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

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.