Institutional and political communication on TikTok: Systematic review of scientific production in Web of Science and Scopus

Abstract

After the Covid-19 pandemic, political parties and international public institutions consolidated the use of TikTok as a communication tool in order to reach a young audience, which requires dynamic formats and more flexible languages. This study aims to reflect on the characteristics of institutional and political communication research in TikTok, the suitability of its methodologies, conclusions and limitations, and its future prospects. To this end, a systematic review of the scientific literature (SLR) for the period 2018-2023 is carried out, following the standards of the PRISMA Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses). After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria to 1.186 scientific documents, 21 articles published in the Scopus and Web of Science databases were analysed. The findings indicate that Spain concentrates the highest number of publications, that the phenomenon was not studied until 2021 and that 2022 was the year of highest production. The conclusions suggest that the study of TikTok is in an incipient phase and that content analysis is the predominant methodology, although its samples are small. They also suggest that there is little bidirectionality in communication strategies, that interaction is not related to adaptation to the multimodal language of the platform and that the focus should be on studying the community rather than the messages disseminated from official profiles.