The book TikTok Journalism: News, Media, and Journalists in the Short Video Era has recently been published by Peter Lang. This collective work compiles international research and perspectives on the evolution and challenges of news and journalism on TikTok.
TikTok has become an increasingly central platform in the contemporary media landscape, transforming how news is produced, distributed, and consumed. As media platformization advances, news organizations and journalists are adapting to an environment shaped by algorithmic recommendations, virality, platform affordances, emerging formats, trends, and new forms of audience engagement.
The volume includes 31 chapters authored by 58 scholars from 15 countries, and is organized into five thematic sections: understanding and researching TikTok journalism; news media outlets; journalists; audiences and the public sphere; and information disorders and fact-checking. The book features a foreword by Claudia Mellado, professor and researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, and includes endorsements from Seth C. Lewis, of the University of Virginia, and Edson Tandoc, of the Nanyang Technological University Singapore.
The book is edited by Jorge Vázquez-Herrero, María-Cruz Negreira-Rey, and Ana-Isabel Rodríguez-Vázquez, with the support of the Novos Medios research group from Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.
‘TikTok Journalism’ is now available through Peter Lang’s website and other platforms, and it will become open access within one year.
Contents
Foreword
Claudia Mellado
INTRODUCTION
Introduction to TikTok Journalism
Jorge Vázquez-Herrero, María-Cruz Negreira-Rey and Ana-Isabel Rodríguez-Vázquez
PART I Understanding and Researching TikTok Journalism
The Journalistic Courage to Be Ugly: Architecture and Affordances of TikTok
Luise Anter and Anna Sophie Kümpel
The Functionality of TikTok’s Algorithm and Its Benefit for Digital Journalism
Daniel Klug
A Multimodal Approach to Understanding News Values on TikTok
T. J. Thomson and Rachael Anderson
Where Does Innovation Come From? The Creation of TikTok Profiles in Spanish and German News Outlets
José M. Valero-Pastor, Dámaso Mondéjar and Maike Körner
Good Practices for Journalists on TikTok under the Logic of Platformization
Suzana Barbosa, Alexandro Mota and Caroline Falcão
Adapting Digital Journalism to TikTok: A Practice-Centered Research Design for the Audiovisualization of News
Daniel Klug and Ulla Autenrieth
How to Research Journalism on TikTok: Proposals for an Empirical Social Network Analysis Approach
Ainara Larrondo-Ureta, Simón Peña-Fernández and Jordi Morales-i-Gras
PART II News Media Outlets
From Headline to Hashtag: The Role of News Media as Epistemic Agents
Aina Errando
Are News Danceable? How Portuguese Media Are Navigating the TikTok Landscape
Fábio Giacomelli, Ricardo Morais and Tâmela Grafolin
Ac2ality on TikTok: Ephemeral News among Affordances
Arantxa Vizcaíno-Verdú and Paloma Contreras-Pulido
From TV to Smartphones: TikTok Usage and Engagement on Public Television
David García-Marín and Marina Santín
Public Television in Europe and Its News on TikTok: Adapting to Young Audiences through Solution Journalism
Magdalena Trillo-Domínguez, Juan Ignacio Martin-Neira and María-Dolores Olvera-Lobo
Between Press, Television and TikTok: Transformations of the Mexican News Media
Arnoldo Delgadillo Grajeda
PART III Journalists
Is There Space for News Media and Journalists on TikTok? An Interview with Sophia Smith Galer
Beatriz Gutiérrez-Caneda and Jorge Vázquez-Herrero
Changing Rules and Ruthless Audiences: How Journalists Make News TikTok Proof
Jonathan Hendrickx
Algorithmic Folk Theories in Dutch Journalism for News Production on TikTok
Layal Faour, Renée van der Nat and Tomás Dodds
Journalists on TikTok: The New Gatekeepers of Hate Speech
Lizette Martínez-Valerio and Alejandro Hortal-Jiménez
PART IV Audience and Public Sphere
How TikTok Builds the Relationship between Journalism and Audiences
Amparo Huertas-Bailén, Ana González-Neira and Natalia Quintas-Froufe
Listening to the Audience and Writing News with the Audience on TikTok
Lisa Bolz
TikTok as Multisensory Labor: Navigating in the Fractured Public Sphere
Tarja Rautiainen-Keskustalo
“Australia Is Burning”: TikTok, Climate Change Activism, and Youth Citizen Journalism
Naomi Robinson and Crystal Abidin
Characteristics of High-Reach Science Accounts on TikTok
Alba García-Ortega, Jesús Mula Grau, Mirco Saner and Alicia de Lara González
TikTok as an Agenda-Setter in the Argentine Cultural Landscape
Luisina Morgani, Mora Matassi and Eugenia Mitchelstein
TikTok in the News during Elections: Exploring Political and Non-Political Themes in Flemish Newspapers
Michaël Opgenhaffen
PART V Information Disorders and Fact-Checking
Hunting for Truth in the Image, News and TikTok’s Contemporary Conspiracy Cultures
Clare Southerton and Naomi Smith
The Algorithmic Trap: How Hyperpartisan Media Pose a Risk to News Consumption in TikTok’s Recommendation System
Viktor Chagas
60 Seconds to Truth: Fact-Checking Misinformation on TikTok
Babette Hermans and Michaël Opgenhaffen
Unveiling Facts from Fiction: Best Practices and Strategies for Journalists and Fact-Checkers
Marcus Bösch
Disinformation and Fact-Checking with Gendered Perspectives in Ibero-America
Noemí Morejón-Llamas
CONCLUSION
Horizons of Journalism through the Lens of TikTok: A Critical Perspective
Jorge Vázquez-Herrero and María-Cruz Negreira-Rey
How to cite
Vázquez-Herrero, J.; Negreira-Rey, M.-C.; Rodríguez-Vázquez, A.-I. (2026). TikTok Journalism: News, Media, and Journalists in the Short Video Era. Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/b23703