments; however, she would remove the video if she thought the spread of misinformation could be harmful. Some participants also said they might not delete the original video but make a correction by creating an updated video with more current or accurate information. However, some participants, like Stefannie Hall, said if there were an inaccuracy, “The video absolutely has to come down … and … I’ll do my best to make a retraction … So, it’s at least gone from my platform.” Thus, Hall and others acknowledged that while it was hard to take it back once misinformation was on social media, by at least in removing the video, they would not continue to be complicit in spreading this misinformation.
Discussion
Given the large role of citizen journalists in circulating news TikTok, an increasingly important platform for news and information for younger individuals, I interviewed 14 TikTok citizen journalists to understand their gatekeeping or gatewatching and reporting practices, especially as they may relate to the social media logic of the platform and issues of misinformation (Newman Citation 2022). Findings suggest participants were particularly focused on the news values of entertainment and personalization (Harcup and O’Neill Citation 2017; Welbers and Opgenhaffen Citation 2019). While previous studies have noted personalization, or news that has a personal angle, is often more privileged by citizen journalists as individual deciders of newsworthiness (see Borger, van Hoof, and Sanders Citation 2019; D’heer and Paulussen Citation 2013), within the context of TikTok, this also reflects the platform FYP connectivity logic of reach audiences through similar interests. Additionally, participants’ focus on entertainment follows the platform’s programmability logic that emphasizes fun or funny content such as challenges and dances, and mirrors previous research demonstrating that smaller newspapers, digital native publishers, and individual journalists on TikTok engage the platform’s social media logic to make their news content on TikTok fun and entertaining (Newman Citation 2022; Vázquez-Herrero, Negreira-Rey, and López-García Citation 2022). Thus, the news values prioritized by citizen journalists on TikTok, while in some ways more diverse, are not necessarily distinct from those of professional journalists on TikTok and social media generally, highlighting a level of continuity between news from citizens and professional journalists and publishers, both influenced by the privileged social media logic of the platform. In this way, I argue similar to previous social media platforms, on TikTok social media logic plays a critical role in shaping and standardizing news and conceptions of newsworthiness across platforms.
Participants’ algorithmic folk theories about the FYP mainly centered on the belief that the FYP promoted videos with high engagement, that used platform features, and that focused on their content “niche” or trending topics. Additionally, in line with previous studies of TikTok users’ FYP algorithmic folk theories, many participants believed that the FYP delivered content to users based on the user’s interests. I suggest these understandings of the TikTok FYP similarly reinforced participants’ focus on personalized news or news “for them,” believing that the FYP would successfully surface the news they were interested in to like-minded users (Lee et al. Citation 2022). Notably, unlike professional journalists, citizen journalists did not discuss “authenticity” concerning their FYP folk theories. However, the notion that the FYP promoted participants’ videos when they stayed within their topical “niche” and used platform-specific features can arguably be seen as their understanding of “making a TikTok that looks like a TikTok,” (13) highlighting the different ways authenticity is conceptualized in reporting by professional and citizen journalists (Newman Citation 2022).
Conversely, participants believed the FYP disliked violent or vulgar content. These folk theories about algorithmic suppression led participants to use coded language when covering sensitive but often important news topics, such as war, protests, and murder. At the same time, most participants said that their algorithmic folk theories had limited influence on what content they covered. In this way, while the TikTok platform’s perceived algorithmic preference for “light” content did not stop participants from covering news about important, serious news topics, it did change how they cover these topics. Thus, like previous studies of the role of platform algorithms in influencing professional journalists’ editorial decisions, these algorithmic folk theories factor into how TikTok citizen journalists in this study present news on the platform (Peterson-Salahuddin and Diakopoulos Citation 2020).
Findings also suggest citizen journalists in this study were extremely concerned with misinformation on TikTok and, like professional journalists, saw it as their role on the platform to curb and check the spread of misinformation (Alonso-López, Sidorenko-Bautista, and Giacomelli Citation 2021; Kong et al. Citation 2021; Newman Citation 2022). Like professional journalists’ reliance on trusted sources and use of couched language to avoid spreading mis-and-disinformation through their reporting, participants often relied on mainstream news outlets as trusted sources for verification, positioning mainstream news organizations as secondary sources for news verification, and used couched language when referring to unverified information (Brandtzaeg et al. Citation 2016). In this way, participants’ comments highlight the continuity between professional and citizen journalists’ verification processes, potentially suggesting verification is less of a boundary between these groups (Hermida Citation 2015).
These findings contribute to a broader conversation about the role of citizen journalists in relation to professional journalists and news publishers on social media in today’s news media landscape. Findings highlight the continuity of practices between citizen and professional journalists, particularly on social media, as individuals and professional organizations adapt to a platform’s particular social media logic to deliver important, accurate news to audiences. Thus, I argue citizen journalists, alongside professional journalists, have the potential to play a critical role in TikTok by bringing important news to younger audiences that is accessible and accurate.
Limitations
While this study presents generative research on citizen journalists’ practices on TikTok, it has limitations. First, all participants were in Western countries, arguably influencing their reporting practices and socio-political understandings of TikTok as a highly politicized platform (Maheshwari and Holpuch Citation 2023; Zeng et al. Citation 2019). Second, findings reveal what participants say they did instead of what they may do in real-time (Mellado et al. Citation 2020). Finally, while all participants expressed concern about misinformation, the societal stigma about contributing to misinformation could have produced a response bias from participants about their fact-checking process. Future studies should triangulate these findings using complementary methods such as ethnography, content analysis, and focus groups, especially with TikTok citizen journalists in non-Western contexts. Moreover, this study’s focus on citizen journalists’ reporting as an indicator of what types of news TikTok users may be exposed to, is not a direct measure of what news content TikTok users are actually exposed to in their platform usage. Future studies could examine what news TikTok users are exposed to on the platform and their perception of citizen journalist news onTikTok.