Is TikTok Re-shaping News Formats? Comparative Study of Three Public Television Broadcasters: BBC News, FranceInfo and RTVE Noticias

Authors

Abstract

Journalism is involved in a transformation that affects journalistic professionalism and the news media and its formats. Short-video platforms are undergoing growth and development, but their consolidation is still uncertain––especially with regard to providing new formats or alternative sources for news consumption. This paper presents a content analysis of the publications posted during March 2023 by the TikTok accounts of three European public television 24-hour news broadcasters: BBC News, RTVE Noticias, and Franceinfo. Five dimensions of TikTok as news format are observed: (1) the platformization components that interact with the news: visualizations, likes, comments, and hashtags; (2) news genres published as journalistic pieces without reference to the television format; (3) the dominant issues and the localization of news; (4) the changes into the headline functionality , and (5) the degree of permanence of traditional journalistic roles. Results point that the changes from conventional television to short-video platforms are still in a hybrid process in which the innovation of formats coexists with the use fragments of newscasts.

Author Biographies

Enric Saperas, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain

Full Professor at the Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain) and head of the Applied Research Group on Communication (GEAC). He is he currently the director of the Theories and Methods of Research in Communication (TMIC) section of the Spanish Association of Communication Researchers (AE-IC) and co-principal investigator of the R&D project "Internationalization of Communication Research in Spain in the Post-Bologna Era", funded by the Spanish State Research Agency.

Ángel Carrasco-Campos, University of Valladolid, Spain

Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Master's Degree in Communication with Social Purposes at the University of Valladolid (Segovia Campus, Spain). President of the Spanish National Chapter of the Latin Union of Political Economy of Information, Communication and Culture (ULEPICC-España) and co-principal investigator of the R&D project "Internationalization of Communication Research in Spain in the Post-Bologna Era", funded by the Spanish State Research Agency.

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Published

2025-05-29

Issue

No. 40 (2025): Estudos em Comunicação

Section

Artigos

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