Finnish Legacy Media on TikTok

Up next at IAMCR 2024 are Virpi Salojärvi and Teija Waaramaa, whose interest is in the presence of Finnish legacy media on TikTok. Their move to explore this platform is part of a longer trajectory of journalistic transformation with the growing use of digital and social media technologies; this has also meant a greater incorporation of affective elements into journalistic coverage.

The present study focusses on the form and not the content of Finnish media’s TikTok uses. There is still relatively high trust in institutional media in Finland; TikTok has become a primary news source for younger generations, and the study gathered some 101 popular news videos from five news outlets (public service media, a national commercial TV channel, a national elite newspaper, a national tabloid, and a regional newspaper) between 2020 and 2023.

This found a spread of content across various categories of coverage, with domestic coverage especially prominent; preference for these categories also aligns with the news outlet type, however. Public service media are well ahead of the other media in terms of likes, while regional media content is most widely shared and commercial TV and tabloid content receives the most comments.

There is substantial affective content, and such emotional appeals are designed to evoke empathy or antipathy. Creating in-group cohesion, belonging, and inclusion is also important, with a strong focus on featuring journalists’ faces, and using relaxed speech styles and dialect. Humour as well as strange and funny topics are also popular features. This shows how legacy media adapt to social media logics, but also maintain their own priorities and play to their established strengths.